Midrash Breishit Rabbah
When Abraham was three years old, he went out.... [and observed the world]
and wondered in his heart: Who created heaven, earth and me? He saw the sun
rise, and said: this one must have created heaven, earth and me, so he
prayed to the sun. When the sun set and the moon rose in the east, he said:
This one must have created the heaven, earth, and me. So he prayed to the
moon. In the morning, the moon sank, and the sun returned. Then he said:
there is no authority in either of these. There must be a higher Lord over
them both - to God I will pray, and before God I will prostrate myself.
Genesis 18: 17-33 17. And the Lord said. Shall I hide from Abraham that
thing which I do; 18. Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and
mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19.
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after
him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment;
that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him. 20.
And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and
because their sin is very grave; 21.1 will go down now, and see whether they
have done altogether according to the cry, which has come to me; and if not,
I will know. 22. And the men turned their faces from there, and went toward
Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23. And Abraham drew near,
and said, Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24. Perhaps
there are only fifty righteous inside the city; will you also destroy and
not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25. Be it far
from you to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked; and
that the righteous should be as the wicked, be it far from you; Shall not
the Judge of all the earth do right? 26. And the Lord said. If I find in
Sodom fifty righteous inside the city, then I will spare the whole place for
their sakes. 27. And Abraham answered and said. Behold now, I have taken
upon me to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes; 28. Perhaps there
shall lack five of the fifty righteous', will you destroy the whole city for
lack of five? And he said. If I find there forty five, I will not destroy
it. 29. And he spoke to him yet again, and said, Perhaps there shall be
forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. 30. And
he said to him. Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak; Perhaps
there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find
thirty there. 31. And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak to
the Lord; Perhaps there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not
destroy it for twenty's sake. 32. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry,
and I will speak yet but this once; Possibly ten shall be found there. And
he said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake. 33. And the Lord went his
way, as soon as he had left talking with Abraham; and Abraham returned to
his place.
How does Judaism help us find God? Through Studying Sacred Texts:
When two people study Torah together. God's presence rests between them. (Mishna
Pirkei Avot)
In prayer, I speak to God, in study God speaks to me. (Finkelstein)
Every time we grapple with the meaning of a sacred text, a new revelation is
bom out of the dialogue between Torah and us. Through Worship:
A person enters a synagogue and stands behind a pillar and prays in a
whisper, and God hears his or her prayer. So it is with all God's creatures.
Can there be a nearer God than this? God is as near to God's creatures as
the ear to the mouth (Talmud Yerushalmi).
When a person is mean and does things which are wrong, his actions remove
the Divine
Presence (Shechinah) from his midst, as it is said, "your sins have
separated you from your God." But when a person does good and studies Torah,
his actions bring him closer to the Shechinah (Midrash Seder Eliahu Rabbah).
Through Holy Acts "What was it like to march at Selma?" "Like praying with
my feet" (Abraham Joshua Heschel).
Imitating God
What is the meaning of the verse, "Follow none but Adonai your God?"
(Deuteronomy
13:15). Is it possible for a human being actually to follow the ways of God?
What it means is that we should imitate the attributes of God.
As God clothed the naked, as it is written, "And the Lord made for Adam and
his wife garments of skin, and God clothed them" so should you clothe the
naked.
As God visited the sick, as it is written, 'The Lord appeared to Abraham by
the terebinths ofMamre [the text immediately preceding this one described
how Abraham circumcised himself] - so you should visit the sick.
As God comforted the mourners, as it is written, "After the death of Abraham
God blessed his son Isaac" so should you comfort mourners.
As God buried the dead, as it is written, "He [God] buried him [Moses] in
the valley" - so also you should bury the dead.
