I trust you have heard the theory of 6 degrees of separation – the premise that all the world is connected by a social chain with no more than 5 links.  Similar, perhaps you’ve heard of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon – the theory that any actor can through movie roles, be linked to Philadelphia native, the actor, Kevin Bacon. Here’s how you play: Can you connect Robert DeNiro to Kevin Bacon?  Robert DeNiro appears in Silver Linings Playbook with Jennifer Lawrence who is in X-Men with Kevin Bacon. (I’m quite good at this game.)

Now, a question for our congregation. How many degrees of separation, are in this sanctuary? If you meet a fellow congregant, how many links does it take for you to know another congregant in common? In her new book, The Jewish Way to a Good Life, Rabbi Shira Stutman teaches: it ought to take only one link. The degree of separation reveals the closeness—or distance—of the community.

She has me wondering about the degrees of separation at Rodeph Shalom about the strength of our connections here, and about the impact a synagogue can have in this difficult moment in American Jewish life. I know I am not alone in feeling this world has grown, harsh.

From anti-immigrant xenophobia, to transphobia, from antisemitism, to the world’s neglect of the Israeli hostages, to starvation in Gaza, and statelessness of the Palestinian people, to threats to democracy in our own nation…all of the injustice, the callousness, relies on tools of isolation and dehumanization.

At Rodeph Shalom, we are finding our mitzvah in the social justice work. But tackling each issue is not our only response. For, one answer to a harsh world, one way to resist isolation, division and demonization, is to know each other. Our sacred purpose as a congregation compels us to strengthen the connections that bind us, together, to heed today’s words of the Unetane Tokef prayer: Ma-ah-vee-reen et ro-ah hagezerah – we can transcend the harshness.

Our tradition understands: interconnectedness lies at the center of Jewish life. We sing the words of the Psalmist, which read: “Henei matov umanayim / How good and how pleasing it is when we dwell all together. But isn’t it sufficient to just say together, rather than all together? A mystical Jewish text suggests: “Together” describes the people; “all together” adds God to the mix.* When we gather we invite God’s presence. Communal gathering is not only human; it is holy.

Our sages imagine us at risk of losing our connections and offer a cautionary text. Pirke Avot teaches: “Do not separate from the community.” The ancient sages– as though they are living in 2025…watching us substitute our engagement with social media for actual human connection IRL…  as though the sages themselves are witnessing a world still healing from the pandemic… as though they have read the past surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy’s warning about loneliness threatening our lives, the sages put it so simply: “Do not separate from the community.”

Thought-leaders of our own time are catching up with the sages.  Biologists have found the feeling human beings call loneliness evolved as a signal. When you sense hunger, it is time to eat.  When you sense isolation, it is time to connect. But here’s where I see a difference. When we feel hungry, we eat.  When we feel alone?…we are not always so quick to respond by connecting. The pandemic – its grief, anxiety, and fear — remain with us. Lonesomeness today touches us, and so many around us: the professional who works remotely –with convenience but separated from co-workers; the young adult who seeks ways to make friends after college, the retiree who yearns for meaningful daily interaction; the divorced woman who watches Jeopardy in her apartment wondering if she knows anyone with whom she might attend services here at her congregation; the widower who watches Jeopardy in his apartment in her very building wondering the same.

Loneliness can beget loneliness. Isolation can pull us into inertia, despondence.  Still, we cannot get stuck or lose hope, for loneliness is not only a feeling and a health epidemic, loneliness is a guidepost for our survival.

One response to loneliness is scholar Robert Putnam’s latest project called, Join or Die.  With a Philadelphia appreciation for the Join or Die motto –from Ben Franklin’s take on the colonies in his political cartoon of the segmented snake that needs to rejoin itself to survive…and of course, its adoption by the 76ers in the 2018 playoffs run…  Putnam’s film Join or Die argues: Why you should join a club, and why the fate of America depends on it.

Although now you can watch Join or Die on Netflix, initially it was only authorized for communal settings. Sure enough, it was scheduled to be screened at a community center in Philadelphia earlier this month, and my husband suggested we go to view it. When I replied: “it would be more convenient to watch it at home,” he responded, “OK… but honey, do you see the irony here?!” Was I perceiving the opportunity to connect as a bother? Yes, I have some re-prioritizing to do. Maybe I’m not the only one. Putnam’s core point.

