Shap Journal 2001/2002

Living Community

Jewish Community

Jonathan Gorsky

For classical Judaism, religious life is lived in
community. The most elevated Jewish prayers
can only be recited when there is a quorum of
ten men present, for they were, in ancient
times, the minimal constituents of a public gathering;
otherwise those present would be deemed private
individuals, whose prayer, albeit precious, was not the
prayer of the congregation. Public life was clearly
perceived as masculine, albeit that the quiet prayer at
the heart of the liturgy was derived from the biblical
story of Hannah, who prayed silently in the Tabernacle
- the forerunner of Temple and synagogue - and whose
supplication    was    answered,    despite    an
uncomprehending priest who thought she was
inebriated. Today, Progressive Jews count women and
men equally in the quorum, and Orthodox Judaism
retains the original definition.

A thirteenth-century Jewish sage, Menahem Meiri of
Perpignan, offered a simple explanation of the mystical
belief of the early rabbis that the Divine Presence
accompanied the worshippers when a quorum prayed
together; it was only in synagogue that one could
achieve proper concentration of the heart. In other
words, there was a qualitative distinction between public
and private prayer, for synagogue and community were
conducive to devotion, which ordinary people would
probably not attain if they prayed alone outside the
communal context, albeit that God always hearkens to
prayer, and is especially close to the broken-hearted.1

Futhermore, as the great medieval philosopher and
jurist Moses Maimonides wrote, a sinner is well advised
to associate with a community, rather than praying in
private, for the prayers of a community are acceptable,
even if there are 'transgressors' in their midst.2 A
community is holy, regardless of the shortcomings of
individual members, for the essence of its being is the

service of God. Whatever our shortcomings, when we
participate in such a gathering we too share the sanctity
that accrues to the congregation.

The early rabbis went so far as to compare a community
to the incense used in the Temple, which was
compounded of sweet and not-so-sweet smelling spices:
the latter were essential and in their absence the incense
could not be used.3 So it is with a community, which
exists for everyone; saint, sinner and average
worshippers - if anyone is absent, then communal life is
diminished and incomplete, for each person has
qualities that cannot be replicated, and everyone is
strengthened by the presence of their neighbours.

The joys and sorrows of private life were shared in
community. As Rabbi Louis Jacobs puts it, a Jew marries
in a congregation, rejoices in congregation when blessed
with children, and when he or she is laid to rest,
children - usually the surviving sons - will say
memorial prayers in congregation during the eleven
months that follow. When someone dies, the community
comes to the mourners for a week after the funeral,
rather than the mourners going to the synagogue, apart
from the Sabbath, when we do not mourn publicly.4

It is at such moments of great grief that community is
most clearly experienced. When the family returns from
the funeral a meal will have been prepared in their
home by other community members. Throughout the
week that follows, the family remain at home, while the
community visit, to sit with them and offer condolence.
Such visits can be quiet - the simple gesture of being
present is enough - or, if the mourners wish, they talk
about their loss and reflect upon the life of the person
who has passed away. The synagogue transfers itself to
the home, and daily services are held, if possible, in the
house of mourning.

Community does not necessitate every member being
present, for it can also be lived out in the family. Meals
are an important element of Sabbaths and festivals, and
they are part of the life of the home, rather than the
synagogue. But families are enjoined to invite to their
meals anyone who might be alone, or in need of
comfort, or simply visiting the synagogue while staying
in the area. This hospitality is not the same as
socialising or enjoying the company of our friends; we
might not know the people whom we invite, or if we do
know them, they might not be those whom we would
usually be wont to choose as our close companions! It is
at this point that the children of the family learn
the values of communal life, which hopefully will be
taken with them when they come to set up their homes
in the future.

