jnonline OTHER, VIEWS ) Unmixing The Media An Israeli editor takes the U.S. news media to task for oversimpli- fying the muddled Mideast. See JN Online Writer Don Cohen's report, www.detroitjevvishnews.corn jewish.corn ) Save My Spot In his Jewish.com column "This Normal Life," Brian Blum explores why the "Save my spot" phenomenon is one of the hardest things for the immigrant to Israel to get used to. ) Jewish.com Store Do all of your Chanukah shop- ping at the Jewish.com Store (wwvv.jewish.com/store) and get a Lovable Star Bear (valued at $19.99) free with any order totaling $200 or more through Nov. 15. Use Coupon Code 2421 on Shipping Page when checking out. dotCOM SURVEY How long will it take before U.S. troops will be able to leave Iraq? 1 year? • 2 years? • 3 years? • 5 years? To answer, click on vvww.jewish.coni Last week's question: Last week's question: Will your presidential vote be guided more by Jewish or non- Jewish concerns? 46% said Jewish 54% said non-Jewish jnadvertisers online www.detroitjewishnews.com/advertisers FUNERAL CHAPEL Ira Kaufman Chapel... www.irakaufman.com FINE JEWELRY Tapper's Jewelry www.tappers.com Inspired And Invigorated o n Simchat Torah night this year, I walked home briskly, excited, invigorated, impassioned. I was one of 40 women in the Beit Midrash of Young Israel of Oak LYNNE Park (YlOP) who MEREDITH gathered among SCHREIBER musty furniture and Community fluorescent lighting Perspective to present creative spiels on each Torah portion. One by one, we went through Sefer Bereshit (Book of Genesis) in dance, song and poetry, one woman inspiring the next. After 10 o'clock, I traversed dark- ened Southfield streets with Margery Klausner, an old friend whose back- yard abuts mine. We are Orthodox women, married with children — a far cry from our high school days at North Farmington. We walked quickly, cool air pinking our cheeks. "This is what I've been yearning for!" I exclaimed. "It was really great," she concurred. And when I skipped across the dark lawn, under tall trees, to enter my lightened holiday home — my husband reading at the table, awaiting my arrival to say Kiddush, our two chil- dren asleep upstairs — I was ener- gized about Judaism. The next morning, it was stand- ing-room-only in the Beit Midrash as more than 100 women crammed in for a glimpse of what they'd heard about from the night before. The last unclaimed parshiyot quickly went to eager takers. One woman spent five esoteric minutes on the entire Book of HEALTH CARE Crittendon Hospital ... www.crittendon.com FURNITURE STORE Hillside Furniture ... www.hillsidefumiture.com 11/ 5 2004 38 For online advertising, call 248-354-6060 door closed. "Sorry," we said. "This is for women only." Not to stick it to them. Just to preserve a sanctuary for female learning. Singing. Literary inflection. Poetry. Legal analysis. Empowered, enacted, invigorated. That's what the women of YIOP feel when it comes to learning Torah together. Torah True And learning Torah — really steep- ing oneself in the depth of ancient text — is the key to leading a dynamic, Jewish life. For as much as we focus on the outside — attire, behavior or peer group — the true test of an observant life is knowing why we choose one blessing over another, what insights a particular Torah passage offers, how we can elevate ourselves above the weary details of the mundane. "Knowledge is power," said "And while I do find some of the gender limi- tations stifling, for me Orthodoxy is empower- ing because it taught me to stand alone before God and know the words that I uttered." Leviticus. By the time we left shul for lunch, the women of YIOP had presented creative acts on every parshah in the entire Torah. CALLING CARDS Union Telecard www.uniontelecard.com Divine Discovery Before I became Orthodox, I thought Orthodox Judaism was anti- quated and sexist. When I first stepped inside an Orthodox syna- gogue, I expected to feel a sharp intake of breath when I saw men and women seated separately; I expected to feel mournful when only men got up to lead davening or read Torah. And while I do find some of the gender limitations stifling, for me Orthodoxy is empowering because it taught me to stand alone before God and know the words that I uttered. Yet, I returned to Michigan in 1996 amid trepidation, fearing a right wing, inaccessible religious community. Meeting women in wigs and skirts, I feared it was more closed-minded than the liberal Maryland community I'd left, where women wear pants and few cover Lynne Meredith Schreiber is a Southfield-based freelance writer and author of five books, including "Hide 6- Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering" and "Living Inside: The Poetry Of Prayer." their hair. Here, I was hard-pressed to find women who looked like me. While Detroit's Orthodox com- munity doesn't compare with "mod- ern Orthodox" centers in Potomac, Md., or Riverdale, N.Y., it offers Young Israel of Oak Park as a home for thinking, inspired individuals. Still, I missed the full-on passion- ate Simchat Torah celebrations I'd experienced in other locales. Here, women stand behind the mechitzah (divider) and watch men dance with Torahs, children hoisted onto shoul- ders, little hands kissing velvet cov- erings. A few women create circles of simchah dancing, but most demur, so accustomed are they to watching from the sidelines. This year was different. Men kept pulling open the Beit Midrash door to peer inside, wondering what was so captivating that more than 100 women couldn't be pried away to watch them dance. We pulled the Francis Bacon in 1597. Even better were the words of Lord Chesterfield to his son in 1747: "Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter in an advanced age; if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old." But let me turn to someone from our own tradition to expound upon this notion. In 1844, Benjamin Disraeli said, "It is knowledge that influences and equalizes the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, common passions, univer- sal enjoyments." We didn't do anything so extraor- dinary at YlOP. And yet we did. For every time Jews come together to learn and share knowledge, we are recreating our community, strength- ening our ties with Torah and foster- ing possibility for a future as one, united people.