Talmud Tractate Sotah 14b
The Holiness Code, Leviticus chapter 19: 1-4, 9-18 1. And the Lord spoke to
Moses, saying, 2. Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel, and
say to them. You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. 3. You
shall revere every man his mother, and his father, and keep my sabbaths; I
am the Lord your God. 4. Turn you not to idols, nor make to yourselves
molten gods; I am the Lord your God. 9. And when you reap the harvest of
your land, you shall not reap to the very comers of your field, nor shall
you gather the gleanings of your harvest. 10. And you shall not glean your
vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave
them for the poor and stranger; I am the Lord your God. 11. You shall not
steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie one to another. 12. And you shall not swear
by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the
Lord. 13. You shall not defraud your neighbor, nor rob him; the wages of he
who is hired shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14. You
shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but
shall fear your God; I am the Lord. 15. You shall do no unrighteousness in
judgment; you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person
of the mighty; but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16. You
shall not go up and down as a slanderer among your people; nor shall you
stand against the blood of your neighbor; I am the Lord. 17. You shall not
hate your brother in your heart; you shall reason with your neighbor, and
not allow sin on his account. 18. You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge
against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as
yourself; I am the Lord. 19. You shall observe my laws.
[1] Isaiah 63:7-9 I will recount the kind acts of Adonai, The praises of
Adonai— For all that Adonai has wrought for us, The vast bounty to the House
of Israel That [God] bestowed upon them According to [God's] mercy and
[God's] great kindness. [God] thought: Surely they are My people, Children
who will not play false. So [God] was their deliverer. In all their trouble
[God] was troubled, And the angel of [-God's] Presence delivered them. [2]
Midrash - Pesikta l66a,b; Lamentations Raba When the Israelites do God's
will, they add to the power of God on high. When the Israelites do not do
God's will, they, as it were, weaken the great power of God on high. [3]
Midrash - Sifrei 144a; Pesikta 102b (and elsewhere) "You are My witnesses,
says Adonai, and I an God" (Isaiah 43:12). That is, when you are My
witnesses I an God, and when you are not My witnesses, I an, as it were, not
God. [4] Midrash - Exodus Raba 2:5 (based on Isaiah 63:9) Goa-said to
Moses: "Do you not feel that I live in pain just as the Israelites are
living in pain? Know this from the place whence I an speaking to you, fron
out of the thorns. I an, as it were, a partner in their pain." [5] Midrash
- Sifrei (Beha^alotekha^ piska 84) (and elsewhere) You find that, every tine
Israel is enslaved, the Shekhinah, too, is, if one could possibly say so,
enslaved together with then... And it is said: "In all their troubles [God]
was troubled." [6] Midrash - Lamentations Raba, petichta 34 (and elsewhere)
"The word that cane to Jereniah fron Adonai, after Nebuzaradan, the chief of
the guards, set hin free at Ranah, to which he had taken hin, chained in
fetters, anong those fron Jerusalen and Judah who were being exiled to
Babylon" (Jereniah 40:1). R. Aha commented [on this verse].: "If one could
possibly say so, both God and Jereniah were bound in chains."
Secrets of Torah
Zoharffl,152a
"THE LORD SPOKE TO Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, on the first new moon
of the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, saying: Let
the Israelite people offer the Passover sacrifice at its set time ..." Num.
9:1-2.
Rabbi Abba said: Why was the command regarding the paschal lamb repeated
here after it had been given to them once before while they were in Egypt?
^The reason is that the Israelites thought that the first command was
intended only while they were still in Egypt and not for future years. The
command was renewed in the second year to tell them that it was to be kept
throughout the generations//^ the first month of the second year contains a
sublime mystery. The month signifies the moon and the year points to the sun
that sheds light upon the moon. This was the position when all the laws of
Torah were delivered to Israel.
RabhLSimeon said- Alas for the man who sees in the Torah only stories, and
reads the Torah as dealing with everyday matters. If this were so, anyone
could make up an even better Torah dealing with ordinary things. Princes
already have better books that deal with things of this world, which we
could use as a model for a worldly torah. But the Holy Torah has within it
heavenly secrets and divine truths.
Come and see: The upper worid and the lower world are in perfect balance.
