| As we begin 5787, I have been thinking about a simple question: what kind of year do we want this to be?
There is a Jewish idea that the way we begin a new year can help shape what follows. We dip apples in honey because we hope for sweetness. But I think there is something more to it. If we want a year filled with kindness, connection, belonging, and Jewish joy, we cannot simply wish for those things. We have to put our hands in and help build them.
That idea of putting our hands in together has been on my mind lately.
I know I talk about my family a lot in these messages. There is a reason for that. So much of what I understand about community started with them.
My grandparents, Troy, Pearl, Richard, and Gussie, put their hands in. My parents did the same. They taught me that being part of a Jewish community came with a responsibility to help carry it. You showed up. You gave your time and your treasure. You opened your home. You were there when people needed you. You did not wait for someone else to build the community you wanted to be part of.
Lori Ann and I have tried to carry those lessons into our own family. And now, as our children have grown and begun building lives of their own, I think more and more about what we are passing on.
What my grandparents and parents gave me was not simply a set of traditions. They taught me that I belonged to something larger than myself, and that belonging came with responsibility. If you wanted the community to be there for you, you had to be willing to put your own hand in to make sure it was there for everyone else.
That is what I want 5787 to be about.
During the High Holidays, there is a moment that always strikes me. Hundreds of us gather in one place, reciting the same words. We arrive with different families, different stories, different struggles, and different relationships with Judaism. Yet for those moments, we are one community.
Imagine if we carried that feeling with us throughout the year.
Maybe it means giving more of your time. Maybe it means giving more of your treasure. Maybe it means inviting someone to your Shabbat table, showing up at an event, checking on someone who is alone, or reaching out to someone who has not yet found their place in our community.
This is how I see our community: all of us stacking our hands together. No one hand can carry a community alone.
But when all of us put our hands in, we can build something vibrant, connected, joyful, and strong. Without engagement, our institutions cannot thrive. Without generosity, they cannot endure. And without people willing to show up for one another, neither can our people.
My grandparents and parents understood that. They put their hands in and helped build a Jewish community they believed was worth inheriting.
Now it is our turn.
Someday, our children and grandchildren will inherit the Jewish community our hands are building today.
Let’s make sure we never leave it for someone else’s hands to carry.
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