Last month, a group of congregants gathered together for a Havdalah Social to talk about what a caring community looks like. It’s a conversation that we want to extend to more and more members of our congregation. I’d like to share a little of what arose in our first round of conversations.

Perhaps most important was that, while we spoke of the ways that friends or communities might respond to us at times of great need—when we have experienced a loss or are dealing with an illness, for example—the values that were most emphasized were the things that happen when there isn’t a crisis.

A congregation where we know each other; where someone greets you on Shabbat with not only a “Shabbat Shalom” but then engages in an actual conversation so that we learn more about each other; where congregants come together to do things and, in the course of spending time together, make connections so that hearing about someone in need happens more organically and can be responded to by many different people in the congregation (not just a “caring committee”); a congregation where people in different social groups or age categories are brought together for activities….

What we are talking about are the ways to create a caring culture; not another committee, not a string of meetings, but activities that help engender the community culture that we all seek. People don’t want to sit on a committee to talk about caring—they want to be part of a team or participate in a specific activity that enables them to just do it!

That’s what Liz Nigrosh, our new chair of caring, is helping us to create. And to turn vision into reality, we need you! This is not a call to join a committee, or to sit in on monthly meetings that many have neither the time nor the inclination for. It is an invitation to participate in a conversation and to find one or more things that you might want to do to help create a more caring culture in temple life.

We have set a date for another social gathering and community conversation: Sunday, February 5, 10:00 a.m.–noon. During this gathering we’ll begin to create teams who feel passionate about working on something specific: it might be a team that would enjoy a social gathering at the temple once every 3 or 4 months to cook a whole set of meals that could be frozen for caring needs; a team that wants to brainstorm 3 or 4 activities a year purely to bring people together in an informal, social setting; an activity that brings middle-schoolers and retirees together to learn from each other; a social action activity that extends our caring to the larger community; a team that wants to ensure that every new member receives a visit and a Shabbat challah soon after joining; a team that wants to make sure that anyone who needs a ride to attend Shabbat services can get one; a team that ensures that there is always a congregational response when a family is sitting shiva….

And it may be something that you’d like to see happen that no one has thought of yet—that’s why we need you!

We’d love to see a lot of people on February 5. But if you can’t make it, please get in touch with Liz Nigrosh at lizziesmail@aol.com or 203-268-9044 and she can bring your idea to the gathering or let you know about the kinds of teams that are forming so that you can jump right in on something you’d love to see happen in your community.

Rabbi Rachel Gurevitz