Meaning of community – jewishpresstampa

Dedicated to Rabbi Adin Even- Yisrael Steinsaltz zl, who is credited with making Talmud accessible

You can use your own experience to understand Talmud in a unique way. You can also turn it around and use Talmud to shine its wisdom into our contemporary world. We are in a time of racial injustice, rising anti-Semitism, global pandemic, and ecocide a daunting but very important time to be alive and engaging with tikkun olam.

Being pulpit-free for now I came south for family reasons I study Talmud every day and draw about it. The drawing you see here is about a quote from the first tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot, page 29b: Abbaye said, A person should always associate oneself with the community. How can Abbaye help us? Seventeen hundred years ago they did have injustice, plagues, and environmental degradation. Lets give him a chance.

In context, Abbaye was speaking about praying in the plural form for us and specifically about the travelers prayer. What does community mean? Who is included in us? I should belong to a Jewish congregation. However, in the context of a journey the community involved is the origin, destination, and all points in between. So, include all these people in prayer.

You can see what I thought of as community when I drew this: from people to poison, suburbia and downtown, with local flora and fauna. We have a greater understanding now than they did in Talmudic times of how integrally related everything is. We and the other animals breathe the exhalations of plants and vice versa. We can see the effects of our transportation habits in air quality reports. The chemicals we use on our lawns and farms run into the sea and prompt periodic red tide. Though we like to think that what we have is due to our hard work, there are those in our community who are in desperate need through no fault of their own.

I drew this in February. Today I would add demonstrations and masks. As we follow reports of the pandemic we see how it effects some of us more than others. We see that climate change is affecting some portions of our global community more immediately than others. From wildfires to rising sea levels.

Every choice we make from wearing a mask in public to applying pesticide affects the entire community. Not just the Jewish community. Not just the human community. Not just the local community. Our country is stricken. Our planet is simultaneously on fire and drowning.

When circumstances are the most desperate, our history has taught us repeatedly: Dont lose hope. Jews keep assessing, keep turning, keep moving in the right direction. Naturally, its more than any person can do, but here is another place where community comes in.

Remember Rabbi Tarfons message from Pirkei Avot another section of Talmud about not having to finish the job, but not being allowed to quit either? Rabbi Tarfon continues, Know that the reward of the righteous will be given leatid lavo, usually translated in the world to come. But parse out the words and you get, Know that the reward of the righteous will be given to the future to come. Our reward is to even have a future. When we die to leave behind for our children a Jewish community, a society, a planet that is not sinking ever deeper into decline but on its way to recovery.

Shalom is not just the absence of war, but that perfect combination of justice and compassion. Let us encourage each other with Abbayes travelers prayer in the plural for all of us on this global journey toward wholeness. May it be Your will that You lead us to shalom.

Rabbinically Speaking is published as a public service by the Jewish Press in cooperation with the Tampa Rabbinical Association which assigns the column on a rotating basis. The views expressed in the column are those of the rabbi and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Jewish Press or the TRA.

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Meaning of community - jewishpresstampa