Israel, below, is balanced by the angels, above. Of the angels on high it is
written: He makes the winds His messengers [angels] Ps. 104:4. Angels are
spirits [winds] and when they come down to earth they must put on earthly
garments. If they didn*t have a physical covering, they could not remain on
earth, nor could the earth hold them. If this is true of angels, how much
more true is it of the Torah, for the Torah created the angels, as well as
all the worlds—all of which continue to exist only because of the Torah. So,
too, with the Torah itself: the worid could not contain the Torah unless she
were clothed in some earthly form.
The stories in the Torah are its earthly outer garments. Woe to those who
mistake this outer garment for the essential Torah itself, for they will be
denied a share in the world to come. As David said: [Lord,] open my eyes
that I may behold wondrous things out of Your Torah Ps. ll9:l8. This refers
to the mysteries which are under the Torah's outer covering.
Come and see* A fool looks at a man and sees mainly his clothing, and judges
thereby. But, in truth, the shape of a person's clothing merely suggests the
significance [shape] of the body inside. Moreover, that body has
signifi-cance only because of its soul.
So it is with the Torah. The "body" of the Torah is made up of the precepts
of the Torah. (The Hebrew expression is gufei- Torah, guf meaning body or
principle, thus the translation, "bodies of the Torah.") These are clothed
in the tales of the Torah which tell of this woricL Fools see only the
stories, the trappings, and do not know that there is substance under the
surface. Those with greater understanding can perceive the body under the
outer stories. The truly wise, those who serve the Highest, those who stood
at Sinai, see all the way through to the soul, to the root principles of the
true Torah. In the Next World, these [truly wise] will be able to see the
soul of the soul of the Torah.
Come and see? Thus it is in the worlds above the world; outer garment, body,
soul, soul-of-soul. The outer garment is the heavens and all they contain;
the body is the community of Israel; the soul is the Glory of Israel; and
the soul of the soul is the Ancient Holy One. All these are entwined one
within the other.
Woe to the wicked ones who see the Torah only as a collection of tales
dealing with things of this worid; who see only the garment and seek no
further. Happy are the righteous ones who see the Torah as it really is.
Just as wine must be contained in a bottle, so the Torah can be held only in
a garment of narratives—which it is our duty to penetrate.
TEXT #1 - Midrash
When God was about to give the Torah to the Jewish people. God summoned the
people and said to them "My children I have something precious that I would
like to give you for all time, if you will accept My Torah and observe My
commandments." The people then asked, "Ruler of the Universe, what is that
precious gift You have torus? The Holy One. blessed be God. replied. "It is
the Messianic Age." The people of Israel answered "Show us a sample of the
world-to-come." The Holy One, blessed be God, said, "The Shabbat is a sample
of the world-to-come, for that world will be one long Shabbat."
TEXT #2 - Elie Wiesel - A Jew Today
I shall never forget Shabbat in my town. When I shall have forgotten
everything else, my memory will still retain me atmosphere of holiday, of
serenity pervading even the poorest houses; the white tablecloth, the
candles the meticulously combed little girls, the men on their way to
synagogue. When my town shall fade into the abyss of time, I will continue
to remember the light and warmth it radiated on Shabbat.
TEXT #3 - Shabbat sheds light...
This Shabbat sheds light upon us - light for the days to come. We have
leisure by which to see the world with new and grateful eyes. We have time
now to look inward. And now we are free to embrace family and fnends, to
make our lives simpler and more complete. We think of our homes and those we
love
When we call to mind the duties and affections of home, how greatly are all
blessings enriched all cares and sorrows softened. May the hearts of parents
and children always be turned to one another that our homes may be
sanctuaries of love and devotion. May we use this Shabbat to bring happiness
to our family life, and blessing to all people. -^ From Gates of Prayer
TEXT #4 - Mordechai Kaplan
An artist cannot be continually welding his brush. He must stop at times in
his painting to freshen his vision of the object, the meaning of which he
wishes to express on his canvas. Living is also an art. We dare not become
absorbed in its technical processes and lose our consciousness of its
general plan. The Shabbat represents those moments when we pause in our
brushwork to renew our vision of this object. Having done so, we take
ourselves to our painting with clarified vision and renewed energy. This
applies to the individual and to the community alike
lyun Halakha - A Word of Torah and Jewish Law
Orthodox. Conservative, and Reform - Shabbat and Halacha (Jewish Law)*
(drawn from Taste of Judaism curriculum developed by Dan Judson)
Do not kindle a flame on Shabbat (Exodus 35:3). Do not travel lest the
traveler in need of a switch to guide his animal cut a twig from a tree
(Talmud). Orthodox: Based on an understanding that turning on a car key or
electricity is like kindling a flame. Orthodox Jews do not drive on Shabbat.
