Yom Kippur is at once both a very personal day and a very public communal day. On Yom Kippur each of us fasts, we confront our own shortcomings and sins, we search for, and if we are so blessed we face, God on this most holy of days; in that way each of us has our own individual Yom Kippur experience. This is a common religious theme. Catholics confess individually, one person enters the confessional, speaks with a Priest and receives the Sacrament of Reconciliation as they are absolved of their sin. Not so for us, we confess communally and only once a year on Yom Kippur. It is not about what I did or did not do, it is about what we have done or not done as a people. We are a communal religion.

The two core confessional prayers of Yom Kippur are the Ashamnu and the Al-Het. Both set in the plural. Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu; We abuse, we betray, we are cruel... And Al het shehatanu lifanecha; We have sinned against You... Being a part of a communal religion is one of the most difficult concepts for many American Jews to understand. People ask, why do I have to say, We abuse, we betray, we are cruel – I didn't abuse anyone, I didn't betray anyone, I was not cruel, so why do I have to confess to these sins, they a not my sins? The answer is that it is not about you, it is about us. We so are so ingrained in the American values of individual liberty and individual responsibility that every time I ask a group of student to clean something up, their response is invariably, "But Rabbi, it isn't my mess." They cannot for the life of them understand why I would want them to clean up something that they had not done. So then I ask them, "Does the room look nice this way?" And they agree that it does not. I ask them if they care about the synagogue and they acknowledge that they do. I ask them if working together we can set things right pretty easily and quickly and they again agree, so then I ask them if they are willing to help me while I do it and they then help me clean up the mess. Teaching communal responsibility in America is challenging.

A similar challenge comes when teaching Shabbat regulars to feel empowered at worship. Most of us come to services for our own personal reasons and we hope for nothing more than to be left alone to prayer and contemplation. However, our Shabbat Regulars have learned that Jewish prayer is communal and everyone has a role to play. If someone takes out a cell phone to text or take a picture, a Regular will inform them that we don't do that here on Shabbat. If children at a Bar Mitzvah are being disruptive, a Regular will go over and quiet them down. If a stranger shows up at services a Regular will go over to welcome them and see if they need help following the service. A Regular will take on Bob Brazer's High Holy Day role and hand out parts. Our service is a team effort. None of these things is the job of any one person, but it is something that collectively we insure happens. It didn't happen naturally, everyone has to be willing to give up some individualism for the benefit of the group.

One of the most difficult communal acts is that of making a shiva visit. I'm not talking about going to console your friend, but rather going to the home of someone in the congregation you don't know, simply because they are a part of our community and they have had a loss. Our practice, when we have a Shiva minyan taking place, is that we generally we don't have services at the synagogue. We are one community and so we pray together. It is not unusual for me to get a call from someone who has a yahrzeit during a shiva to ask me what they should do. They want to come to the synagogue to say kaddish, but the minyan has moved to a shiva house of someone they don't know, so they don't feel welcome or comfortable. I explain to them that it would be appropriate for them to go to the shiva minyan even if they didn't have a yahrzeit to observe. If I am successful in conveying to them the communal nature of saying Kaddish, they will go with me to the Shiva house to say Kaddish. I want each of you to remember that helping to make a minyan at a shiva house is a mitzvah, even though you feel uncomfortable, you should go. Anytime you want to try, let me know and I'll be happy to go with you, you don't have to do it alone.

There are many prayers that we can say individually – the Shema, the Amida, the Aleinu; but not the Kaddish which can only be said in the context of a minyan. At the very moment when you want to be alone, to be upset, to be angry; Judaism says, you have to join together with others and form a community in order to say this prayer. You can study Torah on your own, but public reading from the Torah is a communal enterprise, no minyan, no Torah reading. You can't be a Jewish hermit. Judaism requires the presence of others.

Throughout our history whenever Jews moved into a town the first thing we did was establish a synagogue, a school and a hospital. For us communal institutions were of paramount importance. It is not surprising that so many synagogues were named Jewish Community Centers because that is exactly what they were, the place where the members of the community came together. A generation ago, many Jews used the synagogue as their social base; that is where their friends were found, that is where their activities took place. Today, we as Jews are fully integrated into American society, for better or for worse, we have achieved the dream of our immigrant ancestors, but perhaps not to our own benefit.

Today we live in the age of social media; we connect with hundreds, if not thousands, of "friends" online through Facebook. But we do that from the privacy of our own home, we don't gather together. The question was asked of the CJLS could we create a cyber-minyan online rather than have to come to the synagogue to make a minyan. They ruled that no you need ten people standing together in the same place at the same time to have a minyan. However, they did advise that if a minyan was created that it could be joined via technology. The very question itself speaks to the nature of many of today's Jews who are more interested in convenience than community. As you sit here on Yom Kippur ask yourself if you view your involvement at Shomrei Torah, either as a member or a ticket holder, as a commercial venture whereby you are entitled to be here because of a fee you have paid or if you see yourself as being here because as a Jew you have an obligation to be part of a community?

We have come to think of our involvement in the Jewish community and even the synagogue as consumers, people comment to me wondering if their membership is worth the money. It is a question that our ancestors would not have asked. Membership was not measured in dollars and cents; we were a part of a community. Those of us in the non-Orthodox world have lost something of tremendous value when we don't think of our Jewish involvement as something intrinsic to our very being. I can't emphasis enough the value of community. But community is not something you can buy your way into, it is something that has to be earned with time and effort. Every time you make a point of attending a minyan, you are being a part of our community; every time you participate in a synagogue activity, you are building our sense of community. The flooding that followed Hurricane Irene was devastating to our area, but our response as a community was something beautiful to behold. I was proud to be a resident of Wayne and I was bursting with pride when with just a few days notice, we mobilized as a congregation and prepared 650 meals in one day! There was something like 75 people from Shomrei Torah involved in that endeavor. That is community in action!

The Hebrew word for congregation is Kehilla, and a synagogue is known as a Kehilla Kedusha, a Holy Congregation. Being part of a Kehilla is more than just paying dues, it takes time and effort. I want you to consider being a contributing member of our Kehilla Kedusha in the coming year. You can do this by supporting our minyan – for those of you not willing or able to commit to one day a week, I have long been an advocate of the Monthly Birthday Minyan Attendance Policy. You come just once a month on the date of your birthday, for me that would be the 7th of every month. Or perhaps, study speaks to you more than prayer, come take an Adult Ed class, expand your Jewish knowledge. Support the Membership committee and become a "Mentor" to someone new or just make a point of speaking to someone new at an event. Sponsor one Shabbat Kiddish this year, doesn't matter what the reason is that you choose, just the fact that once this year you are going to share a Shabbat with your Kehilla. However you want to connect, we are here to help you.

So I call upon you on this most sacred night of the year to help make us into a Holy Congregation. Watching this congregation in action at the church that day we cooked, we were indeed a Kehilla Kedusha in every sense of the word. That is my goal for us in the year to come, to be a Kehilla Kedusha, not just when disaster strikes, but all the time. Community is not something that we can create just once in a while, it comes from active engagement in an ongoing fashion. It is about connecting your life to the lives of others; it is about celebrating together and about supporting one another in times of need.

So on this Yom Kippur as you fast and pray together with everyone else present, contemplate what being part of our Kehilla Kedusha could add to your life in the coming year. I assure you that your presence will improve our community and our community will enrich your life in return.

G'mar Hatima Tova/May you be Sealed in the Book of Life for a Good Year!