AppleTree All of us at The Big Story TENDER the sea, this is believed to be the day on which God created angels. want to wish our family, friends & clients a Happy, Healthy & Prosperous New Year!! DAY SIX: God's last act of creation, before resting, was to make man. "Let us make a man in Our image, after Our likeness," He said. God gives man sovereignty over "fish of the sea, the birds of the sky and all the living things that creep on earth." God also tells His creatures: "Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it." Though we tend to take this gift of procreation for granted, the rabbis have reminded us throughout history that allowing man to share in the act of cre- ation is one of God's greatest miracles. Philosopher and Rabbi A.J. Heschel wrote: "Creation happens to us, burns itself into us, recasts us in burning -- we tremble and are faint, we submit. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions." 271 WEST MAPLE • DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM 248.25800212 37646 W. 12 - Mile Road Shopping :ft (248) 994-4000 26336 Ford Road in Mc fit2ighti, Shoppin4 ficighti (313) 278-6000 . IF YOU'RE SERIOUS ABOUT YOUR FITNESS Let us help you be the best you can be with 1 on 1 training at our club. A patient friendly program designed just for you to help you reach your realistic fitness goals. Change your life by changing your lifestyle. Muscle therapy and nutritional consulting available. Call us today for a FREE consultation. •Nutritional Counseling • Muscle/Massage Therapy INTERNATIONAL PI IQUE CHA •TV Celebrity Anchor PETER NIELSEN'S Personal Trainin I Club 4119 Orchard Lake Rd. (at Pontiac Tr.) West Bloomfield Visit our website www.peternielsen.com ION • Children's Fitness Programs • Free Consultation (248) 855-0345 idtegio- Our CAA6tono- tuta Fri'vAdb For awl, iiafm slew gear DuLac Hair Fashions 9/ 6 2002 164 Family Hair Care 29525 W. Nine Mile Farmington Hills, Michigan 48336 (248) 476-9522 (248) 476-9544 DAY SEVEN: This is when God rests. Today, when Jews imitate God and "rest" on Shabbat it is often misunder- stood as simply not going in to the office, or staying at home and sleeping instead of heading off for the mall. In fact, on Shabbat, Jews are meant to "rest" in the same way that God did. While this entails a long list of what one may and may not do, the general idea is that people should abstain from creative work. History is filled with tales as to how the world began. Some of these share similarities with the Jewish version. The Torah is, however, decidedly uniqUe in one aspect: it speaks of a single creator who has always existed and who will always exist. And it is He who created the universe. Many ancient legends speak of a darkness that was suddenly filled with the world. Included in this newly appeared world was God (thuS, He was part of the creation itself). In Judaism, we believe that God created the uni- verse. He was not the lucky result of some mysterious explosion or mythical battle between unknown entities, but rather the One who made everything. Some stories have suggested that the world was, in fact, formed by angels — perhaps those of the cherubic faces with wings variety — with God as a kind of master planner, the behind-the-scenes man. Absolutely not, the rabbis said, pointing out that God, Himself, creat- ed the angels. A few early philosophers wondered whether this world might be the best of the lot, having come only after God tried His hand at a few previous ones that, well, just didn't work out. The rabbis reject this theory. The first Jewish scholar to present a lengthy work about creation was Saadiah Gaon (882-942). In his Book of Beliefi and Opinions, likely written in response to critical philosophical ideas about creation of the time, he stated unequivocally that God created the universe. In his book, Saadiah present- ed 13 popular ideas about creation, and said that all were irrational except one — the idea that God formed the world from nothing. Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben- Maimon, 1135-1204)- had no patience for "proving" how God created the world. Creation is not a matter of sci- entific proofs; it's a matter of belief. God made the world, and that's all there is to it, Maimonides said. Philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) asserted that God's rela- tionship with the world finds expres- sion in creation. Rosenzweig saw the story of creation as a daily miracle. Every day God is creating, making the world run, so to speak. For Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan (1881- 1983), founder of the Reconstructionist movement, "the moral implication of the traditional teaching that God creat- ed the world is that creativity, or the continuous emergence of aspects of life not prepared for or determined by the past, constitutes the most Divine phase of reality." Creation, he said, teaches us the value of creativity and of a world in which anything is possible. Not surprisingly, the mystics had a great.deal to say about the beginning of the world. They saw the world as being created in 10 stages, which started with the most spiritual and ended with the most materialistic. Some Kabbalists were said to be so brilliant and close to God that they were able to utter magic phrases that could bring creatures to life. The most famous of these is the legend of the Golem, a clay man. This Golem resided somewhere in the Altneushul (literally, Old-New Synagogue) of Prague, where a secret combination of words whis- pered into his ear would bring the crea- ture to life. He was fierce, unconquer- able and his job was simply to help the Jewish people. It may just have been a legend, but the Nazis weren't taking any chances. When they marched into Poland, they destroyed virtually every synagogue. Some speculated, however, that they, too had heard of the Golem, which is why they chose not to touch the Altneushul.