Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 December 2002 — Page 6

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Jewish Post & Opinion „ _ „ Peace is still achievable The all-purpose prayer

By ANITA DIAMANT In this season of leafy, lingering evenings, I find myself saying the shechechiyanu a lot. "Holy One of Blessing, Your Presence Fills Creation. You have kept us alive, You have sustained us. You have brought us to this moment." Shechechiyanu is a blessing of thanksgiving for beginnings and "firsts." It is recited at the Rosh Hashanah table to commemorate the start of the new year. At a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, it stops the clock so that everyone at the celebration will look at the young person on the verge of adulthood, remembering back to his birth, imagining ahead to her wedding. Shechechiyanu is also a kind of all-purpose blessing you can say whenever you lift your head above the fray and, remembering how good it is to be alive, see the world anew. Blessing the moment, shechechiyanu leaves no room to moan about the passing of time. It stresses the positive, reveals the miraculous, and reminds us that change is the reward as well as the price of being alive. Shechechiyanu connects garden-variety joys to the whole fabric of creation. Using the plural "us," it connects each person who says it to the larger Jewish community, which has had its collective mouth all over these words for hundreds of years. Shechechiyanu is a way of re-inserting God into nature. Say you are on a whale watch and a whole school of dolphins appears and dances in your wake for an hour. There are other Hebrew blessings for such an occasion, but shechechiyanu will do, too. It's the Jewish version of "Wow." Or, if you prefer, "Cool." It's short and easy to learn. In a pinch, all you need to do is say the word shechechiyanu ("you have kept us alive"), and you sanctify the moment in the grocery store when your four-year-old genius reads the word "milk" for the first time, or at the breakfast table when your teenager actually thanks you for cooking eggs. I find myself saying shechechiyanu most often when I'm on vacation. It pops out on the occasion of seeing my first ocean-facing sunset and on tasting the first farm-stand peas. Even James Taylor's voice on the radio (a sound I associate with beaches and bicycle rides) gives me that little shudder of pleasure, that momentary awareness of grace, which seems to require an expression of gratitude. You can say shechechiyanu when you hear about the birth of a child, when the first raspberry of summer kisses your lips, when new friends are seated at your Shabbat dinner table. You can say shechechiyanu after you put together the new trampoline and before anyone jumps on it. You can say it on the morning your child begins kindergarten, and the evening your child returhs home from his freshman year at college. I say shechechiyanu all over Martha's Vineyard. On the ferry, in line at the grocery store, and even in the little Jewish cemetery where I've wandered so often, summer after summer, that the

It would have seemed that months, most automatic, if not years, ago there would have de- Or is it too late for such a developveloped in Israel groups on both sides ment? — Jewish and Arab — who would Of course not. have provided the basis for the kind And that is precisely what could or of life that would have permitted ev- should happen. The current situation erybody the opportunity to fulfill their is such that an outline of such a progoals. And because it was a united ef- gram could be accepted almost immefort, acceptance would have been al- diately. Maybe You’ll Agree

A story in this issue of the P-O notes that poverty statistics in Israel are rising alarmingly, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Statistics are often suspect, but if these hold up, it begins to look like PO columnist Judy Carr's repeated laments about poverty she sees around her in Israel are well founded. Ms. Carr has also repeatedly urged Americans to do all they can to ensure that the dollars they give go where they hope they will go. At least one Indianapolis Russian immigrant and some groups around the country are taking pains to ensure their charity is used as directed. As for the gap between rich and poor, it must especially rankle the many Israelis with socialistic leanings

names on the headstones are almost congregational in their familiarity. Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheynu

about the distribution of wealth. But perhaps it is a worldwide trend. We have seen reports that the gap has widened in America as manufacturing jobs and even some clerical ones are exported to wherever labor is cheapest, while some corporate CEOs make vastly more than an average employee, even if their companies limp toward bankruptcy. Add some Enron-style corruption and the picture is even worse. If the statistics about nearly one in five Israelis living below the poverty line are valid, the problem is one we expect will be addressed compassionately by federations in America. Let's hope we can help. Maybe you'll agree ... Ed Stattmann

Melech ha-olam shechechiyanu vekiyamanu vehigiyanu lazman hazeh.

How To Kill A Business In Tfn Facv Steps

1_ Don’t advertise. Just pretend everyqody knows what you have to offer. 2. Don't advertise. Tell yourself you just don’t have the time to spend thinking about promoting your business. 3. Don’t advertise. Just assume everybody knows what you sell. 4. Don’t advertise. Convince yourself that you've been in business so long customers will automatically come to you. 5. Don’t advertise. Forget that there are new potential customers who would do business with you if they were urged to do so.

6. Don’t advertise. Forget that you have competition trying to attract your customers away from you. 7. Don’t advertise. Tell yourself it costs too much to advertise and that you don't get enough out of it. 8. Don't advertise. Overlook the fact that advertising is an investment in selling — not an expense. 9. Don’t advertise. Be sure not provide an adequate advertising budget for business. 10. Don’t advertise. Forget that you have to keep reminding your established customers that you appreciate their business.

You decide..

it s your business in good times or bad.