Cover Story

Rebuilding
The Remnant

W

e thought it would be a wonder-
ful way to commemorate Tisha
b'Av. In the big barn at the Eisner
Camp Institute, a Reform Jewish summer camp
in the Berkshire Mountains, we asked the
campers to create an exact replica of the
ancient Temple, using Popsicle sticks and
glue.

It took most of the day, but it turned out to be
magnificent. The campers were very proud.

Rabbi Paul Yedwab serves at Temple

As we rememoer
the cestruction of
the Holy Temple,
we consider ways
in which the Jewish
communi -y can
repair itself.

Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

Israel in West Bloomfield.

Then we began
our Tisha b'Av
Rabbi Paul Yedwab
service. We sat
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around the Tem-
ple model in a
giant circle and
read poems and sang songs. During one of
the musical interludes, a group of dancers
twirled out into the center of the circle and
poured a water libation upon the altar of the
Popsicle stick model.
It was really kerosene, however, so that
when a different group of dancers, represent-
ing the Romans, dropped a match onto the
model, it roared into flames.

Imagine

T

he sad irony is that the one human insti-
tution that has caused more suffering in
the world than any other is probably
religion. Religion — one's relationship to the
Eternal and that which is supposed to make
existence meaningful — for generation after
generation, has caused hatred, war and a
whole variety of human suffering.
Is there something perverse within the
human psyche that compels us to attempt to
impose our sincerely and deeply felt religious
beliefs upon others? Is there some innate rea-
son why it is easy for us to hate and dehu-
manize those who differ from us when it

Rabbi Eliezer Cohen serves at Con-

gregation Or Chadash in Oak Park and is
a teacher at Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield.

•

comes to opin-
ions about God?
What is even
more ironic, and
Rabbi Eliezer Cohen
perhaps more
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tragic, is that the
Jewish people
— so often the
victim of such religion : induced suffering
throughout the ages — continues to allow
religious differences to divide and separate
us and to preclude real respect and love
for one another.
Before the Enlightenment and the American
ideal of freedom of religion, the way of the
world was for religion to maintain its authority
and power even through imposition. But for
more than 200 years now, freedom of religion
and conscience has been the accepted norm