Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 5, 1987 Page: 4 of 20
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TEXAS JEWISH POST THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1987 POSTORIAL PAGE 4
postoricils, opinions, etc...
Forsyth County and Moshe Rabbeinu
Who are our heros?
The charactei of a society is frequently reflected in its heroes.
Americans today seem to celebrate football and basketball stars,
rock ’n roll musicians and movie celebrities as our major national
heroes. And many of them are rewarded with outrageous salaries
in astronomical figures, a sure sign of our distorted national
values.
Recently, the Jewish people was confronted by a Bible reading
that celebrated an authentic moral hero. He is Moses, moral
teacher and law-giver. Moses didn’t play in the Super Bowl, but he
played in another contest: how to live a super meaningful life.
As a prinr; in Pharaoh’s court, he could have lived a life of
complete self-indulgence, but Jewish tradition tells us that Moses
showed his true character when he saw an Egyptian beating an
Israelite slave and at once intervened to stop the cruelty. He again
intervened to keep one Israelite from striking another, and defen-
ded Jethro’s daughter from shepherds who sought to molest her.
The Rabbis commented that Moses jeopardized his royal future
by identifying himself with slaves and simple people. Yet precisely
because this prince preferred to defend poor slaves rather than
witness cruelty and injustice, he earned the right to become the
liberator of the Israelite nation.
If Moses were alive, I am persuaded that he would be leading
the march against bigotpr and hatred in Forsyth County, Ga., and
elsewhere where prejudice festers. That’s the right stuff and all
authentic heroes are truly made of it
—By Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum
One Man's Opinion
By Robert Segal
It took 55 of our most
distinguished leaders only four
months to produce our
cherished U.S. Constitution,
that durable document whose
200th anniversary will be
celebrated beginning Septem-
ber 27.
The United States will have
242 million celebrants, com-
pared to the less than four
million American citizens in
1787. If retired Chief Justice
Warren Burger, the celebration
chairman, realizes his dream,
the presentation of scholarly
papers, nationwide school
seminars and more will con-
tinue to December 15, 1991,
the 200th anniversary of the
Bill of Rights.
When the Constitution was
created, our forebears were
struggling with debts stem-
ming from their gallant battles
with the British. We were in-
ternational small-fries, the
great industrial developments
were far down the road of time,
and we were largely agrarian.
Bon contrast, as we prepare
to celebrate, we no longer
avoid foreign entanglements
we are among the world’s
leaders in the exciting field of
technological development and
we are primarily urban and
suburban.
In 1787, the triumphant bat-
tle for the rights of man, even
though sullied by our practice
of slavery, gave us high regard
among the nations of the
world. Today we are keenly
aware of the evils of Com-
munism and Fascism, we are
on guard against designs that
Cuba and the Soviet Union
have on Central American
nations; we are preoccupied
with the battle to crush
terrorism, and the shadow of
potential planetary destruction
by nuclear might haunts us.
All this considered, we have
good reason to view the con-
stitutional celebration as a
time for renewal and genuine
patriotic rebirth similar to our
delight with the 1986 salute to
the "Lady in the Harbor."
However, as we move on
toward the great September
event, we find a battle raging
over views advanced by Attor-
ney General Edwin Meese III —
staunchly opposed by Supreme
Court Justices William Brennan
and John Paul Stevens. Some
believe this spreads a blanket
of gloom over the festivities.
Others look upon the clash as a
learning process for the nation.
Meese, reminding his adver-
saries of Miniver Cheevy, who
"loved the days of old when
swords were bright and steeds
were prancing," constantly ad-
vances his case for the
"jurisprudence of original in-
tent." He strikes out at judges
who, in his opinion, use the
document as "an empty vessel
into which each generation
may pour its passion and
prejudice." He bewails social
policies fostered by contem-
porary courts.
In rebuttal, Brennan reminds
I
Meese that "the genius of the
Constitution rests not in any
static meaning it might have
had in a world that is dead and
gone, but in the adaptability of
its great principles to cope
with current problems and
current needs.” J
Or as Joe Citizen would say:
"New occasions teach new
duties.” I
Stevens contends that Meese
overlooks the profound impor-
tance of the Civil War and sub-
sequent constitutional amen-
dments. Others advise the At-
torney General to hark back to
the mandate given those
illustrious gentlemen meeting
in solemn assembly 200 years
ago: "You have the obligation
to devise a document that can
be adapted to the crises of
human affairs.”
I
rt
i.
Robert E. Segal is a former newspaper
editor and director of the Jewish com-
munity relations councils of Cincinnati
and Boston.
