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Spirituality

TORAH PORTION

Staff photo by Angie Baan

Our Blessing, Duty

Shabbat Lech Lecha:
Genesis 12:1-17:24;
Isaiah 40:27-41:16.

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Kosher supervisor Rabbi David Newmark with Holiday Market owner
Tom Violante.

Expanded Options

An established store brings in new
items to satisfy kosher customers.

Shelli Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer

W

hen customers of the
Farmer Jack supermarket
in Oak Park learned of
the store's closing this summer, they
sought out a new place to buy kosher
food — Holiday Market of Royal
Oak.
The store always carried kosher gro-
cery items, but owner Tom Violante
said, "Some of our Jewish kosher
clientele called very concerned about
being able to find kosher offerings.
They asked,`Please, can you do some-
thing?'"
Turns out he could.
"We are a 54-year-old full-service
specialty grocery store started by my
dad;' Violante said. "The whole store
is based on customer requests and
sales." So when the calls for kosher
goods started coming, the store began
to make changes.
Violante hired Rabbi David
Newmark, formerly a kosher super-
visor at Farmer Jack, as a full-time
consultant for the store's kosher items.

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October 18 c 2007

Rabbi Newmark is working to add
new sections and enhance the depart-
ments that already carry kosher gro-
ceries.
In addition to non-refrigerated
kosher items, the store has refriger-
ated and frozen items, including
pre-packed Meal Mart kosher meats,
Empire kosher chicken, kosher lunch-
meats and kosher cheeses. There's
also a kosher wine department with
higher-end kosher wines — and an
in-store consultant.
An expansion that will add 20,000
square feet to the 40,000-square-
foot store on Main, north of 10 Mile
in Royal Oak, will allow space for
an expanded produce section and
non-kosher departments, including a
larger bakery, a catering department
and a cooking school.
But the space may allow for more
kosher items, with a possible future
project being a kosher-compliant sea-
food area.
Holiday's plans will continue even
though a kosher butcher has opened
in the Farm Fresh Market that moved
into the old Farmer Jack building at
Coolidge and 10 Mile. I I

Ethiopia consumes all year round. Yet,
t the end of the second
we are commanded not to forget it!
verse of Lech Lecha, God
God has told us that we must keep
issues a stern command
our eyes open and see the
— vehyeh berachah — be
world as it is, while at the
a blessing. What does it
same time imagining what
mean to be a blessing?
it could be with our help.
According to Rabbi
Rabbi Steven Wise used
Sampson Raphael Hirsch,
to tell a haunting story. He
the command is to act in
was in China and saw a
this world as one who is
great many old men pull-
worthy of blessing — to
ing rickshaws to make
fulfill the mitzvah of tikkun
ends meet. He was sad-
olam (fixing the world).
dened by the sight of these
Rabbi D aniel M.
Sadly, though we have
men with their crooked
Wo Ipe
known that this has been
backs.
Specia I to the
our mission for thousands
His guide, noticing
Jewish News
of years, the world remains
the haunted look on the
unfinished. Whether it is
rabbi's face, assured him,
Israel, Iraq, Darfur or right
"Don't worry, Rabbi. You'll get used
here in Detroit, it is clear that we have
to it." Rabbi Wise always said that the
yet to fulfill our duty to fix the world.
saddest day of his life was when he
The Torah commands us to contin-
ue to strive for a better and just world. realized that he had, indeed, gotten
used to it.
In Vayikra, we read, "Lo ta'amud al
This week, we begin to read about
dahm re'echa"— do not stand idly by
while your neighbor's blood is spilled. Abraham, but what was the key to
Abraham's greatness? Not that he rec-
The Jewish community of Detroit
ognized one God, but that he allowed
has an obligation to pursue every
that knowledge to compel him to work
avenue of tikkun olam. We can start
for a better world. Throughout his life,
in our own back yard by working to
he never allowed himself to get used
revitalize the Detroit area. We cannot
sit idly by while the city that is so near to it.
We must commit ourselves to do
to us continues its decline.
the same.
It also means overcoming a belief
that is too widespread in the Jewish
Daniel Wolpe is rabbi at Congregation Beth
community. For too many, tikkun
Shalom in Oak Park.
olam boils down to "writing a check."
Tikkun olam is not writing a check.
It's getting one's hands dirty. It is vol-
unteering one's time, one's effort and,
yes, one's soul, in the task of creat-
Conversations
ing a better world. It means walking
Do not be satisfied with the
in rallies, working in soup kitchens,
cliched "good deeds" that we
donating one's time. It is not easy, but
give Hp-service to. Discuss some
nothing worth doing ever is.
of the meaningful ways we can
It's so easy to turn a blind eye to
actively get out in the commu-
the fact that the richest country in the
nity and "repair the world."
world has almost 2 million starving
children in it. It's easy to forget that we
throw away more food in a week than

