The Single Jewish
Parents Network

and the

wish Women's
Foundation
of Metropolitan
Detroit

present

Freedom In Time
Of War

Amid violence and fear, the Passover holiday

brings a reminder of faith.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

JEWISH
WOMEN'S

StaffWriter

I

FOUNDATION

OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT

Sunday, April 14, 2002

8:45 a.m. - 12 Noon

Registration required — $10 for Program
Daycare services provided — $3.00 per child

For more information call Rosann Barak
(248) 642-4260 Ext. 206

Max M. Fisher
Federaton Building
6735 Telegraph Road
Bloomfield Hills

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n a time of seemingly unprece-
dented worldwide violence,
Passover, the holiday of freedom,
comes to us with a message of past
and future faith.
'As unusual as it seems to us to live
with a feeling of crisis and risk, we have
been there before," says Rabbi Herbert
Yoskowitz of Adat Shalom Synagogue.
"The story of Passover is that in every
generation people come to try to destroy
us. The message of
Passover is a message of
faith."
At each seder, he says,
when we reread the
description of how the
Jewish people were
released from the bondage
of slavery in Egypt, we
are reminded of our cur-
Rabbi Alon
rent freedom.
Tolwin
"Each Jew, in every
generation, is com-
manded to feel as if he or she personally
was delivered from slavery and brought
to freedom. Each year we see ourselves
in the land of Egypt as slaves and then
we see ourselves now — free to voice
our views — not like slaves," Rabbi
Yoskowitz says.
"The obvious message today, with the
world situation as it is, is that we need to
remember the Exodus from Egypt and
that there is a God and that ultimately
good will prevail," says Rabbi Kasriel
Shemtov of the Shul-Chabad Lubavitch
in West Bloomfield.
Understanding that many feel power-
less, he says, "We need to go beyond our
fears and keep in touch with our faith
and with God — this is the message of
Passover."
Rabbi Alon Tolwin, director of the
Birmingham-based Aish Detroit, sug-
gests Passover as a time to take the
opportunity for individual, personal
introspection.
"Everything is attitude," he says. "We

are free when we identify with our
essence and not the materialism that sur-
rounds life."
He sees the key to the holiday in the
words of the Haggadah, which opens
with this line: "Whoever is hungry come
and eat, and whoever is needy, come and
make Pesach.
"The author of the Haggadah is ask-
ing us to choose why we are at the
seder," Rabbi Tolwin says. "Are we here
because we are hungry or are we here
because we are needy?"
He says those who choose hunger are

Rabbi Kasriel
Shemtov

Rabbi Herbert
Yoskowitz

slaves. "If I am here to take advantage of
the opportunity of the special time of
Pesach, even if I do not feel like it, then
I am identifying with my soul and I am
free," says Rabbi Tolwin.
"If this is true, then I can be in jail,
paralyzed, live in a totalitarian state —
and I can be free. On the other hand, I
can be totally enslaved right here in
America, if I cannot control my pas-
sions."
Rabbi Yoskowitz picks up on the idea
of being free. "As long as we are united
as a people and remember that we were
once slaves, we will be free," he says.
Even with the violence and fears
posed in our lives, Jews around the
world will rejoice on Passover, he says.
"We will celebrate the holiday that
commemorates the events that made us
a people," he says. "And the people in
Israel will celebrate, realizing that God's
hand is in our history, and the fact that
we have a state of Israel is a miracle and,
with it, we are free and independent." CI