I am most grateful to all of you for according me the honor and privilege of installing the officers of the newly elected administration of our Naomi chapter of Mizrachi Women. Our women work so hard, and so competently throughout the year and are hardly ever acknowledged and publicly thanked, that I am truly glad that I can, on behalf of all of us, thank them at the very beginning of their terms! So great is our confidence in their talents and dedication that we know beforehand that, with the help of G-d, they will execute their tasks with loyalty and perseverance and all their efforts will prove eminently successful.It is, I believe, most appropriate that we of Naomi chapter are installing our new officers right after Shavuos when we read the Book of Ruth, of which one of the two major heroines Is: NAOMI. It was she who was the guidi and mentor of young Ruth, and she must have been a person of unusual qualities to have a daughter-in-law love her so. Not every mother-in-law receives such devotion... The secret of Naomi is her character, and the secret of her character is in her hame: NAOMI, which means pleasantness or sweetness. This too, in my very sincere opinion, Is the secret of what keeps us together here working fomthe cause of Mlzrachi Women.I must say that I have rarely met a group of sweeter and finer young women than here at Naomi. So convinced am^I of this, that I want to ins tai each of the officers and the committee heads with some verse from our TANACH which speaks of NOAM or pleasantness.THE WELCOME, MEMBERSHIP, AND CULTURAL COMMITTEESames:Your duty Is to greet newcomers and make them welcome, bring them in officially as members, and them provide them with a rich cultural program.This can only be done through NOAM, by attracting them with a pleasant greeting, and giving them a substantial, pleasing program. In the 27th chapter of Psalms we read of David’s great request — he asks that he be granted the privelege - "to behold the GRACIOUSNESS - NOAM -…

I am honored to have been invited to participate in this dedication of the Max Stern Auditorium at The Jewish Center. It would seem so simple to delineate the virtues of this remarkable personality who walked in our midst and who left so profound an impression upon all of us. Yet I find the challenge of doing so quite daunting. It is difficult to speak about Max Stern, paradoxically, because there is so much to say about him. Where does one begin? Consider how much there was to admire in him: his piety and his perspicuity; his Jewishness and his generosity; his loves and his loyalties; his faith and his philanthropy; and, as well, his handsomeness and his humor. Indeed, while he would undoubtedly have enjoyed this great tribute to him, I doubt if he would have wanted it to take on too somber and funereal a character. He would have preferred a dash of humor, even a funny story about him—because he was a man who was fully alive and he knew how to laugh. But there is one feature of his life that, in the perspective of the last five years without him, stands out most boldly: the element of coherence and cohesiveness, of continuity and consistency. He was not just a bundle of unrelated qualities. All the attributes of his complex personality were ultimately bent to one purpose, one overarching theme that was dominant in his life. Permit me to explain by referring to this morning's Sidra. When Noah, after the tragic incident with Ham, offers a blessing to his son Shem, he says ברוך ה' אלקי שם, "blessed is the Lord the God of Shem." But how does this help and reward Shem? Why not say simply and directly, ברוך שם, "blessed is Shem?" After all, it was Shem who showed profound respect and who demonstrated the proper filial sensitivity? This implicit question lies at the root of a number of varied explanations of this verse, offered by our greatest commentators. The comments of Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, Bekhor Shor—all are fundamentally answers to this same question. I suggest…