Community at its best leads to a personal engagement
with people from different walks of life who are neither
family nor close friends. Sharing with those in need is
the essence of community and the tradition seeks to
ensure that the dignity and personal needs of the
recipients are treated with sensitivity. It is not only that
I have an obligation to give, but that this obligation is
relational; it is an element of my relationship with
another person, so giving is not only a transfer of
resources, but it matters how I conduct myself, and
whether the recipient is properly acknowledged and
respected. Jewish tradition is aware that to be in receipt
of charity is very difficult, and, in the first instance, it
advises us to help the person re-establish themselves
with a gift or an (interest-free) loan, or a job. Failing
that, arrangements should be made so that the recipient
is not embarrassed by having to take directly from a
donor. In the community where I grew up, it was a time-
honoured practice for people to pay a grocer to prepare
an order for a needy family, who would simply turn up
at the shop and find it waiting for collection. Also, we
are expected to be aware of the needs of those around
us, and not wait for them to ask for help. The lowest
rung on the ladder of giving is when one gives to
someone directly, and body language makes it clear that
he/she would rather not. It is not only the act of giving
that matters, but also our developing the ability to hear
and respond to a person in need, and ensure that they
do feel either burdensome or in any way ashamed.

Community also entails responsibility; it can mean
giving of one's time and energy for administrative or
very humdrum and mundane tasks. Leadership might
imply dealing with wrongdoers, taking decisions about
distributing scare resources, or ensuring that facilities
ranging from education to social services are properly
administered. It has also entailed representing the
community in the outside world, and negotiating with
government on its behalf. Subsidiarity rather than
centralised administration is the norm, with a range of
small voluntary societies looking after the pastoral tasks,
ensuring that sick people were visited and that poor
brides had their dowries. The most highly esteemed of
societies was - and in some communities still is - the
chevra kadisha, the 'holy society' whose task it was to
prepare the dead for burial and ensure that the cortege

was accompanied to the cemetery in proper dignity and
the mourners tended and comforted. The chevra's
membership was drawn from the leading families and
often they were conducted amidst considerable
ceremony. In traditional societies it was expected that
the entire community would stop work in order to
accompany the funeral procession; death rarely took
place in distant institutions and, like other pastoral
needs, was not left to 'specialists' to attend to: it was a
part of the fabric of religious life.

The pastoral tasks were the obligations of every member
of the community; no one was expected to do
everything, thus the societies, but everyone would do
something. The role of the rabbi was not pastoral, except
in so far as he, like everyone else, had communal
responsibility, and would do his share, specifically
offering guidance from the tradition when difficulties
arose: the normative procedures were well known to
everyone.

Traditional Judaism placed great value on the study of
its sacred texts, which is highly interactive, and again
not by any means confined to the rabbis; groups would
be devoted to the study of Talmud, guided by the rabbi,
or reciting the Psalter. Study and prayer brought the
symbolic universe of Judaism into the daily lives of the
community, and they were by no means confined to an
elite - scholarly or otherwise. Time was defined in terms
of the Jewish religious year, with the weekly Sabbath
and daily synagogue services ordering the experience of
family and personal life; everyone knew of the realm of
the sacred; its presence was quiet, and often unspoken,
but it touched the lives of everyone and often elicited
great devotion.

The community as encountered by most modern Jews is
very different from the traditional model, although the
ideals are not dissimilar. It is difficult for many modern
Jews to imagine that the traditional community
exercised real power over its members. In pre-modern
Europe the Jewish community levied both internal and
state taxes; it had its own court system and controlled
the living rights of members. Jews could not live
wherever they chose and people who decided to leave
their community might have to negotiate their
admission to another: effectively the community
regulated the movement of its members. Education and
social services were provided by the community - not
the state. Every aspect of life was governed and regulated
by the community, so ostracism could be a very effective
sanction - a Jew could not simply go and live in the
Christian world if he/she wished to remain Jewish -
there was no neutral realm where one's religion was a
purely private matter, and everyone was treated as an
equal.

Life was lived, socially and symbolically, within Jewish
boundaries: the world as taken for granted was the
community with its social and religious structures,
governed by the rhythms of the liturgical year, festivals
and feasts, Sabbaths and Holy Days. Jews lived in the
Christian or Muslim worlds as foreign legations in a
strange land; even in Poland before the Second World
War, despite the profound impact of modernisation,
most Jews still spoke Yiddish rather than Polish.