Putnam’s work tracks loneliness with a decrease in trust. This decrease surely contributes to the harshness so many of us long to transcend. Weakened social connections and weakened trust breed polarization and dehumanization.

How many settings in your life celebrate complexity or hold multiple generations and perspectives?  How many media sources do you digest from multiple points of view, or nuanced points of view?  It is not easy to find. We learn a different news story depending on the radio talk-show host we tune into. The social media we consume does not even require us to tune into preferred stations. It gives us each a different take with content curated according to algorithms, further entrenching us in our own perspectives rather than challenging us to be hard on our own opinions, or to understand someone else’s. There are few diverse places, of bonding and listening rather than persuading and blaming. Few spaces where we can grow in our own nuanced understanding, care for people who think differently, even feel responsible for them, and stretch our capacity for empathy. I believe although the complexity might be too much for the algorithms to handle; it ought not be too much for us to handle, congregant to congregant.

I pray that you sense, as I do, that when loneliness and polarization threaten us, part of our response is sacred interconnected community. Isolation is a tool of polarization. And loneliness is an epidemic, for which we – our congregation—is an antidote.

I believe our congregation has reached a time when we need to go back to the basics of our vision to create profound connections. My sense is we do not know each other well enough. As we embrace this new year it is time for a renewed commitment to communal life.

Last year in a retreat, our Boards of Advisors and Directors engaged in an exercise that brought them together in structured conversations. In small groups, they responded to prompts such as: What Jewish value do you want to leave for the next generation? Some of these participants knew each other for years; others were meeting for the first time. The experience was transformative, and at the conclusion we reflected, let’s just do that all year long.

At Rodeph Shalom gatherings let’s measure impact by reflecting: did I make a new connection?  Deepen an old one?

A collaborative team of congregants and staff are building a relational engagement campaign called The Belonging Project. Groups of congregants who do not know each other convene for small-group structured conversations that cultivate sharing that matters. After each gathering participants can help to co-create the next steps of the campaign. Slowly and deliberately, we are strengthening community, relationship by relationship.

The next step of The Belonging Project is to extend participation to the whole congregation. On Yom Kippur afternoon, in between services, we will have an opportunity for face-to-face relationship building when we gather in a large room of small groups for structured conversations about what matters in our lives.

In our initial engagement campaign gathering our prompt was: Where did you grow up and how did that shape you?   In my small group I listened to others speak with vulnerability and trust as they opened up about the impact of where they were raised. And I shared my own experience. I recalled as a child in the suburbs watching the urban Sesame Street and thinking–that’s the way to live! I’d like to share the playground rather than have my own yard, I’d like to be able to walk to the hardware store, (and have Big Bird as a neighbor!).  As I opened up to my group, sharing something that mattered to me, felt both human and holy.

I was so moved by the energy at that experimental gathering.  As though there might even be hope for Sesame Street to become more than a dream.

And then, something outside the plan happened. As everyone headed out to go home, two participants (who have granted permission to share), left the table more slowly as one parent in our religious school Berkman Mercaz Limud noticed aloud the torn black ribbon mourners wear—a kriya ribbon–pinned to the shirt of a woman, an empty nester he did not know. And both of them felt a pull, to remain in the space. Extending himself, he asked her whom she was grieving. She shared that her father had died just a week before. And then the man replied that his mother died earlier that year. They stayed on to share their experiences of bereavement and to share something of the loved ones they each were remembering. They could bring comfort and feel understood.

I think of what it demanded of that man and that woman to commit to showing up to connect that day. To prioritize the bonds of community enough to invest that time, demands dedication.

For many of us, building new relationships means taking a risk and moving outside our comfort zone, or resisting an urge toward inertia, helplessness, or hopelessness.  Still, deep down, don’t we know: When we connect with others, something happens within us. It can open our heart.  Move our soul.  Stir our curiosity. Inspire hope. Make us more whole. 

In a world still healing from the pandemic, it is our holy purpose to move through the discomfort, and to respond to loneliness by connecting. It is a precious gift to be in a place where we intentionally choose to care. In a world of callousness, may we know we are not alone. In this world where we profoundly need each other, may we sustain ourselves in our congregational bonds. In this season of possibility, ma-ah-virin et ro-ah hagezerah / We can transcend the harshness, together.

 

*Henei Matov interpretation based on commentary in The Relational Judaism Handbook, by Dr. Ron Wolfson, Rabbi Nicole Auerbach and Rabbi Lydia Medwin.