Keep in Touch

Shavuot begins this year on May 16^th. Originally, a festival of the harvest (Chag HaKatzir), after the second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE the rabbis recast the Day of First-fruits (Yom Habikkurim) into The Season of the Giving of our Torah (Zeman Matan Torateinu). So, at Shavuot we remember when our ancestors stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and witnessed the Revelation of God. Progressive Jews regard Revelation as a continuing process – not a once-and-for-all event. But that’s not the only aspect of the Sinai experience, which has been continuous for millennia: At Sinai our ancestors stood together and became not only a people of God, but a community - ‘adat benei Yisrael’, the congregation of the children of Israel.

Jewish life has undergone numerous transformations in the past 3,300 years since we dwelt in the desert, but still, here we are, an eidah, a congregation. And yet, for many of us, that may seem like a rather theoretical notion. What does it mean to be part of a congregation when you live alone and can’t get to the synagogue? What does it mean to belong to a community, when the demands of daily life take you far away from it? Surely, apart from small numbers of traditionally inclined people who still live in tightly knit neighbourhoods, for most of us in Britain today, the concept of community bears no relation to our every day experience?

If that is so, perhaps we need to revise our understanding of community. Community is about making contact. Each week around one third of our congregation meet together – at study sessions, meetings and Shabbat services. But community contact extends beyond the synagogue, and includes the various ways in which some of us make connections with one another - both face-to-face, and via phone-calls, letters and emails. The emphasis here is on some, and that’s why we are launching a new initiative - borrowed from the Liberal Jewish Synagogue - that we are calling Keep In Touch (KIT). Keep In Touch – that’s the message to each individual, each couple, each family: Keep in touch with one another; keep in touch with the congregation as a whole. It’s not always possible to meet face-to-face – but even phone calls exchanged between those who live alone, can make all the difference, and remind us that we belong to Brighton & Hove Progressive Synagogue – Adat Shalom Verei’ut – a ‘Congregation of Peace and Friendship.’ We may not live side by side anymore, but like those who established Liberal Judaism in the early 1900s, we can still be a community in the 21^st century.