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CANADA'S LEADING JEWISH NEWSPAPER IN ENGLISH
The Canadian JjBwish News cannot be held responsible for the Koshrut of products adver-' tised as kosher, nor will it be held accountable for financial losses due to printing errors
in advertisemeiits;
Important Task:
HELPING OUR STUDENTS
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There is still time for Jewish organizations interested in our students to calf the attention of the universities to the fact that this year Passover coincides with the most strenuous pre-examination period.
Many Jewish students feel they miist forego their innermost wish to participate in Seder celebrations and in the general holidaj^ observance in order to pass. This is an alternative unfair to the average student. For only the very pious, the very dedicated, will choose to postpone the test till vacation tinie. Thus a student who once breaks the tradition of observing the holiday eventually may disassociate himself completely from religious practices.
It is known that many students have become indifferent to re-
Toronto^s Guest:
ligious custom because broke the rule.
These observations may sound parochial. But they are based on research and knowledge of life. In our day when religion faces an onslaught from all sides, the Jewish comlmunity cannot permit the average student to become exposed to this temptation.
Should this concern become known to them, we believe the administration of any university would consider an alternative that does not involve a student's renunciation of adherence to a hallowed religious custom.
It is not too much to urge the leadership of the community to embrace this cause of the helpless student who would want to both perform his duty in school and yet be able to observe his religious practices.
israel These days
- Maarly, jinisdlem Post
letter to the editor
EULOGY vs HISTORY
Dear Editor:
> In a New York daily, I read two obituaries about prominent Jews who recently have passed away. It seems tome that in both cases historic facts were distorted.
I know that Henry M. Mor-genthau, President Roosevelt's Secretary <rf Treasury, was active in recent years on behalf of Jewish causes. Yet it is a fact that during World War n Mr. Morgenthau refused to co-
operate with organizations, active in the United States, which tried to rescue Jews from Hitler's Europe. It was not some officials in his department, as one writer observed, who sabotaged efforts to buy Jewish lives from the Nazis; it was Mor-genthau's own reluctance to depart from business as usual that created aproblem.
Indeed vei^ few not involved in the movements to save
SALUTE TO NEW CHIEF RABBI
KEEP SMILING
Toronto Jewry will have the distinct honor of receiving next Thursday the new Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, Dr. Im-manuel Jakobovits, at Shaarei Shomayim.
We are sure that, in presenting Dr. Jakobovits to Toronto Jewry, his sterling qualities and his Jewish scholarsnip will be mentioned. However, we should like to add our own recognition to the eminent spiritual lea4er by citing his exemplary dedication to integral Jewish education.
Last year Dr. Jakobovits, speaking oi the cost of Jewish survival, said, i.e.: i " . . . The drive: to grant eveiy Jewish child its ri;^ to ah intensive Jewish education must become as urgent an objective of Jewish policy for the reclamation of Judaism as Zionism was in the past generMion for the reclamation of the Jewish people. The enormous funds still raised for Jewish welfare services (now usually non-
sectarian and heavily subsidized by government aid) and for "defense" agencies (now largely redundant and of minor Urgency) should gradually be diverted to propagating and building up Jewish schools for hundreds of thousands of Jewish children and youngsters now alienated from their heritage. Only by making the love and understanding of Judaism prevail over any other love can the tide of assimilation and inter-marriage be stemmed. At the same time, every effort must be bent on ensuring that parents wiUing to enroll thieir children in Jewish elementary and high schools will not be financially penalized, by having to pay for secular education of other children at public schools through taxation, while they are denied similar benefits for their own children."
We salute Chief Rabbi Jakobovits as a leader in the movement for securing Jewish survival through education.
CONTRARY A distinguished rabbi spent several days in FranWortas house guest (rf M^rer Ans-chel Rothschild. He was pleased to see that in spite d numerous business interests the rich man was extremely scrupulous about the minutiae of the Law. Before departing, Rothschild asked the rabbi whether he had found everything to his liking.
