COMMUNITY

Jewish life is never lived alone, even when we are by ourselves.

A central part of being Jewish is knowing that we are connected to the Jewish People. When we recite traditional Jewish prayers we are almost always speaking of “we” rather than “I.”

Our Fellowship is all about coming together in community, precisely because we know we are so scattered.

The practice of community can involve building Distant Community, finding Local Community, and internalizing as individuals traditional rhythms of Jewish community.

Our practice of connecting to community is on all three levels. We use technology to connect to our scattered fellowship, and we invite small numbers of local friends together for shared celebration, and we engage individually and collectively in acts of learning, service and celebration.

- Distant Community:

As a Fellowship we connect to each other online, by video and social media.

We adopt certain devotional or study practices in common with other members of our distance fellowship that we all can do wherever we are.

We study the same texts together, two at a time, in partnership (havrutah) over the telephone at set times.

We share with each other on social media about the progress of our devotional activities.

We find common service projects that we can support together or we can do in our areas and give advice to each other. 

We travel to see each other on occasion.

-Local Community:

Each of us lives in difference circumstances. Some of us are Jews isolated from all other Jews. Some of us may be just discovering Judaism. Some of us may be very involved in a synagogue we love, yet we find we speak a different religious language. 

Each of us has friends we can invite to our homes or to a neutral third space so we can celebrate something important to us. Each of us may be able to find a friend to study something together with. These friends do not have to be Jewish. This is your gathering and your fellowship. You can invite whomever you like.

- Internalized Community

By paying attention to the days, weeks and seasons of the Jewish calendar we remind ourselves wherever we are of the themes that Jews are commemorating around the world at any given moment. By marking in our own lives the anniversaries of important moments in the life of our people, we connect to each other in the same moment of time even if we are not in the same space. By reciting similar prayers and paying attention to what is traditionally studied on any give holiday, we internalize themes that the Jewish community around the world is marking at that given moment.

- Joining Together Distant, Local and Internalized Community:

These forms of communal interaction can be brought together in one moment. We can invite local friends together to participate online in Fellowship celebration from a distance, all as a means of marking traditional moments that we experience in a given Jewish season.