Today Jews live in many different worlds simultaneously,
a situation that, even in Western Europe and the United
States, is characteristic only of the last two to three
hundred years. The birth of the modern society meant
that many communal jurisdictions were taken over by
the state which became both more secular and more
tolerant. The power of community was drastically
diminished to the degree that it is now a voluntary
association - people belong if they choose to be
members of synagogues, or to support communal
endeavours which are dependent on fund-raising rather
than compulsory levies. Jewish life has to compete with
the hectic schedules of careers, meetings, out-of-school
activities and secular social life and commitments, all of
which are lived out beyond Jewish boundaries. The
Jewish community is no longer the single social
reference group that Jews inhabit, and many choose to
opt out of communal life completely, and live as modern
people in contemporary society.

A similar, but nevertheless important modern
development concerns social proximity. Traditional Jews
always live within walking distance of a synagogue. On
Sabbaths and festivals they do not drive or use public
transport so community tends to be synonymous with
neighbourhood. For the majority of modern Jews this is
often not the case, and people are far more scattered
geographically. Also, social mobility has intensified and
rising property prices can mean that young couples
cannot afford to live near their parents, so communities
can be stratified in terms of age groups, which is quite
unprecedented, and people move house - and
community - relatively frequently.

The pressures of modern life mean that relatively few
people can take pastoral responsibilities, and
communities of thousands of people cannot rely on the
traditional system of voluntary societies. The role of the
rabbi now includes a heavy pastoral commitment, and
professional social services have supplanted the old
system, although it has by no means disappeared. Not
all communities have their own chevra kadisha - in
London matters are centralised, and organised by the
United Synagogue and similar synagogue groups with
full-time paid staff. The Jewish Social Services are
dependent on a combination of voluntary donations and
state support, which is crucial to their survival; the
facilities and professional staff that they provide would
be beyond the reach of any single community.

Community continues to be encountered most
significantly at different points in the life cycle of its
members, and it remains immensely significant in their
times of joy and their hours of need. An important
minority of people continue to devote much of their time
to communal service and many Jews of the older
generations who have experienced prejudice continue to
feel more comfortable and at ease in Jewish company.
For the elderly, the widowed, and the divorced, who
might have been cut adrift from life-time companionship
or who live far away from their families, communal
groups are a vital source of friendship and support. For
young mothers with very small children at home, the
companionship and shared experience of a mother-and-
toddler group is very much appreciated. Geographical
dispersal has replaced neighbourhood and social
mobility means that family members are often distant
from each other; in traditional communities one
suspects that people often longed for privacy, whereas in
the modern world community develops out of a
yearning for companionship. For the housebound, the
disabled and those who devote their lives to caring for a
loved-one, community is a vital lifeline.

The new Jewish community represents a dialogue
between tradition and the modern world. The Jewish
narrative of the twentieth century, focused upon the
Holocaust, which swept away almost two-thirds of
European Jews, left a legacy of insecurity which can be
triggered by even minor anti-Semitic incidents.
Remembrance - and a deep emotional engagement with
the state of Israel, which was founded only three years
after the Holocaust ended, provided a new symbolic
universe for several generations of post-war Jews, who
are often very secularised and culturally assimilated.
This too was reflected in the social geography of the
 community, in its activities, its cultural concerns, and its
allotment of resources. Fragmentation, dispersal and
cultural plurality have tended to pull the community
apart, but it has been held together by collective
insecurity, shared experience, and a need for a source of
dignity and companionship in an impersonal and often
lonely world. Ancient biblical imperatives remain at the
heart of its endeavours, but they are articulated in
responding to the inherent tensions of contemporary
society.

1 Bet Habechira: Berakhot (Jerusalem, 1965) p. 15

2 Mishneh Torah: Laws of Prayer, 8:1

3 BT Keritut 6B

4 Jacobs, L.; Religion And The Individual, A Jewish
Perspective (Cambridge, 1992) esp. pp. 31-41, to which
this article is indebted. For responses to death and
mourning see Lamm, M.; The Jewish Way in Death and
Mourning (Jonathan David, 1969).