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OPEN WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHTS UNTIL 7:00 Cinderella's Castle presents C.W. DESIGNS TRUNK SHOW Spring 1998 February 61h, 7th & 8th Exclusive Offering of Special Occasion Party Dresses Girls 7 - 14 Pre-Teen Young Juniors Show Hours: 6702 Orchard Lake Road West Bloomfield, Michigan 48322 248-851-0663 Friday Saturday Sunday E -y FLOWER s 10-5:30 10-5:30 12-5:00 • i1 PN- Creations By Cei11.161) -- .4 wedding specialists 248-544-4500 3071 W. 1 2 Mile • Berkley FULL SERVICE FLORISTS PARTIES, SYMPATHY, HOSPITALS Ceil Stocker Larry Stocker • Sandi Stocker Since 1930 ELECTROLYSIS Shabbat Bo: Exodus 10:1-13:16• Jeremiah 46•13-28. G o (Bo) to Pharaoh. For I have hardened his heart ... in order that I may display these My signs among them ..." (Exodus 10:1) So begins this week's Torah portion. This week's parasha continues and concludes the story, begun last week, which is so familiar to us from our yearly Pesach observance: God tells Moses to continue to plead with Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free. Each time Moses and Aaron approach Pharaoh, he refuses to free our people. And each time Pharaoh refuses, God brings (Exodus 10: I 2) another plague. In the Why does it not say that opening chapters of this "they (the Egyptians) may week's reading we have the know that I am God"? Isn't last of the 10 plagues: God causing the plagues to locusts, darkness, and the RABBI AMY prove to Pharaoh and his death of the Egyptian first- BROD SKY people the power and, born. S pec i al to indeed, the very existence The last part of our ish News The Jew of God? No, a Chasidic parasha, Exodus 12:1 - commentary teaches us, 13:16, describes how the God is not trying to convince the Israelites are to observe the Passover. Egyptians but rather the Israelites. They are to make an offering of a As God's emissaries to the world, year-old lamb and to eat it hurriedly, the Israelites ("you" in the text) must ready to leave at any moment. When know God. After years of slavery, God strikes down the Egyptian first- they will see God's miracles and mar- born that night, Pharaoh will force vels in Egypt; they will remember the Israelites to flee immediately, so God. They cannot transmit God's they needed to be prepared to flee at teaching to the world if they them- a moment's notice. selves do not know and understand. The eating of unleavened bread, To fully transmit a message to matzah,•is also commanded in this others you must comprehend it. We week's portion. God tells Moses and cannot teach our children and grand 1 Aaron, and through them the entire children that which we do not know. community, that this day is a day of What we know, what we need to remembrance to be observed for all know, is our Judaism. Whether we time. They are also commanded that realize it or not, Jewish values inform for "seven days you shall eat unleav- our daily lives. We learn them during ened bread; on the very first day you our youth. We live by such values as shall remove leaven from your houses tikkun olam ("repairing the world"), ... 'On the first day you shall hold a tzedakah ("justice," "righteousness"), sacred convocation, and on the sev- and bikkur cholim ("visiting the enth day a sacred convocation; no sick"). Even our seemingly modern work at all shall be done on them ..." concern for the environment is really (Exodus 12:15-16) based upon the value of bal tashkhit The 13th chapter of Exodus reiter- ("do not destroy") found in ates the commandment to observe - Specializing in Body & Facial Hair Removal for Men & Women Call for Free Consultation V107- 0,e61/34616'47, (810) 626-6668 1/30 1998 62 /#4/4Y/i/a/ /Vt.- //r..eyra6im'aiSioa Victoria Palace R.E. Electrologist 57551f/. A% Raul eaA109,11eireg4oarMi E: this Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days, adding that "you shall explain to your son on that day, 'It is because of what God did for me when I went free from Egypt.'" (Exodus 13:8) Telling the story to our children - is certainly central to our modern observance of Pesach. Our current Passover rituals developed over time but find their genesis in this text. The opening words of our parasha explain what is about to happen and why. God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh to plead for the Israelites. But, God tells him, "I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his courtiers, in order that I may display these My signs among them, and that you may recount in the hearing of your sons and your sons' sons ... how I displayed My signs among them — in order that you may know that I am God." Amy Brodsky is the assistant director of the Ecumenical Institute for Jewish- Christian Studies and a teacher at Temple Kol Ami. Deuteronomy. Talmud Torah, the study of Torah, the study of Judaism, is the central value. It's been said that Judaism was the first religion to make the knowl-