Conservative: As we have already indicated, participation in public service
on the Sabbath is in the light of modem conditions to be regarded as a great
mitzvah, since it is indispensable to the preservation of the religious life
of American Jewry. Therefore, it is our considered opinion that the positive
value involved in the participation in public worship on the Sabbath
outweighs the negative value of refraining from riding in an automobile.
(Rabbinical Assembly - Committee on Law and Standards) Reform: Judaism
emphasizes action rather than creed as the primary expression of religious
life, the means by which we strive to achieve universal justice and peace...
Our founders stressed that the Jew's ethical responsibilities, personal and
social, are enjoined by God. The past century has taught us that the claims
made upon us may begin with our ethical obligations but they extend to many
other aspects of Jewish living, including: creating a Jewish home centered
on family devotion, life-long study, private prayer and public worship,
daily religious observance, keeping the Sabbath and the holy days.
celebrating the major events of Jewish life ... Within each area of Jewish
observance. Reform Jews are called upon to confront the claims of Jewish
tradition, however differently perceived, and to exercise their individual
autonomy, choosing and creating on the basis of commitment and knowledge.
(E. B. Borowitz, A Centenary Perspective)
SESSION II - ETHICS All Jewish
ethics are based on obligations, not rights. The world is sustained by three
things: Torah, worship and deeds of love.
A) Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands on the path of sinners, nor sits in the gathering ofscomers.
Rather, his delight is in the
Torah of the Lord; and in his Torah he meditates day and night. He shall be
like a tree planted by streams of water, that brings forth fruit in its
season...(Ps. 1).
The path we walk is ours to choose. I. A. Jewish ethics, like Jewish
spirituality, is text based.
1. Ethics in the West is a discipline of philosophy, and ethics tries to
derive its values from universal propositions and logical arguments.
2. In Judaism, ethics are deduced from our interaction with sacred texts.
Our intelligence informs our interpretation, but the interpretation proceeds
from sacred words and stories.
3. The sources and their traditional interpretations are called Torah."
Torah refers to the five books of Moses, but in Judaism it also refers to
all interpretations which arise from the five books: Commentaries, norms,
theologies, laws, devotional practices and customs. (SEE: Chart of Historic
Development) Text is always the starting point:
B. You shall diligently guard these commandments and do them (Deut. 6:17).
Lest a person suppose that if he 'guard' the commandments of the Torah, he
can sit quiet and need not do them, it says "to do them.' If a person leams
the words of Torah, he has fulfilled one command, if he leams and guards
them, he has fulfilled two; if he leams and guards and does them, there is
no greater than he. (Midrash Sifrei Deut. Ekev 49).
4. The building block of Jewish ethics is the mitzvah, the commandment.
Traditionally, Jews identify 613 commandments within the five books of
Moses. Each of the different branches Of Judaism approaches the mitzvot
differently.
Orthodox: Divinely given commands, the meaning of which are worked out in
careful detail using hermeneutic principles.
Conservative: Cumulative law of Jewish civilization. Inspired, but not
given.
Reform: A human response to the divine presence. They are guidance, but not
governance. More weight is given to "ethical* rather than *ritual' mitzvot.
n. The Guiding Principle: Betzelem Elohim
C. You shall be holy, for I, the YHVH your God, am Holy (Lev. 19.2).
From this we understand we must imitate God.
D. As God clothed the naked - \And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife
garments of skin and he clothed them' - so you should clothe the naked. As
he visited the sick -
•The Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinths ofMamre* - so you should
visit the sick. As God attends to the dead - *He buried him (Moses) in the
valley* - so you should bury the dead. (Talmud, Sotah 14a).
