ROBERT BRUCE PHOTOGRAPHY
OUR COMMUNITY
Celebrating O Hope for the Future
n Oct. 24, more than 2,000 people celebrated an Evening of Hope and Renewal with the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. They came to the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center for an inspiring and heartwarming evening highlighting the special place the children of the Yeshiva occupy in the hearts and minds of our community. And they left feeling they were part of a transformative movement. Based in Oak Park and JACKIE HEADAPOHL DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL Southfield, the Yeshiva is the educational home to 1,300 students in Pre-K through grade 12, who receive the essential foundations to become the next generation of leaders. Their campuses also house the Partners Detroit Adult Learning Program and the Yeshiva’s Scholars’ Kollel, a full-time postgraduate Talmud program with more than 40 resident scholars. More than 200 guests came to the dinner an hour early to participate in the Partners Detroit Torah study session. Each of them learned with a specially selected study partner from a curriculum developed by Partners educator Rabbi Chaim Fink. Along with the rest of the Yeshiva’s dinner guests, they were there for the chilTOP: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at the dais of the dren of the Yeshiva, celebrating hope 2021 Yeshiva Beth Yehudah Dinner. for the future of our people and our ABOVE: Mark Davidoff accepts the Yeshiva’s prestigious Guardian Award. community.
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah Annual Dinner inspires thousands.
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NOVEMBER 4 • 2021
A PROGRAM TO REMEMBER Rabbi Gershon Miller, the Yeshiva’s new dean, underscored the role of the children. “As we go through life and are beset by its many challenges and difficulties,” he told the crowd, “it is all too easy to become weary, negative and pessimistic about our world and the future. But then we look at our children. Through them we see a world of endless possibilities of goodness and kindness … of hope and renewal.” Yeshiva president Gary Torgow inspired the audience with a Dvar Torah about Noah and the devastating flood brought upon his generation by the Almighty. “The Bible tells us when the floodwaters receded, Noah sent two birds from the ark, the raven and the dove,” he said. “The holy commentator the Or Hachaim explains that the dove was sent on a mission which it completed by bringing back from the newly barren world an olive branch, indicating that the world was again habitable. The raven, in contrast, had no mission whatsoever. Noah simply discharged the raven from the ark strictly to banish it from his and his family’s presence.” Torgow continued, “Throughout literature and world history, the raven represents darkness, despair, pessimism and negativity. Edgar Allen Poe describes the raven as a symbol
