Do not separate yourself from the community

Kehilla is more than just community.  It is, in the words of United Synagogue, is a sacred community, a group formed by Jews who have joined with each other to seek God, to explore and live out their understanding of Jewishness, to offer and to get support, to share joy and sorrow, to learn and grow together, to explore the meaning of their lives and the wisdom of their ancestors.  The teachers and families at Beth Shalom are busy being just that, a sacred community.  As a staff, we studied what that really means to them, and what the rabbis had to say about being part of a kehilla. (here are the Kehilla texts we studied) The most poignant learning for me was the reminder that while the Jewish community knows just what to do when someone has a baby, a sickness or a loss (do I hear casserole?) and we even have websites to help coordinate (http://www.takethemameal.com/ is my favorite, but there are others), as a community we fall down on the job when someone is going through divorce.  It’s the new whispered disease, like cancer was in the 50’s.  We discovered that casseroles can help comfort someone going through divorce, and cards and calls to say “I care. Can I help?” can take us all a long way down the road toward being a kehilla – a sacred community.