What responsibilities arise from the knowledge you are created in the divine
image? ffl. Bern Adam Fhavero - we have horizontal obligations to humanity.
Commandments about ourselves.
E. Hillel said: If I am not for myself; who will be for me? If only for
myself; what am I?
If not now, when?
F. A person should have two slips of paper he carries with him at all times,
one in each pocket. On one it should be written "The whole world has been
created only for my sake." On the other should be written, "I am but dust
and ashes." (Hasidic teaching)
G. *The whole world has been created only for my sake." Therefore, man shall
take care at - every time and place to redeem the world and fill
its want." (R. Nachman ofBratslav).
Even When we are looking to ourselves, it's with a sense of responsibility.
H. In the World to come, we will be held accountable for every permitted
pleasure we denied ourselves. (Talmud, Brachot)
The world is good, the body and its pleasures are part of God's design.
IV. Im rak li, man ani? - The obligations of one person to another.
I. 'Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev. 19.18). Rabbi Akiba said, this is
the great principle of the Torah. Ben Azzai said, "m the day God created
man, in the image of God He made him" (Gen. 5.1). He said, this is a
greater principle than that.
(Midrash Sifra)
One might mistakenly conclude that 'your neighbor* is the limit of your
responsibility
J. This statement appears once: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
K. The stranger that dwells among you, he shall be to you as a native, and
you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
(Lev. 19.34).
Statements like this appear 33 times.
L. One who slays a single person, it is as if he has destroyed a whole
world. One who saves a single person, it is as if he saved an entire world.
(Mishna, Sanhedrin)
We are obligated to our fellow man to: value and sustain human life, just as
God values life. BTzelem elohim To value each individual as a unique
creation of God.
M. Judges and officers shall you establish in all your gates; and they shall
judge the people in righteous judgment, you shall not respect person, or
take bribes...Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live...(Deut.
16:18-20).
Create a just society, just as God is just.
N. There are eight degrees of Tzedakah:
(1) To give grudgingly, reluctantly, or with regret.
(2) To give less than one should, but with grace.
(3) To give what one should, but only after being asked.
(4) To give before one is asked.
(5) To give without knowing who will receive it, while the recipient knows
the identity of the giver.
(6) To give without making one's identity known.
(7) To give so that neither giver or receiver knows the identity of the
other.
(8) To help another become self-supporting through a gift, loan or finding
them work.
(Misheh Torah ofMaimonides)
And to be merciful, just as God is merciful
0. Mauka used to send money to a poor neighbor before each Yom Kippur. Once
Maruka's son returned angry, saying, 'that man was drinking fine wine, so I
did not give him the money.' His father replied, "surely he must have seen
better days to have such expensive tastes, return with the money, and in the
future I will double the amount of my gift.' (Talmud Yerushalmi).
The issue is as much about human dignity as it is about human survival. V.
Bern adam Fmakom - Vertical obligations of a Jew to God
We are obligated to sanctify time.
P. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to
sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the
magnificent stream of a year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedral; and our
Holy ofHolies is a shrine that neither the Romans nor the Germans were able
to burn...(A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath).
The key event of sacred time is the Sabbath.
Q. The children of Israel shall keep the Shabbat, to do the Shabbat
throughout their generations, an eternal covenant. It is a sign between me
and the Children of Israel forever. (Exodus 31.16)
1. Besides the Shabbat, there is a Jewish calendar of holy days and festive
days.
- the limi-solar calendar. The sacred month.
- the festivals, holidays and commemorative days
2. We are obligated to do holy deeds
-prayer
-Kashrut 3. Intention counts almost as much as action, and it is the process
of engaging Torah, not necessarily the product, that makes a religious Jew:
R. The Hatam Sofer noticed one .of his students was always melancholy. When
the Rabbi challenged the student for being so miserable, the student replied
that he had been reading Musar (ethical meditations), and that this had
brought him face to face with his many feelings. "If this is the effect that
this book has on you." the master said, "It is of no use to you. Read books
which make demands that you can more readily meet."