"Herr Rothschild", said the rabbi, "duringniystayat your home! became convinced that yOti.axre airuly pious Jew and; I itas' thertfore greatly sttrpirised that you disregard one statement of theTorah."
"Which statement?" asked Rothschild.
; "We are told in the Torah," replied the rabbi, "that.'Jeshurun waxed fatand
kicked,* but while at your home I discovered that although you are wealthy you still are a loyal Jew."
BIRTHDAY TIME ALL YEAR An Israeli mother reports that her five-year-old son comes home from kindergarten at intervals with the announcement that one of the children has a birthday the next day. That makes it a party and he e}q)ects to put on his best white blouse.
A few days ago he came home and saidHaim was having a birthday. Next day he
and ^hen his, mother came to fetch him she looked around and asked which was Haim with the birthday. The teacher looked a little embarrassed and said:
"Actually, we have been celebrating the birthday of Haim Nahman Bialik.
the Jews in Europe may not have heard of the incident concerning the now deceased Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Abraham Kalmanpwitz of Mir, who actually cried in Mr. Mor-gerithaufs office when he (the rabbi) asked hini to release some blocked funds in Switzerland. Morgenthau remained unmoved, according to the report of the late Rabbi Kalmanowitz.
True, one speaks but well <rf those who leave this world. However, when a historic figure is dealt with in retrospect, the truth should not be ignored.
All that some delations had tried to obtain from Mr. Morgenthau was an arrangement similar to that agreed upon by the Uhited States in the recent Cuban crisis where hostages were bought. In the case of Jews, Morgenthau did not see his duly. All I can say in his defense is that in those years he was overwhelmed 1^ his Jewish inferiority complex and that he tried to repent later.
The second personality so much mourned aiotfdSlogized is Victor Gollancz, the famous British publisher and
Gordon Brook-Shepherd of the London Sunday. Telegraph •says real purpose of Russian Prime Minister's pilgrimage to London was to gain Britain's support in squashing Germany for |ood.
One toast has been missing among all those drunk during Mr. Kosygiifs stay in London: "Absentfriends". Yet few tpp-ievel diplomatic encounters have been overcast so completely by the shadows of those not in attendance.
Of these shadows, the longest in eveiy sense has been that thrown by Chairman Mao from Peking. Suggestions that the more berserk the Chinese leadership gets the more anxious Mr. Kosygin will become to reach a Vietnam settlement are perhaps over-optimistic. They are-certaiiJy over-simp|lified.
It is the physical threat of Chinese aggreission against her Eastern border provinces that Russia fears just as much as the ideological threat to her Communist prestige^ In the first context, the continued presence of half a million American troops camped right outside
China's southern gates will cause even the most punch-drunk or power-drunk r^rime in Peking, to hesitate before starting up trouble in the north as well.
Yet in a general sense it is true that Russia, like China, is anxious to avoid a fight on two fronts. One ex-planaticm therefore of all Mr. Kosygin's (rffers last week to kiss and make up in
• by Gordon Brook-Shepherd'
Stalin's day and first spelled out by the Kremlin's other Mr. K more than 10 years ago: to drive the American troops out of Europe and to dismantle N.A,T,0. in the process.
TTie Russians were playing this game long before General de Gaulle pulled up a chair and took a hand, though there was one revealing passage in Mr. Kosygin's spJsech in the House of Lords on Thursday which, showed how invaluable Gauliist help in this paraUel campaign has now become. In an obvious reference to the, current withdrawal of N.A.T.O,'s headquarters and military installations from France (to be completed, on the General's orders, by April 1) Mr. Kosygin said: "SUll less do we see why the staffs of these military bases which today are moving from one place to another should re-nuiin in Europe any longer. In Our view it would certainly be much better if they would simply cross the ocean without any intermediate stops."
iMuch better, of course, for Moscow, America's forces would be withdrawn 3,000 miles across the Atlantic.
