What is the Value of Community?

At a Bar, a NUN stands and preaches to all who would listen: Drinking is Bad. Man: Have you tried it?
Nun: No, never.
Man: Ok, you try once, if you don't like it, I'll give up Drinking.

Nun: Ok, but bring it in Teacup, I don't want people seeing me drinking. Man goes to the bartender and says: Give me two Shots of Rum in Tea-Cups. Bartender: Is that NUN here again again?

A Jewish man passing through Texas for a few days' stay on business checked into a rooming house in a very frontier town. Not to be conspicuous, he dressed in Western attire and went into the only saloon in the city. 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 and 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 will 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 verse of this week’s portion reads, underscores the power of community in Judaism:

“You are all standing this day before the Lord, the leaders of your tribes, every man of Israel. Your young children, your women…You may enter the covenant of the Lord, your God, and His oath, which the Lord, is making with you this day.”

To enter the covenant with G-d, Moses is intimating, that we need the entire community.

Why does Judaism place such an emphasis on community? What is essential about interacting with other people in a social and religious framework? Indeed, Judaism seems obsessed with community building. From the ritualistic obligation of praying three times daily with nine other Jews, to the tremendous stature that the Shul and the Yeshiva enjoy in Jewish thought. Everywhere you turn in halakha there are imperatives to belong to and identify with the community. Maimonides declares:

“Whoever separates from the community, even if he has not committed any sins, yet he segregates himself from the Jewish community... and does not share their distress... does not have a portion in the world to come.”

This is in stark contrast to other religions. Almost all other religious systems, see the individual as potentially perfect in and of himself. Meaning, that the truly spiritually enlightened individual can live in isolation and, indeed is encouraged to live in isolation, to attain spiritual perfection.

Yet from a Jewish perspective, the individual is forced to belong to a collective to attain religious perfection. Why is this?

To understand this, we must restructure our conception of the value of a community. What is the superiority of a large group of people over the individual? It might be several things. Perhaps the group has more combined intellectual ability than the single person possesses.

Maybe they have more accumulative life experience and wisdom to draw on.

“Community, one philosopher wrote, “is a collection of people whose defining characteristic is shared participation. Communities are ultimately geared towards some form of action. What drives the collective participation of the community is the individual vested interest of each member. Finding an intersection between members’ vested interests is highly complex and that means communities are uniquely difficult to catalyze and sustain.”

This definition of community, where everyone’s life is enhanced through the resources that many bring to the table, is expressed via these two stories:

They tell a story about a man who was part of a vibrant community, he would attend the weekly Shabbat services for many years. But then he just stopped coming. It was wintertime. The Rabbi inquired about the reason for this, but all

he heard was that Jack was doing fine, feeling fine, yet he just stopped coming.

The rabbi went to pay Jack a visit. He came to the man’s house. He sees the guy sitting comfortably next to the fireplace, reading a book. The rabbi sits down next to him and doesn’t say a word; they’re both sitting there in the glow of the warm fire. The rabbi then took the fire tongs and removed a live, glowing coal from the flames and set it down gently in an isolated corner of the fireplace. While the rest of the fire blazed and crackled on, the isolated piece of coal grew paler and paler by the minute, until it extinguished itself. It became cold and dead. Still not saying a word, the rabbi stood up, nodded good night to his congregant and went home.

The next Shabbat, the man returned to shul.

A coal that’s isolated from the collective fire easily dies out. Jack got the message.

What if you take a Moses, an Arizal, a Baal Shem Tov, would it not make sense that in isolation they can grow far deeper than when with masses of people who are dramatically of a lower caliber intellectually, emotionally and spiritually? Yet Judaism says, even they need community! The classical proof- case would be the concept of a minyan. The fact that we must have ten Jews before approaching G-d in prayer. Why is this? If we have nine perfect tzaddikim they cannot start praying until some 13-year-old kid shows up? If we have a minyan consisting of these nine people: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Rabbi Akiva, Rashi and Rambam, we can’t read from the Torah, we can’t say kaddish. Now, if we have a group of ten illiterate Jewish tailors, we can declare: Yitgadal vyitkadash shmei rabah! If it was a question of holiness, what can the 13 year old kid add to this amazing collection of intense holiness that this group of tzaddikim possesses? This is profoundly irrational.

In Judaism, unlike all other systems of philosophy, the macrocosm is discovered through the microcosm. Where all other systems wrote books that define their theology, in Judaism we must discover the theology via biblical stories and Talmudic laws. It was only in the late middle-ages that Jews began transcribing philosophical works.

A story:

A Rabbi from Cleveland, accompanied by eight of his students, was on his way to the wedding of a student at his yeshiva. The groom arranged a flight for the group scheduled to arrive number of hours before the wedding.

Despite their planning, fierce storms at the airport of their destination made it impossible for the plane to land. The plane was forced to detour to a distant airport in a different location. Dismayed at the turn of events, the Rabbi and his students realized they would miss the wedding completely. They would not even be able to recite the afternoon prayers with the required ten men since their party was nine—just one man short.

The group asked a supervisor at the airport where they could find a quiet place to pray. The supervisor directed them to a side room, and quietly watched from the doorway as the group began to pray.

When the group completed their prayers, the airport supervisor asked them, “Why didn’t you say Kaddish?”

Surprised at the question, the group explained that they were missing a tenth man.

The supervisor retorted in Yiddish, “And am I not a Jew, too?"

The clearly overwhelmed man explained that he was by no means religious; he never prayed at all. But this day was a day like no other.

“Today is my father’s yartzeit,” the supervisor said.

“Last night, my father appeared to me in a dream. He told me that today is his yartzeit, and he requested that I say Kaddish in his merit. I told my father that I never pray; and even if I would want to say Kaddish, from where would I find a minyan (quorum of ten men)?

“My father replied in the dream, ‘I will make sure that there is a minyan for you. You just be sure to recite Kaddish.’

“When I woke up this morning, I thought to myself, ‘There is no way that I will say Kaddish!’ But now, when I see how my father’s words came true, and nine Jews from far away came straight to me, I can’t ignore my father’s words.”

With that, the airport supervisor recited the Kaddish prayer for his deceased father.

Moral of the story: For a community to come together, miracles happen (and to keep a community together, you need miracles...). And when a community comes together, miracles happen.

That is the power of our community. It is not merely a bunch of great guys under one roof, saying lechayim and schmoozing about Obama. Rather, in our togetherness a whole new dynamic is created—a new light, a quantum leap.

from our lives as individuals. Together we have created and will continue to create miracles.

Therefore, the best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but the best is when each individual learns to live with imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities. What is more, it is in the coming together that we can experience an entire new level of life.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tovah,

Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky

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