Community Torah Portion We Must Do Our Part To Perfect The World OCTOBER 28, 2001 Bring the Whole Family! children's activities at both locations! Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit Max M. Fisher Federation Building 6735 Telegraph Road Bloomfield Hills Jewish Community Center D. Dan and Betty Kahn Building Eugene and Marcia Applebaum Jewish Community Campus 6600 W. Maple Road • West Bloomfield Choose from 9:30-11:45 a.m. or 11:45 a.m.-2:30 p.m. To volunteer, call Carol Kaczander, (248) 203-1466 To reserve a space for children ages 2 and up, call Heidi Hes, (248) 203-1459, or e-mail hes@jfmd.org FEDERATION S ANNUAL Help Us CAMPAIGN Help Others 2002 his is .ecerction Visit us on the Web: , ,vww.thisisfeder- ation.org Shopping will never be the same with the Return of wkp 10/19 2001 68 Opening Thursday, November 15 inside Orchard Mall God and His goodness will suffuse our entire planet (Malkhuyot), that the various nations and individuals of the world are each respectively expected to do their part in perfecting the world, with Israel's task being to teach ethical monotheism (Zikhronot), and that the he climax to the biblical prescription for proper God — defini- story of the Divine rescue tion and proper human moral conduct of Noah and his family is expressed in the divinely revealed from the primordial flood is Torah (Shofarot): 613 commandments the covenant between God and Noah: (not options) for Israel, which must Humanity must refrain from con- strive to be a holy nation and a king- suming the limbs of living animals dom of teacher-priests, and and must avoid the shedding the seven Noahide com- of human blood — must mandments (not possibili- preserve rather than destroy ties) for all of humanity, life — and then God will which must develop and not guarantee that He will never destroy human society. again send a flood to destroy But we withdraw within the world (Genesis 9:4-11). in order to expand without; These Noahide laws of we turn inwards so that we morality, the biblical "natural are sufficiently imbued and law," is further expanded by inspired to reach outwards. the sages of the Talmud to And so, only four days after RABBI include prohibitions against Yom Kippur comes the festi- SHLOMO sexual immorality, idolatry, val of Sukkot, wherein we RISKIN blaspheming God, thievery sanctify all of life, including Special to the and the establishment of an the fruits and vegetables; we Jewish News equitable judicial system. live in booths roofed by that I believe that a proper which grows from the understanding of the festival season, ground and sufficiently exposed so which we have just celebrated, will that we can look up at the stars of the give relevant urgency to the biblical sky. text as well as explain why Israel is On Sukkot, we emphasize the occupying center stage. inter-relationship between all peoples The seventh month of Tishrei and our universal concern for a world opens with Rosh Hashanah — "the of harmony by offering 70 sacrifices day the world was born;" it is for the proverbial 70 nations of the described by the Bible as the "day of world. the sounding of the t'ruah — the The dream of Rosh Hashanah, the short, staccato sounds of the ram's vision of greater perfection and the horn reminiscent of sighing and sob- rule of ethical monotheism through- bing. out the world, is not a utopian ideal; What have such cries to do with it is a stark necessity if humanity is to the invocation of the creation of the survive. Our prophetic vision never world? The prophet Isiah teaches that insists that everyone become Jewish; the Almighty created an imperfect, but it does insist that everyone accept incomplete world. His assumed pur- the Noahide laws of morality: Thou pose in doing so was to make human shalt not murder, thou shalt not corn- beings partners in perfecting the world mit acts of terror. in the kingship of God, in re-making On Rosh Hashanah, we sound not the world in the image of the God of only the truah of sigh-sobs, but also love, justice and compassion. the t'kiyah of joyous victory. As long as the Divine Presence is God guarantees that we will not not manifest throughout the world, only survive but we will prevail — as "the only human being who can or long as we understand how high are said to be whole is the one with a bro- the stakes and that whoever is silent in ken heart"— t'ruah, sighs and sobs. the face of terror becomes an accom- The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah plice to terror. emphasizes the fact that eventually May God grant courage to the nations which revere life and freedom, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is spiritual and then God will grant Israel and the leader of Efrat, south of Jerusalem, and entire world true peace. E Shabbat Noah: Genesis 6:9-11:32; Isaiah 54:1-55:5. 7 the head of Ohr Torah Institutions.