It Takes a Community

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Apparently it rained overnight as we woke to raindrop spattered windows and high humidity. Clouds are hanging on the mountains. In spite of this overwhelming beauty, we have decided not to go for our morning walk. Both of us have a busy day today. We will be at Temple Beth El assisting with the Open House. The Religious School, the Academy, the Sisterhood, the Mensch Club, the Board and Rabbi, will all be present to welcome individuals and families to our community. We are both excited.

Community is so important. We cannot live our lives as rugged individualists, as romantic as it might sound. We are human beings and we require community to maintain and refine our humanity. Our schools, churches, mosques and synagogues, community centers, parks and recreation centers, are all human communities established not only to nurture us, educate us, entertain us, distract us, but to humanize us, as well. We cannot be full and complete human beings without community. Isolation helps us to look inward, community helps us look outward. Some of resist this outward glance. We do not want to feel obliged to modify our behavior, meet standards, or otherwise have our lives channeled by others. We would rather live in the fantasy that we are individuals, pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, and living with our own two feet planted firmly on the ground. Yet it takes a world of human beings living in various communities to make this fantasy a reality, thus it is no reality at all.

Since we have moved down from the Mountain Refuge, we have learned to open ourselves to community. And community has responded likewise: a blessing. I feel all of us are more fully human, enriched, and uplifted in the process. Study, prayer/meditation, and acts of lovingkindness do not exist in a vacuum,. It takes a community.

Be well.