A Jewish man passing through Texas for a few days on business checked into a rooming house in a very frontier town.
He dressed himself in western attire and went into the only saloon in town. He was surrounded by men in cowboy clothes,
wearing six-shooters and looking very gruff. He ordered a beer. While sipping his beer and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, the biggest,
burliest, scroungiest-looking specimen walks in and proclaims, "Ah, I hear there is a Jew in here!" The Jewish man cringes, says nothing.
"Ah know you're in here and you better speak up," says the western man.
The Jewish man knows that sooner or later he would have to face up to him and accept the consequences of being Jewish, especially in such a remote place as this.
He stands up proudly and says, I AM A JEW!" The westerner stares at him angrily, "What are you hiding for? Come with me, ah needs you for a minyan!"
The opening verses of Nitzavim-Vayelech reveal one of Judaism’s most powerful ideas:
“You are all standing this day before the Lord your G-d…”
Leaders and elders, men and women, children and converts—everyone is standing together. Because to enter the covenant with G-d, we need the entire community.
Judaism places extraordinary emphasis on community. We pray together, learn together, build shuls and yeshivas, and are commanded to share in one another’s struggles.
Maimonides teaches that one who separates himself from the community forfeits his share in the World to Come.
Why?
Because Judaism does not believe that spiritual greatness is achieved alone.
Other traditions often celebrate the individual who withdraws from society to pursue personal spiritual perfection. Judaism teaches the opposite: holiness is found in relationship, responsibility, and belonging.
You cannot become the best Jew by yourself.
To stand before G-d, we must stand together.
A community is not simply a group of people. It is individuals bringing their unique strengths together to accomplish something no one person could accomplish alone.
One person may have greater wisdom, another experience, another talent—but together, their individual strengths become something greater than the sum of their parts.
The Baal Shem Tov offers a beautiful illustration.
The Baal Shem Tov would pray for hours. His disciples would gather around him, listening to his prayers and watching his soul soar in connection with G-d. They would not leave until he finished.
One day, exhausted and hungry, the disciples slipped away to eat and rest. When they returned, they were shocked to discover that the Baal Shem Tov had already finished praying.
“Rebbe,” they asked, “why did you finish so early today?”
The Baal Shem Tov answered with a parable:
A group of travelers once walked through a forest when their leader spotted a magnificent bird high in a tree.
“I want to reach it,” he said.
“But how?” they asked. “The tree is too high.”
“Stand on one another’s shoulders,” he replied. “Together, we can reach it.”
And so they formed a human ladder, each person supporting the next, until their leader was high enough to reach the bird.
But then they became tired and hungry. One by one, they left to eat and rest.
The moment the chain was broken, the man at the top came crashing down.
The Baal Shem Tov was teaching them:
I could soar only because you were holding me up. When one person steps away, everyone loses.
That is the power of a Jewish community: we lift one another higher.
Hey, tell a story about a man named Jack who had been part of a vibrant Jewish community for years. Every Shabbat, he came to shul until one winter, he stopped.
The rabbi went to visit him. Jack was sitting comfortably beside a warm fireplace, reading a book. The rabbi sat quietly beside him.
Then, without a word, the rabbi took the tongs, removed one glowing coal from the fire, and left.
As the fire blazed, the coal slowly faded, cooled, and died.
The rabbi said nothing. He stood up and left.
The following Shabbat, Jack was back in shul.
A coal cannot stay alive. Neither can a Jew.
We need one another. Community is not just where we belong; it is what keeps our Jewish flame alive.
But what if we took Einstein, Descartes, Hegel, Hume, Van Gogh, and Michelangelo and combined all their genius into one extraordinary individual?
Could we really say that this one person is inferior to a group of ordinary, uneducated people simply because they are a community?
What about Moses, the Arizal, or the Baal Shem Tov? Surely they could reach greater spiritual heights alone than surrounded by people far below their intellectual or spiritual level.
Yet Judaism says: even they need a community.
The clearest example is the minyan. We need ten Jews to say Kaddish, read the Torah, and sanctify G-d’s name.
Imagine nine of history’s greatest tzaddikim: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Rabbi Akiva, Rashi, and Rambam.
They still cannot begin until a tenth Jew walks in.
And if those ten are ordinary, unlearned Jews? Suddenly, we can say: “Yitgadal v’yitkadash shmei rabba!”
Why?
If holiness were simply about individual greatness, this makes no sense.
So what is it about ten Jews standing together that one extraordinary Jew cannot achieve alone?
In Judaism, unlike many philosophical systems, the deepest ideas are not presented as abstract theories.
The macrocosm is revealed through the microcosm, through Torah stories, mitzvot, and the debates of the Talmud.
The question of the power of community is a perfect example.
Instead of giving us a philosophical essay on why a community is greater than an individual,
the Torah and Talmud teach us through a seemingly technical question of Jewish law.
And in that debate, we discover one of Judaism’s most profound truths about the power of community.
Kaddiah at the Airport
A rabbi from Cleveland was traveling with eight students to a wedding. Their flight was diverted because of a storm, leaving the group stranded at a distant airport.
They realized they would miss the wedding, and, with only nine men, they could not even pray with a minyan.
The airport supervisor directed them to a quiet room. After they finished davening, he asked:
“Why didn’t you say Kaddish?”
They explained that they were missing one Jew.
The man looked at them and said in Yiddish:
“Am I not a Jew too?”
He explained that he was not religious and never prayed. But that morning was his father’s yahrtzeit.
The night before, his father had appeared to him in a dream:
“Tomorrow is my yahrtzeit. I want you to say Kaddish.”
“I told him, ‘But I don’t pray. And where will I find a minyan?’”
His father answered:
“I will make sure you have a minyan. You just say Kaddish.”
Now, seeing nine Jews arrive unexpectedly at his airport, he understood.
“My father kept his promise.”
The supervisor joined them and recited Kaddish for his father.
Think about it: Nine Jews thought they were stranded because they had missed their destination.
But perhaps they had reached their destination.
They were sent there to become the tenth Jew for a man who had been waiting for them.
That is the power of a minyan. Ten Jews do not simply pray together. They complete one another.
The lesson is simple: when a Jewish community comes together, miracles happen. And keeping a community together sometimes requires miracles of its own!
Our community is not simply a group of people under one roof, sharing a lechaim and talking about politics.
When we come together, a new energy is created, a new light, a force that no individual could create alone.
That is the power of community.
Together, we have created miracles. Together, we will continue to create miracles.
Therefore, the greatest relationships are not those between perfect people, but between people who accept each other’s imperfections and recognize each other’s strengths.
And something even greater happens when we come together: we discover a new dimension of life, one that no individual could experience alone.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky