By Janet Gunner

At the start of each Jewish New Year the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism Torah Fund Campaign issues a pin highlighting a tenet of Judaism that many women wear proudly. This year (5784) “Arevut” was highlighted, taken from the Babylonian Talmud (Shevuot 39a), meaning responsibility –  Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh BaZeh – All of Israel are responsible for one another. We have a communal responsibility to care for each other. We left Egypt, received Torah at Sinai, and journeyed to the Promised Land as a community.

The Gemara teaches that the Torah verse “And they shall stumble one upon another” (Leviticus 26:37) means that they shall stumble spiritually, due to the transgression of another. We learn from this that the Jewish People are viewed as guarantors for each other. Jews are responsible not only for themselves and their families, but morally and spiritually for the Jewish People as a whole. As stated by R. Shimon bar Yohai: “When one Jew is injured, all Jews feel pain.” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l, exhorted: “[W]hen there is a problem within the Jewish world, none of us can sit back and say, ‘It’s not my responsibility.’ We are all summoned to the task.”  We all must act.

This Jewish value has resonated deeply with me as I think it has for all of us. We feel traumatized by the events and aftermath of October 7 and strongly compelled to help our brothers and sisters in Israel as well as the diaspora as antisemitism rises. Communal responsibility is part of who we are as a people in both a personal and a collective way.

Personally, I have been inspired by my father, Murray Gunner (Moshe Yakov) z”l. My father lived the value of communal responsibility in his career of over sixty years in Jewish communal service. When he arrived at the Williamsburg Y, as their executive director in the early 1960’s, the Y was an underused facility located in a Brooklyn Hassidic neighborhood. My father went into the community to learn how the Y could best serve the members of the community. He learned the importance of separate swim time for men and women, ensuring the strictest standards of kashrut, and creating spaces conforming to the necessary standards for childcare and recreation and socialization for teens. He then developed and implemented the programs in accord with the community’s and individuals’ specific needs rather than creating programs only for those who fit in.

Then in 1966 my father became the executive director of the Yonkers JCC following a tragic fire at its building, which killed 9 children and 3 adults. Many in the community thought Murray was brought in to shut down the operation. Rather, he helped to heal, uplift, and build a vibrant Jewish community by leading the Yonkers JCC and then the Yonkers Jewish Council until his retirement at age 88. He always sought to learn of and meet the specific needs of the community that the Jewish organizations he led were uniquely suited to meet. Murray learned that a nearby school for children with intellectual disabilities had limited recreational opportunities. He then provided regular swim time at the JCC pool for them. As an active member of the all-male Yonkers Rotary, Murray persuaded the chapter to admit women, as they were exemplary community leaders and had much to offer. When my father, age 91, moved to the Weinberg Campus, he enlisted me on his new project, now as a volunteer. He knew that one’s yearning for lifelong learning doesn’t diminish with age, frailty, or disability. He invited university faculty and community leaders to give lectures and he developed an opera series with two showings for capacity crowds.

We each have a personal story about the individuals and community actions that have inspired us. And we each identify our own meaningful way to participate in the mitzvah of communal responsibility. You may be taking responsibility through participation with the hevrah kadishah, tikkun olam initiatives, making a minyan, giving a ride to shul to someone who otherwise would be alone, visiting or providing a meal for a family facing loss, disability, or illness or providing financial, volunteer or leadership support to community organizations and those in need.

In Exodus 19:6 God says: “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Rabbi Sacks said this “surely means just this: a kingdom every one of whose members is in some sense a priest, and a nation every one of whose members is called on to be holy. We are called on to be a people of leaders.” May we each inspire each other, at times in leadership roles, at times in supporting roles, as we fulfill the holy responsibility of communal caring for each other uplifting us all.

Janet Gunner is a retired attorney, past president of Temple Beth Tzedek and co-chair of Temple Beth Tzedek’s Kesher Inclusion and coordinator of the Jewish Community Inclusion Task Force, both which strive to ensure full, seamless lifelong inclusion and belonging for every person for a caring, vibrant, and flourishing community.