Russia's (in any matching "disbandment" erf the Warsaw Pact) would move, less than 300 miles back across the plains of Central Europe. And with the backbone (rf an American physical involvement removed from Europe, anything that was . left of Western ground defences would be as easy to digest as filleted fish. Provided,
Europe is certainly his de- West Germany
Gollancz, in recent years, was very active in the cause of Arab refugees and other non-Jewish activities. But he very often proclaimed openly his lack of interestin Jewish survival.
Samuel Greenbaum New York City.
sire to keep tension low on his capitalist flank at a time when it is mounting to breaking-point on his Communist one.
But there are several other e}q)lanations as well, and this brings us to the second of our "absent friends" - President Johnson- Iliough Mr. Kosygin may feel in two minds about the huge American garrison in South-East Asia, he is quite clear about the United jSt^es', other major overseas garrison in Europe. Last week in London every public utterance he made (and we may presume almost every private one too) was directed to the pursuit of Soviet policies which were laid down in
can be reduced to a state of permanent political isolation and permanent military impotence.
Enter here the third of last week's absent friends and the most agitated of all
the ghosts at these London banquets - the new German Chancellor, Dr. Kiesinger, or rather his powerful lieu-' tenant, Franz-JosefStrauss. Enter also the real purpose qf Mr. Kosygin's propaganda pilgrimage to Westminster.
The most important role Britain canplay in the Kremlin's policies is not to help solve the Vietnam crisis, where our function as co^ Chairman of the Geneva Conference is, 3S Mr. kosygin well knows, a largely ceremonial one out of all proportion to our small effective influence. It is helping Russia to squash Germany for good and all.
This, surely, is the motive underlying his unexpected revival of the proposal for a "treaty d friendship, peaceful co-operation and non-aggression" between Britain and the Soviet Union. In immediately going on to declare that this "would not be spearheaded against any third countries" the normally astute Mr. Kosygin for once betrayed himself.
"Qui s'excuse, s'accuse." Bismarck us& to declare that the first thing to ask yourself about any treaty, however harmless it sounded, was "Who is being done down here!?" The first potential victim (rf any Anglo-Soviet treaty todJ^y is Germany.
The Russians, like de Gaulle also in this respect, are great ones for geo-polit-ics and the broad sweep of history. They have not forgotten that in the First World War as well as the Seccmd it was the "wing powers" of Europe who combined to contain its restless centre -called the Triple Alliance in Kaiser Wilhelm's day and the Rome-Berlin Axis in Hitler's. Mr. Kosygin's offer
Continued on Page 8
The world of hooks and letters
In 1942, during the darkest period of Jewish history, a great leader ih Israel launched a project which became one of the most important publishing efforts in Judaism. The man was Rabbi Meir Bar Han, for whom the university in Ramat Gah is nanied; The project: Tal-mudic Encyclopedia in Modem . Hebrew which, in 36 volumes, will digest the accumulation of 2,000 years of Jewish kr<owledge and scholarship.
Rabbi Yehoshua Hutner,
managing editor of the Tal-mudic Encyclopedia, last week concluded a visit to Canai^a in connection with the publication of Volume 12, dedicated to fitie memory of Toix>nto^s late Rabbi Jacob dordon, which will appear in April.
In an interview with a reporter of The Canadian Jewish News, Rabbi Hutner related the story of the beginnings of this gigantic project.
The original idea of such an encyclopedia occurred to Rabbi NaftaU Zvi Berlin,
by the CJN literary editor-
fatherX^ Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan.
Rabbi Naftali Zvi was the famous Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin. It was in 1892, when the Volozhin Yeshiva was closed by the Czarist government, that the Ntziv (as Rabbi Naftali Zvi was known) said to his small son Meir: "Remember spmeday to publish an encyclopedia of the Talmud. It is important that such an undertaking be ; realized by Jews who believe in the Torah and its importance. Otherwise it will be done by incompetent men."
Fifty years later Rabbi Bar Ilan began to work for this project He established it in Jerusalem: the Talmudic Encyclopedia Institute, now a part of tfje iEmet Rabbi Herzog World Academy.
Immediately Jewish scholars the world over e;q>ressed their enthusiasm; they cooperated with Rabbi Bar nan in the realization of the project.
The Talmudic Encyclopedia, of which the present editor-in-chief is Rabbi Shl-omo Joseph Zevin, covers 2,000 years of Jewish scholarship arid 25,000 volumes. Besides thati about 3,000 manuscripts are being studied by the Encyclopedia staff of fifty permanetly employed scholars working in the spacious academy building in Jerusalem.
Ill order to grasp the importance of this task. Rabbi Hutner explained, one should compare the achievements of the Talmudic Encyclopedia with similar under-taWrigs. For example, the famous American Encyclopedia pfLaw "Corpus Juris" which covers approximately ; . three centuries, took twenty-eight years to prepare. Other dictibnaries of this kind require decades of labor.
Talmudic Encyclopedia already has published 12 volumes in Hebrew (the twelfth sponsored by the Toronto Rabbi Jacob Gordon Memorial Foundation).
Now: the Encyclopedia of the Talmud is being translated into English, the ap-
pearance of the first volume undoubtedly will be an event in the scholarly world.
To illustrate the scope of the project, one need only note the < classification. Every rule,'"doctrine, principle or concept of halakhic value is explained. Following are examples of classifica-. tion, explained by Rabbi Hutner: ■
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Faith and Prayer - Unity of God; Prayer; Benedictions; Kiddiish; Habdalah; Hallel; ; Synagogue; Sefer Torah; Megillah; etc.
Sabbath and Festivals -Sabbath; Abot Melachot(categories of work biblically
prdiibited); Shebut (categories of activities rabinnically prohibited); Passover; Ma-ror; Arba Kosot; Yom Tob Sheni shel Galuyot (the second day of the festival observed in the Diaspora); Lulab; Fast Days; Hanukkah; Purim; etc.
Temple and Priest - The Temple; The Altar; Sacrifices; VVater Libation; Az-azel; Omer; Bikurim; Ma' aser Sheni (the second Tithe) ; Tibel (produce frorn which the priestly or levitlcaldues have hot been appropriated); ^Mishmar ; (contingent of priests and Levites on duty at the Temple); Urim and Tfummim; etc.
Marital Relations - Kld-dushin; Huppah; Yibbum; Gorushin (laws pertaining to divorce); Ketubah D'irkesa (a Ketubah issued to replace^ a lost one): Mczonot (support of .wife and children); etc, ,■■
. ft-operty and Litigation -
Possession: Acquisition; Kinyan Perot (right to usufruct); Adverse Possession; Agency; Bailment; Contracts; etc.
Damages - AdamHamazik (defendant in torts); Bbshet (indemnity for shame suffered by plaintiff); Rippuy (indemnity for medical iex-penses incurred by plaintifO; Hezzek She'eno Nikkar (damage undiscemableinthe object itself); etc.
Legal Institutions -Ab Bet Din (President of the Court); Dayyan (Judge); Sanhedrin; etc.
