Don’t Separate Yourself from Community
It is so good to have everyone here tonight for Shabbat. As we try to come back into the synagogue after a couple of years of pandemic, I am very grateful to all the people who have kept us functioning and growing during that time, and I am particularly grateful for Eileen Epstein, Cynthia Passakow and our Sisterhood for having the great idea of a pizza “Homecoming” dinner tonight, to coincide with the Bar Mitzvah of Chase Gurtman.
Rabbi Hillel famously said: Al Tifros min ha Tzibur - Do not separate yourself from community.
הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר
Well, during the past two years, we have all been required to separate ourselves from community and it’s so good to be coming back. It is also challenging to come back. I think many of us have embraced the ease and convenience of staying home, doing things on ZOOM when we are up for it, and generally sinking into our families, pods, and homes and I think it is surprisingly complicated coming back into social community spaces.
Also, communities are great, but they are not always easy or stress free. Being in community means dealing with all the people in a community, and that requires empathy, patience, humor, tolerance, and faith. Chase, it is very easy to just decide that doing your own thing, with a couple of close friends, outside of a community is easier, less stressful, and often less annoying.
The gifts of community are not always obvious or immediate, but develop as you invest in people over years and they invest in you, as you go through life’s good events and tragic events together, and you see how important it is to have community and how difficult it can be these days, especially when you are bit older. Internet, iphones, streaming movies, and delivery services have made it easier and easier to fool ourselves that when we are living in our little bubble, we are fine and our lives are full, but I strongly believe that a flourishing full human life is one that takes place in community.
That is particularly true for Jews since Judaism is not a tradition one can practice in a vacuum or even fully understand alone at home or over ZOOM. Judaism is rooted in community and so as you are becoming Bar Mitzvah, I just want to say that later, when joining a synagogue feels like too much, or you don’t have time, or you don’t know anyone, or you’ve forgotten the Hebrew you’ve just learned – really check yourself and make sure you are not just giving into the path of least resistance. Make sure you really feel you are flourishing in the life you are shaping for yourself.
Al tifros min hatzibur. Don’t be a recluse. Don’t be a couch potato. Don’t separate yourself from community.
Hillel also said (in the very next verse) In a place where no one is acting like a human being, you must strive to be the human/humane being. In other words, if no one is being a mensch, you be the mensch.
In Hebrew that is “b’makom sh’ein anashim hishtadel lih’yot ish”
It is a seemingly simple rule – try to be kind and nice. Be humane. Be a mensch, but this sometimes much harder than it seems. In a place where everyone is being angry, cruel, hateful and cold, it can be scary to be the one person to step up and show empathy, especially if that means crossing lines from your small group of likeminded people to help someone who is seen as on the “other side.”
Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest. Like eat your vegetables, exercise every day, or practice your Hebrew.
So today as we come back together, let’s celebrate our tradition, and Rabbi Hillel by remembering “Do not separate from community” and “When you are in a place where no one is being kind, you be kind.”