Ultimately, Judaism only asks of us what we are able to do. S. For this
commandment I give you this day is not too hard for you, nor too remote.
It is not in heaven, that you should say, who will go up for us to heaven to
bring it down to us, that we may do it?...no, it is very near to you, in
your mouth and in your heart, and you can do it. (Deut. 29.12-14).
SESSION 3 - COMMUNITY I. Jewish attitude toward community.
A. Imagine a person who is alone and has no relationship with anyone else;
one of that person's ethical qualities would be exercised or needed. They
are necessary and useful only when a person deals with others. (Maimonides,
Guide for the Perplexed)
-We cannot live up to our full human potential unless we are involved in
others.
There are no monasteries, anchorites or hermits in Judaism. This attitude is
enshrined in Torah itself.
B. You stand here this day, all of you, before the Lord your God; your
tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your
children, your women, even the stranger within your camp, from the
woodchopper to the watercarrier, to enter into the covenant of the Lord you
God...to the end that God may establish you this day as God's people, and be
your God as God promised you and swore to your ancestors, Abrahamjsaak and
Jacob. I make this covenant, not with you alone, but both with those who are
standing here with us today...and with those who are not with us here this
day. (Deut. 29:9-14)
-The Jewish community is diverse, made up of many distinct elements.
-The covenant and its obligations extends across generations. It is binding
even on those who are not there to agree to it. 'There are two kinds of
Jews.
There are Jews of fate, and Jews of faith" - J. Soloveitcheik.
C. As I see them from the mountain tops/ gaze upon them from the heights.
There is a people who dwells alone/not reckoned among the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob/ number the dust cloud of Israel?
May I die the death of the upright/May my fate be like theirs.
(Number 25)
-One of our obligations is to remain distinct. There are a number of ways to
do this, through geography, dress, diet, communal organizations, marriage.
All seem to be aimed at keepmg us religiously distinct, and that is the key
in the modern Jewish community. n. What does community do for us?
D. These are the things, the fruits of which a person enjoys in this world,
while the principle awaits in the World to come. These are: to honor father
and mother to perform acts of loving kindness to attend the house of study
daily to welcome the stranger to visit the sick to rejoice with bride and
groom to bury the dead to comfort the bereaved to pray with sincerity to
make peace between a person and his fellow
And the study of Torah is equal to them all. (Talmud Shabbat 127a;
Prayerbook)
-Most of these values must be fulfilled through community, they require
involvement with people. As a result, Jewish communities create institutions
to make these things possible:
The Jewish Family -the building block of community. Not just a nuclear
family, extended family. .
Creating a Jewish household is critical: Jewish ritual, Jewish books, Jewish
ideas and values. The Jewish family has taken a battering in the American
milieu.
To support Jewish families institutionally, larger Jewish communities will
have a
Jewish Family Service,\o help support families.
Acts of Love - There are many, many Jewish charities, designed to serve
both Jews and non-Jews. MAZON, Jewish World Service, Belt Tzedek. Jewish
community centers
House of Study - Education is a key Jewish value. Religious schools,
supplementary schools, Jewish day schools, Judaic Studies programs and
Jewish colleges and seminaries.
The Stranger - We are obligated to extend hospitality to travelers,
visitors.
The Atlanta Temple homeless shelter, IHC's Interfaith Hospitality Network
Visit the Sick - Bechar Cholim is incumbent on every Jew. Jewish
doctors, clinics, hospitals, Magen David Adorn
Rejoice with bride - A wedding is a big event in Judaism, "creating a whole
world"
Rabbi Joshua and the Roman matron
Burying the dead - A Jewish cemetery Hevrah Kadesha. KavodHamet
Comforting the bereaved - Shiva, services in the home, Kaddish said in
community.
Pray with sincerity - A Jew can pray anytime, anywhere, but in community is
particularly desirable, so we need a synagogue. But because we argue all the
time, two synagogues are better than one.
To make peace - At all times. ffl. How we create community
E. In every generation a person is obligate to regard himself as if he
personally was liberated from Egypt. (Passover Haggadah)
- We create community through shared memory and experience.
- A shared calendar
- Communal events
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