Covenantal Community
What are our commitments to one another as part of a sacred community?
It is a moment of tectonic shift in the ever-evolving expression and experience of Jewish life.
By its very nature, a covenant between individuals limits what each individual party can do.
A true community is one in which members share an understanding of mutual concern and obligation.
The really essential mitzvah in our community is showing up, being present.
Rabbi Deborah Waxman published this essay "'Covenantal Community' and Classical Reconstructionism" in December 2024. What follows is this essay, with commentaries exploring Waxman's points by four other Reconstructionist rabbis: Megan Doherty, Isabel de Koninck, Katie Mizrahi and Elyse Wechterman.
In Can We ‘Hold Each Other’ Online? Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer explores the community created through Ritualwell's 15-minute minyan 'Holding Each Other.' She shares about the power of a pause in the day for prayer and the opportunity to honor, recognize and see each other, even if community members never meet off line.
How can we create and sustain meaning-rich communities with the power to transform lives?
When people are traumatized or fearful, they cannot hear another person’s perspective until their fear and trauma have been heard.
Halakhah is in the doing, and our ability to pass that practice down to the next Jewish generation depends on whether or not we can give it the significance it had for the lives of our ancestors.
Covenant is an ancient Jewish concept that puts relationships at the center.
Why do progressive communities, whose members themselves have been marginalized, then proceed to marginalize others in their new communities?
A classic article suggesting important qualities of a synagogue that define it as "Reconstructionist"
Judaism can be made most relevant by creating communities that offer American Jews what America cannot give them.
