spirituality >> torah portion As Torah Reveals, We're One People Parshat Bamidbar: Numbers 1:1-4:20; Hosea 2:1-22. I On Sale Now! OlympiaEntertainmentcom I Box Office lickennaster I Charge by Phone 800.743.3000 , • OlyrnpiaEntertainment.com FOX Our apartment homes aren't the only things with personality. Really Living since 2007. ' Lek For Alva, really living means pursuing her passion for art, not worrying about house maintenance and repairs. Since moving to her Erickson Living° community, she's enjoying a retirement lifestyle that's as vibrant and inspired as she is. Call 1-800-793-6098 for your free Guide to Erickson Living® at Fox Run. Add more Living to your Life' 32 May 26 • 2011 have figured out how to bring Jews back to the synagogue and Jewish life. Biblical punishments! Violate the Sabbath? Stoning. Gossiping? Leprosy. Just imagine how the threats of death and disfigure- ment will put Jews back in the pews! Okay, I'm just kidding. Mostly. The American Jewish community is at a crossroads. Affiliation is decreas- ing rapidly, and Jewish practice even more quickly. The spirit of indi- vidualism seems to have officially trumped our devotion to community. The motto is no longer "there is no 'I' in team" but rather "what have you done for ME lately?" We read this week Parshat Bamidbar, the first Torah portion of the book of Numbers. On instruction from God, Moses counts 603,550 men eligible to wage war on their march toward the Promised Land. Not coincidentally, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev tells us that 603,550 also equals the number of let- ters in the Torah. This correlation means that just as if one letter were left out of a Torah scroll, that scroll would become pasul, unusable. So, too, if one Jew is lost to our commu- nity the entire Jewish people suffers. We as a community have to reach out to individuals, even if it means sacrificing something to do it. If a Jew cannot afford membership in a synagogue, we reduce dues. If a Jew is new to our city, we welcome them. If a Jew is new to our synagogue family, we embrace them warmly. Each indi- vidual person matters in Judaism. But according to Jewish tradition, the entire onus is not on the com- munity to reach out to the individual, the individual must reach back. "Do not separate yourself from the corn- munity," we read in Pirkei Avot. Too much emphasis on the individual leads to a broken people. As a com- munity, we recognize the need for individuals to compromise on some level so as to be able to come togeth- er in praise of God and support for Israel. There is no 'I' in "peoplehood". So, do we sacrifice everything for the sake of the individual? Or do we force the individual to sacrifice himself or herself for the sake of the broader community? Like our ancestors in the ancient census in the wilderness of Sinai, our Torah scroll contains 603,550 letters — one for each individual. Each and every letter holds tremendous sig- nificance for without even one letter we could not use that scroll. But, were we to take all those 603,550 identical letters and jumble them up, that Torah, too, would be pasul, would be unfit. A scroll is kosher — a people are holy — only when each individual rec- ognizes his role vis-a-vis the letter next to him and the role that letter — that person — plays in the whole. Individuals must step forward and, for the good of the community, be willing to give more of themselves. But, in a similar vein, the community must be ready to open its doors as well: to change, to innovation, to new modes and models brought forward by devoted individ- uals. In this way, our census will be whole and our Torah scroll complete. Oh, and please remember, I was only kidding about reinstating bibli- cal punishments. Stoning is not a successful community-building plan. Exciting young family programming, dynamic Jewish education, a welcom- ing community and spiritual services work much better. CI Rabbi Aaron Starr is director of education and youth at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield. Conversations • What can you do to better support the Jewish community? •What steps might your synagogue take to reach out to unaffiliated or uninvolved individuals and how can you help? • How can we as a community work together to inspire and reach out to not-yet-involved individuals and families?