DAY 643: Aspiring To Be More Like A Family

April 4, 2014
By bethmordecai
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DAY 643: Aspiring To Be More Like A Family

Dear Hevreh,

When I was in rabbinical school, we talked a good deal about the language we use to describe our communities. One of the terms that got tossed around a lot was “family.” It’s a word that connotes a feeling of closeness, of connection, of security, and of a deep and powerful bond that holds us together. Yet there is a certain amount of poetic license in describing our synagogue community as a family. Not only are most of us not related, but despite the close bonds that some of us feel with one another, do we really have such strong ties that each of us would call each other “family”? 
 
Personally, I’ve tried to be cognizant of how often I describe our community as a family because the term is so powerful that we are sensitive to its overuse and oversimplification. Of course, we’re not really a family and to talk as if we are sounds hollow and disingenuous. That being said, while I don’t think we can describe ourselves as a family, I sincerely believe that we can aspire to be more like a family.
 
This Shabbat is one example of that aspiration. 
 
We aspire to be an intergenerational home for Jewish wisdom which is why tonight (6:30 pm) we will celebrate Family Shabbat, as we do once a month on a rotating Friday night/Saturday morning basis. It’s an opportunity to bring the youngest to the oldest generations of our families into our community, even if they don’t belong as members of our community, in order to emphasize that the Jewish values and lessons we teach in the synagogue are not only applicable but are designed to be part of the intergenerational fabric of our families. 
 
We aspire to support one another through our times of sorrow which is why tomorrow (10 am) we will come together to help comfort member Leora Dagani-Greenhaus and her family through memorializing her father, Joseph Dagani z”l. Family means being there for one another when we need it the most, and this is one of those moments when we can be like a family for Leora and her family.
 
We may not be a family, but to be a Jewish Home for the Soul we must aspire to be more like a family.
 
Kol Tuv,
 
Rabbi Ari Saks 

Category : Family Shabbat Rabbi Rabbi's Journal Shabbat
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