COMMUnitY

Spirituality

Sharing Carl
EXPERIENCES

Michigan clergy join in meaningful exchange
on how to help heal suffering Jews.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer

I

n a Jewish community where respect between
the streams is the rule, a June 28 gathering of
Orthodox, Conservative and Reform clergy was
in itself not all that unusual.
A first-time Introduction to Jewish Spiritual
Assessment program, a workshop for those involved in
spiritual healing, made the meeting unique.
A group of 30 rabbinical school students, clinical
pastoral education interns and clergy members, includ-
ing pulpit rabbis, cantors and chaplains, joined togeth-
er at Adat Shalom Synagogue.
They came to compare notes and experience in an
area that bypasses denominational lines. Rabbi Simkha
Y. Weintraub, a New York-based clinical social worker,
who counsels, writes and lectures on Jewish spiritual
resources in confronting illness, led the program.
Rabbi Weintraub also is rabbinical director of the
New York Jewish Healing Center and the National
Center for Jewish Healing, both programs of the
Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services in New
York City.
He was in metro Detroit to present the first annual
Dr. Fred Benderoff Memorial Lecture on Healing, held
at the Farmington Hills synagogue later that day for
450 community members. Established by the
Benderoff family, the lecture is held in memory of the
Hazel Park-based doctor, who died of stomach cancer
in 1999. The family hopes to share the therapeutic
benefit Dr. Benderoff felt attending Adat Shalom's
healing services during his terminal illness.

Presenting The Workshop

Rabbi Weintraub led the Jewish Spiritual Assessment

7/6
2001

48

program as an extension of the Benderoff
family's desire to reach as many in the
community as possible.
"The workshop offers advances in spiri-
tual meaning and purpose to all Michigan-
area clergy," said Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz
of Adat Shalom, also a chaplain at the
Veteran's Administration Medical Center
in Detroit.
Rabbi Weintraub was invited to Detroit
by the Benderoff family at the suggestion
of Rabbi Yoskowitz, president of the
Michigan Region Rabbinical Assembly,
which co-sponsored the afternoon event.
Other sponsors were Michigan Board of
Rabbis, with its president, Adat Shalom
Rabbi Daniel Nevins,
attending; and the
Jewish Hospice and
Chaplaincy Network
in Southfield, whose
director, Rabbi E.B.
(Bunny) Freedman,
was present.
The workshop was
funded by the Jewish
Fund, created by the
Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit
from proceeds of the
sale of Sinai Hospital
of Detroit in 1997.
Sharing Jewish text
as a trigger for discus-
sion and analysis,
Rabbi Weintraub
addressed issues of

Above: Cantors Lori .
Corrsin of Temple Israel
and Howard Glantz of
Adat Shalom talk before
the workshop.

14. Rabbis Daniel
Nevins, Herbert
Yoskowitz, Simkha
Weintraub and E. B.
(Bunny) Freedman.

