Spirituality Work It Off! Science center explores value of healthy living. A new exhibit, open at the Detroit Science Center in January, will help visitors understand the value and effort of "Working It Off." The exhibit is made possible by a gift from the Detroit Jewish community's Jewish Fund. In Working It Off, visitors will ride a bicycle, walk on treadmill and propel a wheelchair to demonstrate the effort required to burn off calories. They will be able to race to see who can burn off the calories equivalent to various foods and see the spectrum of calories in vari- ous foods from low-calorie broccoli to a double cheeseburger. As they exercise, they will learn how much effort is required to burn off the calories from these foods. Working It Off is one of more than 120 new exhibits that the Detroit Science Center is building for its new Beaumont Hospitals and Oakland University Medical Marvels Gallery, a 15,000-square-foot exhibit gallery coming in 2009. The exhibit, dedicated Feb. 26, will be part of an area focused on modifiable behaviors and will demonstrate how great it can feel to be healthy. Visitors will experience the fun of fitness, imagine the "yum" of good nutrition, learn the dif- ference between healthy and unhealthy stresses and better comprehend the battle of addiction. The Jewish Fund was established in 1997 from the sale proceeds of Sinai Hospital to the Detroit Medical Center. Since its creation, the fund has awarded $38.6 million in grants to expand health and human services to residents of Metro Detroit. The Detroit Science Center: Call (313) 577-8400 or visit the Web site, www.detroitsciencecenterorg. Zach Herschfus, 10, from Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield, demonstrates the Working it Off exhibit during the dedication. ❑ Conservative's Plan Mega-Calendar Eisen optimistic on future of movement. The OU shares a simple way to plan. A N ll five Metro Detroit Conservative congregations were represented among the 300 peo- ple attending a "Town Hall Meeting" with Chancellor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York on March 5 at Congregation Shaarey Zedek West Bloomfield, B'nai Israel Center. Eisen struck a decidedly upbeat note on the future of Arnold Eisen his movement while recognizing significant challenges face Conservative Jews and American Jewry as a whole. Community and meaning are at the top of Eisen's list of what will retain and attract Jews. "If you give them commu- nity they will respond, they will belong, and you need to give them meaning that speaks to them," he said. "Do not use the language of crisis and decline," Eisen counseled, rejecting that the declining number of Conservative Jews is because of competition from Orthodoxy and Reform. "Very few people choose based on denomination," he said. "They want qual- ity, they want excellence, they want a ser- vice that inspires them, and they want a quality school." He said Conservative Judaism's ground- ing in Jewish law and tradition, with an eye toward the future, makes it strong. He also cited "an incredible talent pool" among the 800,000 Conservative Jews overrepresented in Jewish communal institutions as both staff and lay leaders. "It's a huge number of people," he said, "think what we could do if we can turn on another 10 percent of the population:" On Gossip Although gossip is not permitted between spouses, it is permissible for them to warn each other that certain individuals may be dishonest if it will prevent loss of money. Presented by Lubavitch Women's Organization. For information on keeping kosher or lighting Shabbat candles, contact Miriam Amzalak, (248) 548-6771, amzalak@yeshivanet.com . ❑ Shelli Liebman Dorfman Senior Writer of only does the Orthodox Union's new online creation allow viewers to check when holidays and daily rituals and prayers take place in nearly every major city around the globe, it displays this infor- mation for the next 20 years. The Orthodox Union (OU) Community Calendar is invaluable for information like knowing what time to plan a Saturday evening wedding so it begins after Shabbat and not scheduling a vacation over the Yom Kippur holiday. It indicates everything from the time to light Shabbat candles in cities worldwide to the earliest time a tallit may be worn in the morning or the latest time the morning Shema may be said. The calendar site includes explanations of holidays and general answers like when do the Hebrew months begin, what is the Torah reading on a specific date and how to find out when someone's Hebrew birth- day is. Information on the location of Orthodox synagogues and mikvaot in or near various cities is also sited. There is even a listing of job openings for commu- nities throughout the U.S., courtesy of the OU's Job Bank. "The Orthodox Union, as a communal organization, has always worked to service the Jewish community as a whole — and its individual members:' explained Gary Magder, OU director of Internet develop- ment, who oversaw the project. "Through these online services, the OU is extending its reach, using the Internet to connect the world's Jewish communities. With over 100,000 cities, you can find information on just about every location where there are Jews:' The calendar makes use of the open- source PHP (hypertest pre-processor) pro- gramming language, which, among other things, pulls information from a variety of databases, calculates postal codes and looks at latitude and longitude to deter- mine Shabbat candle lighting times. "Given the tools available to us, we have almost all the world's knowledge in our hands',' said Magder, who worked with OU senior Web developers Aharon Grenadir and Avi Block on the project. "And we're working to make that knowledge easily accessible to our con- stituents." ❑ To access the Orthodox Union Community Calendar, go to: www.ou.org/holidays/calendar. March 13 • 2008 C3