On January 19th 2005, the Boston CJP Voice Mission met with members of the Haifa-Boston Connection steering committee for two sessions of Jewish study, based mostly on texts from Torah and Talmud.

The aims were to clarify common and different goals, and establish for ourselves what constitutes a kehila (congregation or community).

The study sessions were led by Ofek Meir of the Lokey Academy of Jewish Studies.

We learned about means and goals in community life. "King David had gold and silver in his public treasuries which he was saving for the building of the temple... God said to him 'My children are dying of hunger and you're saving money to buy a building'?" (Pesikta Rabbati end ch 6). The ancient Jews of Babylon were compared to those in Jerusalem, and on this basis some comparisons could be drawn to the modern Jews of Boston and Israel.

When should we build, what does the construction of buildings mean to us and to our congregations/communities today?

We could all agree that what's most important is not a building, but what goes on inside it.

  
We all understood that buildings are necessary. Even King David, it was noted, erred, great though he was, in how he allocated funds to building when there were sick and poor to be attended to; lives to be saved. Rabbi Howard Jaffe of Temple Isaiah commented that one common modern error is to allow kehilah to become a goal rather than a means. He said: "To gather people without manifesting potential of the gathering, then the gathering is not fulfilling its purpose." Kehilah should be a way to gather Jews together so that we can achieve those goals which are possible when we collaborate. Barry Shrage of the CJP reframed some of the discussion commenting that, "Justice and righteousness are concepts which only exist within a community or kehilah." Bernie Oshansky said, "Kehila is an instrumentality, an inclusive concept, which includes having a means, a place, and a way to hold people together. We (the Jewish people) survived because we have had kehilot." Bernie's wife Rena, a community builder herself, noted that, "The strength of kehilah is that it provides the means to achieve ends." Ofek Meir suggested that, "Perhaps something we have been doing wrong for millennia has led to the modern Beth Knesset not satisfying our need for self-fulfillment."

  
From Genesis in the Bible to A.D. Gordon, we Jews from Haifa and Boston reviewed and found that some dilemmas have always been around. How much to build, how much to organize, how wide to spread the web of collaboration and cooperation in order to keep the Jews together, surviving, flourishing, for today and for our future.

That same evening, we had a study session in the chevrutah style, learning from Talmudic texts about Rabbi Zeira and the Nechutei - sages who went back and forth from Babylon to Jerusalem, carrying the message and re-aligning it for each of the two major groups within the Jewish community.

Rabbi Howard Jaffe, of Temple Isaiah, along with Temple President Bob Atkind, Sue & Chuck Tafler, and other congregants visited Or Hadash. While they were here, they enjoyed a Kabbalat Shabbat in our Preschool. They also donated two Mezuzot that were made by 8th graders and unveiled their plaque on the Founders Wall.

I am President of Or Hadash Reform Congregation of Haifa, recipient of support from the Haifa-Boston Connection, both as funding and in the presence of many who came to visit us from Boston. My summary of community is this: some will give of themselves to community occasionally, some financially, some by personal actions; we must learn to accept graciously from each other and also to motivate more Jews to want to share in the giving; every action to help build and strengthen the community, the kehilah, of Jews is welcome and important. May the Haifa-Boston Connection be, as Barry Shrage says, the soil on which an ecology of sacred congregation can grow and flourish. May it be His will that through our contributing to this sacred and caring community we achieve what only Jews, working together, are able and meant to achieve.