To Life!
Julie Apple Plotnik, BethiBeal
TORAH
and the staff of
PORTION
VICTORY
Home Loans
wish/ lit/ ftz,
Stand Up For God
Shabbat Nitzavim
Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20;
Isaiah 61:10-63:9.
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The Entire staff
at
olic SUM 81
Wishes a Healthy & Happy
New Year To All
Our Friends & Customers
In the Bloomfield Plaza
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(248) 855 8879
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May the coming year be filled with
health and happiness for all our family and friends.
L'Shanah Tovah!
Leo & Suzanne Knight
& Family
tradition.
() ne of my ear-
I don't know about
liest memo-
you, but I hate to come
ries of
into something that has
attending synagogue
already begun. I don't
on the High Holidays
like being late for movies
was how we were
or entering an auditori-
constantly standing
um after the lecture has
up and sitting down.
already begun because I
I don't remember
RABBI JOSEPH
don't want to feel lost,
the actual number of
H. KRAKOFF
times the rabbi
Special to the confused and even out of
place.
uttered the words,
Jewish News
With Judaism too, I
"Will the congrega-
want to feel that I was
tion please rise ... The
part of something bigger than
congregation may now be seat-
myself from the outset, and that
ed" but I do know it was more
than I could count on two hands. I am connected to God on a very
deep level dating back to the ini-
As a youngster, I likened it to
tial encounter several thousand
some ancient form of exercise
that served to keep me alert dur- years ago.
Therefore, each time I cele-
ing the sometimes lengthy Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur serv- brate my love of Judaism by
observing Shabbat, going to syn-
ices.
agogue, studying the sacred texts
Receiving the Torah on Mount
and performing the mitzvot, I
Sinai and wandering through the
am reinforcing the covenant that
desert for 40 years were such
formative events in the creation of I committed myself to long ago.
our religious tradition that it is not And this goes for all of us!
The Torah reading even offers a
enough for us to say we merely
read or learned about it in Hebrew final word of support to those
who might have forgotten the
school. Instead, we are taught that
power of this collective experience
each and every one of us
by saying: lo bashamayim hee —
metaphorically experienced the
totality of the biblical narrative. All "God's teachings are not out of
reach." They are not too baffling
of us stood together as a people at
Sinai — those who were born and and they are not in the heavens.
Indeed, God's words are very
those, like us, yet unborn.
close to us, they are already in
Our portion begins with a very
our mouths and in our hearts.
powerful verse, Atem nitzavim
And it is incumbent upon each
hayom kulchem. "You are stand-
one of us to embrace, embody
ing this day, all of you, before the
and model them to our children
Lord Your God ... I make this
and all future generations. ❑
covenant not with you alone, but
both with those who are standing
Joseph H. Krakoff is a spiritual
here with us this day before the
leader at Congregation Shaarey
Lord our God and with those who
Zedek, Oakland County.
are not with us here this day."
In essence, the Torah is teach-
ing us this week that we were
Conversations
there in spirit and we heard
What does it mean to you
God's voice. It is very empower-
that you were "standing at
ing to know that we are included
Sinai"? How do you cele-
in the original covenant the
brate your love of Judaism?
Almighty made with Abraham
Have you ever heard God's
and Sarah. As its inheritors, we
voice speak to you? In what
are another link in this mar-
sense?
velous and enduring chain of
September 29 2005
qIN