To Life!

Torah Portion

Two Heads, One Body

Shabbat Massei,
Rosh Chodesh Av:
Numbers 33:1-36.13,
28:9-15;
Isaiah 66:1-24.

T

he Midrash tells us that when
the great King Solomon
wanted to build the Temple
in Jerusalem, God would not allow
him to hew the stones with metal
instruments. The only way to cut the
stones naturally was with a special
worm called the shamir. Solomon had
one problem: he didn't know where to
find this wonderful worm or how to
catch it; and the only being who did
know was Ashmedai, the king of the
demons.
When Solomon finally caught
Ashmedai and acquired the shamir, he
decided that the world would be a
better place without the king of the
demons running free, and refused to
release him. Being a demon,

Reuven Spotter is rabbi of
Young Israel of Oak Park.

Ashmedai liked to stir up trouble.
One day, he stretched his hand to the
land of "Tevel" and retrieved a man

— as it were, should receive double
portion." Due to the obvious com-
plexity of the case, they decided to
bring their claims before the wise
with two heads and four eyes.
King Solomon.
Solomon demanded that Ashmedai
The king called the two-headed
return the man to wherever he had
son into the Sanhedrin and told the
come from. Ashmedai replied, "I can
members of the court: If one head
never return him from where he
feels what happens to the other head,
came. He's stuck here forev-
then it's one person. If not,
),
er.
then they're two people. He
Hearing this, the two-
commanded his servants to
headed man decided to
pour scalding water on one
make the best of the situa-
of the heads. When they
tion. He married, built a
poured the water on the one
home and eventually had
head, both heads started
seven sons. Six were normal,
screaming: "Your Majesty,
each with one head and one
we're dying!"
set of eyes. But the seventh
Rav Moshe Avigdor
son had his father's eyes: all
Amiel was the chief rabbi of
four of them, and two heads RABBI REUVEN Tel Aviv in the 1930s and
SPO LTER
as well.
wrote beautiful and power-
Sp ecia Ito the
After many years, the
ful messages and lessons
man grew old and passed
Jewish News
about the Jewish people and
away. When the time came
the land of Israel. He wrote
to divide his inheritance, the sons
that we — the Jewish people — often
began to argue. The first six sons
act like that two-headed man.
claimed that because they were seven
Sometimes, it seems like we really
children, they should divide the inher-
have nothing to do with each other.
itance into seven equal parts. The sev-
Some Jews speak Yiddish; some
enth son disagreed. "We're not seven
French; some Spanish; some English;
— we're really eight. We should divide many speak only Hebrew. We often
the money eight ways, and I — or we
have drastically different priorities as

Still Searching

Beth Shalom is on the lookout for a new rabbi—for the second time this year.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

jr

ust months after the conclu-
sion of an extensive, yearlong
rabbinic search at
Congregation Beth Shalom, the
entire process is about to begin again.
"We had offered the position to
Rabbi Lynn Liberman of
Congregation
Knesset Israel [in
b b
Pittsfield, Mass.] in April," said
Richard Polk, president of Beth
Shalom, a 545-family member
Conservative synagogue. "She
seemed interested, and we were
operating under the assumption
that she would take the position,
but in mid-June — before her con-
tract was finalized — she told us
she changed her mind."
Polk said Rabbi Liberman "did
not express to me specifically why'
she was not taking the position,"

8/ 4
2005

18

but said she accepted a position
with a school in St. Louis.
When asked about the change of
heart, Rabbi Liberman responded,
"Per my choice, I am not coming to
Detroit as rabbi of Congregation
Beth Shalom. It is a special congre-
gation, however, and I wish them
all the best in the years to come."
According to Polk, the decision to
offer the post to Rabbi Liberman
"was very difficult. We had nar-
rowed it down to two rabbis, Rabbi
Liberman and Rabbi Avi
Friedman," he said. "We liked
Rabbi Friedman enough that in our
initial proposal, we said if Rabbi
Liberman did not take the position,
we would offer it to him."
But by the time Polk was
informed that Rabbi Liberman
mrould not be serving Beth Shalom,
Rabbi Friedman, a former Detroiter
with close family still here, had

taken a position as senior rabbi of
the Summit Jewish Community
Center in Summit, N.J.
Even with the recent memory of
the extensive and time-consuming
rabbinic search — complete with
focus groups and surveys of the
membership — Polk said Beth
Shalom is ready to begin the
process again.
"Our search committee is already
being reconstructed," he said. "We
are beginning to meet and hope to
have a new rabbi in time for the
High Holidays 2006. "
Rabbi David Nelson, Beth
Shalom's rabbi for the last 33 years,
had planned to remain full-time at
the synagogue until August 2006
anyway, after which he will become
rabbi emeritus.
"He is very cooperative and sup-
portive of what's next for the con-
gregation," Polk said.

well: Some people concern themselves
with Israel; others engage in acts of
tikkun olam (repairing the world).
Some are extremely secular while oth-
ers strictly religious. Some focus exclu-
sively on the keeping the Torah and
the mitzvot (commandments), while
others place priority on social justice.
And some try to blend everything
together. It often seems like while we
might have the same body, we're really
different people that happened to
have been born with one body.
But all of our divisiveness and dif-
ferentiation melts away as soon as
someone pours hot water on one of
our heads. Immediately, every one of
us feels that pain. We all begin to cry
out, and we immediately understand
that while we might have separate
heads, we're really different parts of
one body and one people.

Conversations

Discuss some of the disparate
ways we Jews act toward each
other and the world at large. Are
there more ways we can unify and
co-exist as a truly Jewish people?