A Little Shul

Rabbi Akiva was asked, “Since your God loves the needy, why doesn’t 

He care for them Himself?”

The sage responded that, “God, Father of rich and poor alike wants His children to help each other. The Lord desires a world of love.”

Thousands of people have passed through our humble little shul.    They have come through these doors seeking the touchstone of existence.  We too come to this place to reclaim our sense of being and renewed purpose.

In the annals of every Jewish community we participate in the drama of a congregation that moves from an idea into a fully functional community.  Making a real community is a bit like a marriage; people touching people.

Our purpose is never to merely survive. Survival itself is not noteworthy.  We celebrate marriages where we have sweated under the chairs of the bride and the groom. We honor the bereft whose shoulders we have supported.  We celebrate warm friendship on Shabbat morning. The evening minyans where we gathered at a house of death. We sing and dance countless baby namings and brit milahs.  We remember our little ones who spilled wine on the carpet and those stains still remind us of that day, even now. They now have children of their own. We recall Friday evening dinners. High Holy Days. Relationships cemented. In those walls we celebrated wars and peace, love and forgiveness.

The Puritans called marriage “the little church within the church.” Every day, without letup, for untold years every Synagogue has functioned as the sacred place where love and forgiveness have been recycled endlessly. That is what a marriage is; that is what a community does.

George Halas, owner of the Chicago Bears, worked well into his 80s. He was once asked, “George, at your age, what are you doing here working?”  Halas replied, “It’s only work if there’s someplace you’d rather be.”

Rabbi Akiva was right.  “God, Father of rich and poor alike wants His children to help each other. The Lord desires a world of love.”  This is our charter; to be there for one another as we have throughout all the past millennia.