Yachad Community Action Project
How Temple Sholom’s Yachad Community Action Project began
Yachad is the Hebrew word meaning
together, and through the
Yachad Community Action Project, we are bringing congregants and community groups together to repair our piece of the world. Between the fall of 2007 and the winter of 2008, members of the congregation were trained in the art of conducting conversations that get to the heart of the social issues that are most important to our members. We engaged in well over a hundred conversations about issues of social relevance. In our conversations, there were many issues about which our congregational family felt passionate. Concerns about healthcare dominated many of these conversations. Soon it became clear that people in our community care deeply about the accessibility and quality of healthcare in Lakeview. And in Judaism, concern leads to action. We have partnered with community organizations, met with elected officials, and have begun to plot a plan of action to improve healthcare in our community.
We’re not in this alone
Over 75 other Reform synagogues around the country are engaged in this type of congregation-based community organizing under the guidance of the Union for Reform Judaism’s “Just Congregations.” Locally, community organizations such as
Lakeview Action Coalition,
United Power for Justice and Action, and the
Jewish Council on Urban Affairs have counseled us on how to affect change in our community. Lakeview synagogues Anshe Emet and Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel are simultaneously organizing.
Together we can perform
tikkun, we can repair some of the ills in our community.
This is a Jewish tradition
Tikkun olam (repairing the world), an ancient concept defined by the Kabbalists as a human endeavor to partner with
the Divine to fix our broken planet, has served as a rallying cry for Jews of every ilk. Yet, Rashi says that we must not wait until things are completely broken to help to repair them. Instead he urges: “Do not wait until (a person) has
fallen, because it will be difficult to raise him up. Instead, strengthen him at the time when his hand is slipping”. This
is true not only for individuals, but communities as well. The Talmud teaches: “Every person who can protest the
problems of his household and does not, is responsible for the people of his household; for the problems of the city,
he is responsible for the people of his city; for the problems of the world, he is responsible for the people of his world” (
Bt Shabbat 54b). According to our tradition, we must work together to repair our world. As Rabbi Tzvi Freeman explains, “If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that God has left for you to complete.”
Our involvement in healthcare is a Jewish mandate
Providing healthcare is not just an obligation of doctor and patient but for society as well. It is for this reason that
healthcare is listed first by Maimonides, the twelfth century rabbi, physician and philosopher, in his list of the ten
most important communal services that a city must provide to its residents (
Mishneh Torah, Sefer HaMadda iv:23). In the sixteenth century, Joseph Caro, the preeminent Jewish legal codifier, further clarified the responsibility of the
community regarding health care by saying: When patients cannot afford their care, the community should subsidize it. (
Shulkan Aruch, Yoreh Deah, 249).
Join with us as
together we help to repair that piece of the world that God has left for us to complete.
Interested? Contact Rabbi Shoshanah Conover,
rabbiconover@sholomchicago.org
