In Pirkei Avot, that section of Talmud read on Shabbat between Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah, we read a statement by Hillel: Al tifrosh min ha-tzibur, “Do not separate yourself from the community.” It’s not just “it takes a village, “that is, it takes all elements of a community to strengthen the others, but with missing components there often can be no village. Substitute “congregation” and you understand that a small Jewish community requires the combined efforts of everyone to survive; and if someone isn’t interested in being there to do this or that task, the shared financial burden of maintaining the congregation must be considered as well.
This is the season when people make decisions as to affiliation or not. Across the years I’ve met those who believe “we really don’t need the Temple,” and others, many of whom truly didn’t ever “need” the Temple, still believe “if I don’t, who will?” They continue to put their resources into the maintenance and support of one of the most important – no, the most important - institutions our people has ever known. The synagogue has kept us together and has given us succor in times of trouble.
You dedicated congregants of Beth El understand this so well. There are many forces clamoring for our support, and most of them are truly worthy. Especially today when the financial future of many – some of us included – is a big question mark, doing what we can to keep Beth El going way beyond Covid-19 and its consequences, is important.
No one asked me to write this. Nonetheless as your rabbi I feel it my role to remind you. Entering the period of self-reflection there are many aspects of our lives that need evaluation. How we, as individual members and leaders of the congregation - and the congregation as a whole - have sustained each other, is such area.
There’s something else I want to mention. I know there are unaffiliated Jews in the area. Some of you are friends with them. Would you consider personally inviting them to affiliate with the Temple…maybe to re-affiliate? Tell them why you’re a member. Convey my thoughts. Give them this article. Should you make them feel guilty? Why not? Al tifrosh min ha-tzibur, separating yourself from the community is hazardous to our health, to their health, to their spiritual health, hazardous to their sense of identity.
So, facing the challenges ahead each of us has the responsibility to be part of the whole, to laugh and cry, to rejoice and mourn together.
One more thing: there’s a story that when the Israelites were winning battles, Moses would raise his arms, yet when they were in dire straits Moses would put his arms on rocks. Why, ask the sages, not something softer than rocks? Moses felt a part of the people, not apart from them. He, too, suffered along with them just as he rejoiced with them in their victories. Let’s take that lesson from Moses.
(Speaking of suffering, in 1939 a Jew was walking along the street in Berlin and accidentally brushed against a black-shirted storm trooper who yelled, “Swine!” “Epstein,” the Jew replied.)