The Rabbi's Beard — A Story Freedom *
W0\. Alan Green hurriedly scanned his office
bookshelf one more time, making sure he hadn’t
forgotten any of the journals he needed for his
trip. Pulling a little pamphlet on arterial
blockage from a shelf, he closed and locked his
briefcase. His patients had all been rescheduled
with his partner, and his rounds were being
covered by his fellow cardiologists at the
hospital. He was awfully lucky, he reasoned, to
have been selected to participate in the car-
diology exchange program, this year being held
in the Soviet Union. Here he was, just two years
out of residency, a good position at Lakeside
Medical Center in Cleveland, and now he would
be presenting at an international forum!
Dr. Green buzzed his secretary. "It looks like
I'm all set to go,” he told her, "Be sure to lock
up the office."
"There was one call for you, doctor,” his
secretary answered. "Dr. Charet, from radiology
asked that you please come around to see him
before you leave for the trip.”
Charet from radiology? Green had heard the
name before, but wasn’t really familiar with the
man. He breathed a sigh of impatience, after all
he was leaving on a trip halfway across the world
in the morning, but Charet was a fellow doctor,
and his office was in the building. He grabbed
his briefcase and went to see him.
When Dr. Charet heard Green’s name announ-
ced by the receptionist, he rushed out to meet
him in the waiting room. "Come in, Dr.," he
urged Green, and asked that all calls be held
while they talked.
"I appreciate you taking the time to see me,
Dr. Green. I know you must be quite harried,
what with the Russia trip and all. But that is
precisely why I need to ask you a very special
favor.”
"I'm, afraid I don’t understand.” said Green.
Charet pulled a heavy black pipe from his lab
coat and lit it, drawing in a couple of long puffs
before he continued. "I would like you to visit
my brother in Russia for me.”
Green looked at Charet in confusion, and asked
him to explain.
"You see, Alan,” Charet went on, "I am
originally from the Soviet Union, although 17
years have considerably dulled the accent. I was
a physician in Moscow, just out of school like
yourself, when I decided to seek asylum in the
United States. I was here on a study mission,
under heavy guard, but I managed to escape
from the KGB one evening, and the American
government was kind enough to let me stay. I
have thanked G-d, and the President, every day
since for the life and liberty I have found here."
"But, like in most things in life, my decision
was not without some regrets. I left behind a
young brother, himself in medical school at the
time, who did not even know that I planned to
escape to the West. Since that day, 17 years ago,
I have not heard from my brother Sasha.”
"Why didn’t you write him, try to contact
him?” asked Green.
”1 assume my brother was put under great
pressure when I defected,” answered Charet. "I
did not want tosubject him to certain per-
secution by writing him, for the Soviets have a
way of making one family member pay dearly for
another’s sins against the state.”
"However, a year ago, I asked another doctor,
who was attending a similar convention in
Moscow, to please look up my brother’s name
and see if he could locate an address. I felt that
any link with Sasha, even without his knowledge,
would answer the question I ask each evening,
'Is he alive or dead'?”
Dr. Charet pulled a small envelope from his
pocket and removed a little slip of paper. "This
is my brother's address, and if you could find it
within your schedule, I implore you to see him,
even for a few moments, and to tell him his
brother is alive and loves him very much.”
Dr. Green was reluctant to take the address.
"You know, Dr. Charet, I’m really not inclined
towards international intrigue. I’ve already been
cautioned by the hospital against making waves
and rocking the diplomatic boat. As it is, there
was some hesitation to send me on this trip
because I'm Jewish. It was only after I assure
the group’s leaders that I was unconnected with
and totally uninterested in political causes that
they finally decided to let me go.”
"Dr. Green, I am not asking you to engage in
surreptitious or illegal activity. I am asking you,
pleading with you, to merely deliver an
apolotical message to Sasha: Your brother has
not forgotten you. As a cardiologist, you work
diligently to alleviate the pains your patients feel
in their heart. I am asking you to do the same for
me, your colleague.”
Dr. Green took the address, not without T
trepidation. He placed it within the covers of his ^
medical journal, and promised he would try to ®
find Charet's brother. He tried to sound sincere,
but within himself, he was already beginning to
formulate his excuse for not having found the
time or ability to fulfill his mission.
There are many men like Dr. Green in this I
world. Intelligent, industrious even strongly I
committed to their work, they dislike looking 1 1
beyond the immediate issues of their life. Con-
straints of time and shortness of soul restrict
their participation in larger concerns, in the
wider ailments that afflict humanity in this
world. Dr. Green was a good man, to be sure,
but he satisfied his need to cure with his own a
patients. His Jewish upbringing, such as it was, I
See Freedom Page 19
'_'_' /■_j
lexQs Jewish Post
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 42, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 5, 1987, newspaper, February 5, 1987; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755511/m1/4/?q=mission+rosario: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .