Page 16-THE NEWS-January, 1985
Thoughts From The.Lubavitcher Rebbe
G-d*s Kindness Draws Us Closer To Him
By Rabbi Yoseph Groner
The Torah teUs us many
times how the children of
Israel were blessed by G-d.
One would expect that bless
ings are granted only to wor
thy people. Yet we see that the
Al-mighty G-d often grants
blessings of he£ilth, wealth,
happiness, success, etc. to in
dividuals who seem most un
deserving of such blessings.
In Deuteronomy we find
that... there will come a time
when upon you will come the
blessings and the curse, etc...
When this will happen, then,
you wiU return (with Teshuvah
- sincere repentance) to G-d.
The Baal Shem Tov, founder
of chassidism, poses a ques
tion: It is understandable that
one can be brought to repent
through suffering. The unplea
sant experience can awaken
within him a feeling of return
to G-d. That is why the Torah
mentions curse. But why men
tion the blessing? Why should
a person be moved to remorse
for his misdeeds as a result of
receiving blessings from G-d.
The Baal Shev Tov replies
with the following parable:
There was once a peasant who
did not conduct himself pro
perly towards the king. How
did the king take “revenge?”
By giving him all kinds of
grants and blessings. The king
appointed the peasant to an
honorable position, made him
an officer and a prince and
heaped other honors upon him.
When the former peasant
contemplated on the greatness
of this mighty monarch and on
the king’s magnificent genero
sity, goodness and benevo
lence towards him, he was
UUJB
Jewish Books in Review
IS a scrvice of ihti IWB lewish Book Council,
15 East 26th St., New York, N.Y. 10010
Life On The
Western Frontier
We Lived There Too. Ken
neth Libo and Irving Howe.
St. Martin ’s/Marek, NY 1984.
344 pp.
Mid-America’s Promise.
Joseph P. Schultz, ed. The
Jewish Community Founda
tion of Greater Kansas City
and the American Jewish
Historical Society. Kansas
City. 1982. 405 pp.
Pioneer Jews. Harriet and
Fred Rochlin. Houghton
Miflin Co. Boston. 1984. 244
pp.
Reviewed by Jeffrey S. Gurock
Having earned their “home
and fortunes” as chroniclers of
New York Ghetto life and
culture, Kenneth Libo and Ir
ving Howe have now “turned
(their) faces to the Great
West” and in accord with
Horace Greeley’s century-old
dictum have sought out new
horizons for their considerable
talents.
Their collection of
documents, photographs and
ephemera offers a reminder to
American historians, in an ap
propriate and non-triump-
halist way, of the important
role immigrants in general and
Jews’in particular played in
the opening and development
of the West. And it strongly
argues to students of
American Jewish history that
the story of their people in this
country extends beyond the
borders of the Lower East
Side and its sister ghettos of
the East and Mid-West.
To be sure, Libo and Howe’s
correctives are not new: More
than 40 years ago, Marcus Lee
Hansen argued for the signifi
cance of the New American in
the Manifest Destiny story.
And for more than a genera
tion, local Jewish Historical
Societies from Kansas City to
Colorado to California to
Oregon have patiently col-
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lected the miscellania that
make up the texts of this book.
Indeed, some of these
documents have been publish
ed elsewhere: Abraham
Kohn’s peddler lament is, for
example, one of the most wide
ly quoted passages in
American Jewish memoir
literature. Libo and Howe’s
contribution lies rather in their
uncommon abilities to
assimilate and to masterfully
introduce documents usually
of interest only to scholars to
large and appreciative lay
audiences.
Correction
As noted above, Libo and
Howe could not have done
their work without books like
Mid-America’s Promise, a com
pilation of essays and
documents on Kansas City
Jewish history. A work typical
of many produced by local
historical societies over the
last 30 years, they provide
scholars possessed of sen
sitivities to national trends in
Jewish economic life, politics,
demographics and religion
with important case studies
from whence they ultimately
draw wider conclusions. ^
Finally, it should be noted
that the spade work of
Western Jewish history con
tinues to be undertaken by
loving and devoted members
of historical societies. Harriet
and Fred Rochlin’s richly il
lustrated and handsomely pro
duced record of Jewish Ufe in
the Far West is a case in point.
Pioneer Jews covers much new
ground even as it retells the
sagas of Jewish peddlers and
entrepren^irs in 19th Century
frontier society.
Jeffrey S. Gurock is the
author of When Harlem Was
Jewish (Columbia University
Press).
The telephone number for “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt”
is 334-3854.
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overcome with a deep sense of
shame. How could there have
been a time when he behaved
improperly towards the king?
The more he thought about it
the more he was aroused to in
tense feelings of distress and
remorse for his earlier im
proper conduct.
When the king saw that the
peasant was so distressed and
had reached the level of... and
you shall return to G-d your
G-d... then the Al-mighty King
(G-d) accepted his Teshuva,
forgave him, and cured him of
his imperfections.
This beautiful parable can
be aptly applied to our own
conduct. Our material wealth
comes from G-d, though we do
not deserve it; receiving this
benevolence from above
should ultimately cause us to
feel remorseful for ever having
doubted G-d’s kindness jto us.
Children enjoying playground equipment at *‘After^chool
Care.’’
**After-school Care’* children on “excursion” to Providence
Square.
Part of the festivities of Succoth was learning about the Lulav
and the Ethrog.
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