Israel and Eretz Israel -
The Love of Israel; Eretz Israel; Building of Eretz Israel; Jerusalem; Shemlt-tah (the Sabbatical year); Shemittat Kesaphim (cancellation of monetary debts^. Yobel (the year of Jubilee); etc. ,
Norms and Doctrines -
Taryag Mitzwot (the six hundred and thirteen command-merits); Shelosh EsreMlddot (the thirteen rules by which the Torah is interpreted); Kelal Upherat (general and particular); Analogy; etc. -
Of special interest is the. Treatment of the Subject Matter. Says Rabbi Hutner:
. "The Encyclopedia discusses with equal thoroughness every subject in general and in particular, each under its own hleadlng and sub-hoadlng. Thus, while giving a coherently in-
tegrated exposition to each subject as a whole, the derivative subjects are also treated separately. E.g., under the general heading of Abedah Oost article) all legal matter pertaining to lost
articles is included, while
the problems of Hashabal Abedah (restitution of the lost article)^ Simariim (identification of the article), Abedah Mida'at (intentional, loss) and similar problems, come under separate headings.^ Similarly, the article of Edut (testimony) will not preclude separate treatment of the questions of false witnesses, disqualified witnesses, single witness, etc.
"There are, moreover, certairi subjects which by their very nature miist be discussed. twice, once en . passant, within the major subjects to which they are related, and again in greater detau under their own respective captions. Thus, the general thieme ofBetHamik-dash will of necessity refer to Ezrat Kotianim (priests' compartment), Lishkat Pal-iiedrin (counsellors' chamber), Lishkat Hahezirim, Mizbeah, Ulam, etc., while the treatment of these auxiliary subjects will be found in their respective alphabetical order. The same procedure applies to such general themes as Benedictions, Festivals, Sacrifices and Abot Nezlkin (the principal actionable injuries or damages in torts) vis-a-vis the individual subjects which they comprise."
This is, in brief, the story of the- Talmudic Encyclopedia.
Sermon of the week THE
MODERN CHOICE
Is living the good Jewish life more difficult today than in the past? Millions ot committed Jews world over wrestle with this problem. Some look back longingly to the days when such problems did not exist. Once everyone (except those who deliberately apostasised) lived in an all-embracing and total Jewish environment. Judaism was then a way of life which brooked no challenge, am lived hermetically sealed off from the rest o the world.
Siich a view of pre-modern Jewish life is both romantic and reactionary.
It is romantic, because the present hind sight of history tinges the harsh colours o past reality with a warm overglow of nostalgia not warranted by the facts. Even under the most favourable conditions, except in such rare exceptions as a Golden Age of Spain, or a Renaissance Italy, our forbears were less accepted than tolerated in their lands of adoption.
The present situation of being accepted as a Jew in a s^ular civilisation, the gift of emancipation rather than a Jewish gpal achieved, places the modern Jew in an unparalleled and unprecedented historical situa tion. Never before, not even under the Greeks or the Romans, have Jews ever enjoyed such political freedom.
It is reactionary, because such a viewpoint automatically stigmatises the modern condition of living voluntarily as a Jew in a democratic state as a second class condition, not the ideal. The ideal, presumably, would be a situation in which the Jew would have no alternative to being a Jew. It is the notion that Jews no longer have to be Jews which irritates the reactionary.
True, there is antisemitism: yet there is also the unquestioned possibility in the long run of complete personal assimilation. In the pre-modern period the only alternative to Judaism was Christianity, never the free possibility of choosing neither.
We Jews should have learned from Exodus at least one thing: that God reveals Himself in and through freedom. A state of affairs where more rather than less freedom is available to the modern Jew cannot possibly violate God's intentions for us. It can only make our options more important and our responsibility for choosing more serious.
If, then, living the good Jewish life is more difficult today, it is also more rewarding. This is not merely a question of "one glimpse of it within the Tavern caught Better in the Temple lost outright"; for modern life is no more exclusively a Tavern than pre-modern life was exclusively a Temple.
It is more rewarding because, despite the anxiety of striving to make the right choices for oneself and others, the spiritual stakes are patently^so much higher. No one has to be a Jew anymore^ The collective may not assimilate. The individual can. No one can stop him. • ■., •' ■ . ,.
For the/first time in Jewish history the individual Jew, with other possible options, can nevertheless choose to love God-with all his heart; soul and might. If we can fearlessly and courageously fulfill our obligations here we shall Have no reason to be ashamed or confounded.
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