iii°d ui P o r tkii Congregation Shaarey Zedek presents In Celebration Celebration of of Jewish Jewish Music f 0 0 f 1111111111118111 Month Music Month Tuesday, March 19 • 7:30 PM Congregation Shaarey Zedek Southfield Main Sanctuary FREE ADMISSION Alden Leib and Marta Rosenthal Co-Chairs %ill in. time kr Waskaver! BARNES & NOBLE BENEFIT for Congregation B'nai Moshe Friday, March 22 • 10 AM to 5 PM Barnes Noble's West Bloomfield Store 6800 Orchard Lake Road, WB (1) LU LLI CC F- LU CD Lu 24 Purchase books and other items at the specially- designated "B'NAI MOSHE" REGISTER, and the synagogue will receive a portion of the proceeds. For more information, call B'nai Moshe at (810) 788-0600. 180 figeffeneTIONNO Each Jewish Connection Is A Building Block ROBERT NOSANCHUK SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS T hey say Jewish identity be- gins in the home. Mine be- gan in the home ... of the Detroit Lions in the 80,000- seat stadium we call the Silver- dome. I was only 10 years old, but since then it has remained one of my favorite memories. We were members of the now-defunct Temple Beth Jacob in Pontiac, where my father grew up and my grandparents belonged. Yet with all the changing de- mographics, our synagogue sur- vived for many years on the strength of a unique fund-raiser; each Sunday, the congregation took charge of a refreshment booth at the Silverdome, home of football, soccer, concerts and, yes — tractor pulls. We were strange pioneers of Jewish living, the first in history to sell kielbasa sand- wiches in the name of the Jewish community. What I believe is important about this memory, however, is the message that came across to me and to the other children. Through their individual contri- butions to the temple, our parents were teaching us not to reserve our Jewish involvements for wor- ship on an occasional Shabbat or the annual shlepp on the High Holidays. As I came to understand it, Jewish meaning implied that one's connection to the organized communuity be about an indi- vidual sense of belonging, no mat- ter the setting. Whether you belong to a synagogue, summer camp, community center, or even an 80,000-seat domed stadium, the message of family learning and relationship comes across loud and clear. This week's parsha, Vayakhel- Pekudei, traces the individual meaning attributed by Jews who built the ancient tabernacle, sanc- tuary of the Jewish people. Un- der the direction of Moses and leadership of Itamar and Bezalel, our people contributed individual and meaningful family efforts to build and sustain the sanctuary, just as we continue to build our institutions in modernity. We are taught in Midrash that the con- tributions of the Israelites were even greater than the necessity to build. In Exodus Rabbah 51.2, Robert Nosanchuk is education director of the Agency for Jewish Education, the Miracle Mission for Teens and Midrasha Center for Adult Jewish Learning. "When Moses came to Bezalel and saw the amount of material left over after the Tabernacle had been constructed, he said to God, `God of all the worlds, we have now made the Tabernacle and we have material left over; what shall we do with what is left over?' "God replied, `Go make with them a tabernacle of the pact."' Rabbis Lawrence Kushner and Kerry Olitsky point out in Sparks Beneath the Surface: "This seems to imply a separate tabernacle was built ... where the tables of the covenant were kept ... Moses said to God, 'Already we have completed the work of the Taber- nacle, but the people are still bringing free-will gifts.' -L Shabbat Vayakhel- Pekudei: Exodus 35:1 - 40:38 12: 1-20 Ezekiel 45:16 - 46:18. The Holy One replied to Moses, `This religious enthusiasm is a sign of the people's freely giving spirit and the soul flame they feel. And they themselves are a living, faithful testimony that the Divine presence will dwell in this taber- nacle."' Reflecting on this interpreta- tion of Torah, I believe our lead- ership challenge in the Jewish community is to actualize that "freely giving" spirituality and faith in Jewish modernity — de- spite the obstacles and realities of religious living in America. Did you read the story last year of the two parishioners whose church in Pennsylvania had a court order imposed against them, forcing them out of church, not to return unless they prayed more quietly. I laughed when I thought of Bezalel and Itamar telling the Israelites to, as our teen-agers say, "chill out" and stop pouring gifts of embroidery, car- pentry, crimson yarns and acacia woods into the community taber- nacle. I stopped laughing last week, as we all did, while viewing the memorial service from Jerusalem. Somehow in the presence of such shocking events, each of us can summon up the voice to reason- ably ask: Is there such a thing as modern Jews praying too loud- ,_/