A Community

An educator and friend wrote an article entitled, “Always Tag All Four Bases.  Joel Grishaver's theory struck a resident chord deep inside. The basic idea is this: there are four indispensable components to living a conscious Jewish life and ensuring Jewish survival in the next generation.

The first area begins with "Bunny." Bunny was our synagogue janitor. He was some sort of Christian, I never learned exactly what kind. He was always soft spoken.  The biggest thrill for any of us kids was to see the inside of Bunny’s apartment during Junior Congregation. The epitome of cool was to sit in the kitchen and hang out with Bunny.  He would always listen to what we had to say it would never report back to my parents the terrible things that we did. He was cool.

Many years later I learned that Bunny was not his real name. But for us it was. That is what he was to all of the children, Bunny.

Then it was Mr. Eisner. He cracked a smile about every other Rosh Hodesh. But he was always at Services and ran the youth programs. It was definitely not cool but we listened to him he spoke.

Our Hazzan, Cantor Marcus. laughed a lot.  In fact he waited for us to tell him jokes.  And when we failed to do so, he shared some of his own.  If we laughed he would tell more. One day I mentioned the writer Elie Wiesel to him but mispronounced it.  It came out as Eli Weasel.  He laughed so hard that his face turned red and he ended up having to hold his stomach. That was the end of that Bar Mitzvah lesson.

Sunday morning services were always the same. Same crew. Same still jokes. How many times can you laugh at “ha-motsie lechem Minnie Horvitz?”  Yet all the old men, for that is how they seemed to me, belly laughed every week.  They also welcomed me to sit next to them and passed food down whenever my plate was empty.

Then there's the rabbi’s class at the local college. It was there that I first learned that there was so much more to Judaism than reciting the ashray and eating matzoh. In that seminar room, I am discovered my first inkling to become a rabbi. It was a kind of awakening for me.

Here is the main point:  Memories are a great tapestry composed of individual filaments which form the core of our identity. Each one of the people of our past and countless more beckoned us, welcomed us and embraced us. They interacted every day. They knew our lives and our dirt. We were part of a holy community.

Things shared by community are sacrosanct through time and companionship. Alliances forged by common experience become a great underpinning of our personal identity. As Grishaver notes, people fly from one diet to the next but when he finally make it to Weight Watchers, with dozens of others who are there for support and encouragement, they make it. And don’t forget about AA and NA and DA and all the other recovery groups. They work because they are a community.

Hillel said, millennia ago, “Do not separate yourself from community.”  Pretty wise advice.