Arts & Entertainment Federation's Alliance for Jewish Education's Opening the Doors invites you to THE FAMILY CIRCLE lith ANNUAL SEMINAR for the entire community The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander Sunday, November 6, 2005 6:45 p.m. Max M. Fisher Federation Building 6735 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills Featuring internationally recognized speaker, author and educational consultant Barbara Coloroso $5 per person / Coffee and Dessert For more information, or to sign up call (248) 642-4260, ext. 375 or e-mail: ferrier@jfmd.org For online registration: www.thisisfederation.orgialliance/familycircle Federation's Dffrit011. 281111EFLIOZWN tiuN This is Federation 1 Budget Generators 0,81.1111414111.° Home & Commercial Generator Systems SERVICE UPGRADES at CUSTOM LIGHTING P o we r Pro b lems Out a ge s ? Never Lose P41,!ower Again! Call For Your FREE Estimate 9/22 2005 64 Mike Hovey 248.722.5090 $3995 Installed I Permits Additional Repairs Oil Changes AA, 10 1680 PLEASE HELP support the Hurricane Katrina relief effort JNonline.com GOULISH ANIMATION from page 63 Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural (Oxford University Press), in a story titled "The Finger." His source was the 17th-century volume, Shivhei ha-Ari, which collect- ed earlier stories about the alleged feats of the real Rabbi Luria. The stories are hagiographic legends — tales about a master that show his great powers. In the corpse-bride narrative, Rabbi Luria confronts the cadaver, who accepts his authority. He is a member of the rabbinic court (the beit din) that eventually rules against the corpse, stating that she is not married because the dead have no claim upon the living, among other reasons. The real Luria lived in the 16th century, but the origin of tales about nuptials with supernatural entities is far earlier. Schwartz traces them to a biblical commentary that suggests Adam had an insubordinate first wife, Lilith, who became a seductive demon. Later variations on this storyline include "the forced or accidental mar- riage of a man to a demon, an attempt to be free of unwanted vows and a decision reached by a rabbinical court," Schwartz wrote-in Lilith's Cave. The unearthly characters "perhaps represent the fear of marriage to gen- tiles and hybrid offspring," he said. Like the supernatural fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (also the subject of a new movie), the corpse bride of folk tradition also serves as a cautionary tale, warning about the consequences of bad behavior. "It tells us, 'Be careful, don't ever take an oath in vain. Don't take it 11 tly,"' said Peninnah Schram, a pro- fessional Jewish storyteller and associ- ate professor of speech and drama at Stern College in New York. In "The Finger," the wayward bride- groom gets lucky. After the rabbis rule against the validity of the corpse's mar- riage to the careless suitor, the would- be bride — after emitting one last shriek — collapses in a pile of bones and dies, this time for keeps. The movie has a more Hollywood kind of ending, with that Tim Burton twist. "Tim's characters tend to wear dark- er colors and some, like the corpse bride, are no longer living, but they have a pluck and a spirit that makes you fall in love with them," August said. ❑ Corpse Bride opens Friday, Sept. 23, in theaters nationwide.