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Company For Passover
IN FOCUS
victims like no other horror in human history.
e always are ready for a couple of
The
issue here is not the numbers but the will-
extra guests at our Passover seder,
ingness of some to inflict agony on others
but this year the visitors whom
because they have a different culture or reli-
we had not expected numbered
gion
or because they control a desired land.
in the hundreds of thousands and most were
Serbs,
bombed by the Third Reich, should
Muslims. They were the ethnic Albanians flee-
know
better.
ing in fear and sickness and horror across the
We know that the world
borders from Kosovo into
must
stand up to savagery
uncertain welcomes in
- and the sooner the better.
Macedonia and Albania.
Our hesitation seven years
The faces we saw — a
ago
made the death toll in
ti
weeping mother with an
•
Bosnia
worse. No one wants
infant at her breast, a man
..c4
to
drop
bombs in Belgrade,
pushing an old woman in a
))
to
inflict
"collateral
damage
wheelbarrow, children rush-
on civilians, but we have no
ing towards helicopters that
▪
choice. Force is the only Ian-
might be bringing food —
§ guage that the Yugoslav
reminded us both how lucky
• leader, Slobodan Milosevic,
we are and how little the
Ethnic Albanian re fugees reach for
seems to understand.
world sometimes seems to
food from a bus wi ndow in Macedo-
In our history, God
have progressed beyond its
nia on the border w ith Kosovo.
punished
the Egyptians
barbaric past.
fiercely,
with
Ten Plagues
We noticed that there
that
included
even
the
deaths
of
their first-
were few men of fighting age in the refugee
born,
to
force
Pharoah
to
do
what
was right.
lines, and we could barely think about what
We can't play God to Serbia, but we can and
might have happened to them. We hope they
must act on the profound lesson our history
were imprisoned, but we fear that what we will
teaches about the necessity of using force to
see next will be mass graves like the ones that
fight
evil. Our Kosovar guests were, after all,
appeared after the smoke of combat cleared in
an
addition
to our seder table, an answer of
Bosnia.
sorts
to
one
of the questions we ask about
What is happening in Kosovo is not another
ourselves
—
in the past, in the present and
Holocaust. That was particular, its 6 million
for the future.
IV
N
Nikki Price of Royal Oak and Kadima's Shawna Gilreath enjoy
the eggs and potatoes at the Temple Israel Brotherhood-spon-
sored Kadima seder on March 25. Kadima, a Southfield-based
social service agency, offers adults with mental illness a rehabili-
tation program featuring residential options, outpatient services
and supported employment.
LETTERS
Making Connections
inety local Jews gathered at the
Westin Hotel in Southfield to expe-
rience Shabbat in all its vigor and
beauty.
Hosted by the Orthodox community, the
family retreat focused on "Connecting With
Our Inner Majesty" It nourished participants
by engaging their minds and stirring their spir-
ituality.
Participants prayed, studied and mused, while
strengthening the timbers of their Jewish soul.
Many left with a closer connection to their faith
and a deeper appreciation for their heritage.
Just like the human spirit, Shabbat's reach is
boundless. We look to it for renewal and intro-
spection — and to break from the rhythms of
the week.
Studying Torah together on Shabbat is one
way to unite us as a people and build our pride
in being Jewish — perhaps the most enduring
way.
Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Jewish philoso-
phy professor at Neve Yerushalayim College of
Jewish Studies in Jerusalem and scholar-in-resi-
A Special Seder
dence at the mid-March retreat, told how God
created Torah as evil's antidote.
"The goal," he said, "is to have a beautiful
heart, to love, to be sensitive and to give.
Torah is the way to get here."
What better time to experience the lessons
of Torah than during the Omer — the 50 days
between the second day of Passover and
Shavuot, the holiday of God's giving of the
Torah to us at Mount . Sinai. In ancient times,
an omer (or sheaf) of barley was brought each
day to the Temple, where prayers and blessings
were said.
The Omer provides the perfect backdrop to
reach out through Torah, touch the hand of
God and divinely connect to our brave for-
bears who discovered freedom in the shadows
of slavery during their Exodus from Egypt. -
The Omer not only ties two important har-
vest-season holidays but also teaches that free-
dom itself isn't enough
it must be used in
God's service and linked with God's law.
So with freedom we do good, and teach others
to do the same, because that is God's will. Li
Yom HaZikaron
Remembered
"Soldiers in the Fight"
There once was a mother who
watched her son
Go out to fight.
There was confidence in his
stride;
His eyes were clear and
bright.
He turned and waved a final
goodbye,
And then disappeared from
sight.
Will she be like the mother of
Sisrah,
Waiting in vain for her son to
return from the fight?
There once was a boy who
was called to fight;
He tried to be brave, a pillar
of strength and might.
He glimpsed the tears in his
mother's eyes
As she disappeared from sight.
As he fell on the battlefield,
he felt her presence by his
side,
And she held his hand as she
led him to the light.
We remember the mother and
the son
Who lost each other in the
fight.
Rachel Kohn, ninth grader
Akiva Hebrew Day School
Lathrup Village
Open Policy
Is Welcomed
I really enjoyed the well-
written article "Shul in the
City" (April 2).
I found myself in the
Detroit area last year during
the High Holy Days with no
4/9
1999