When we think of Adat Shalom programs we’re grateful for, which come first to mind? (E-mail your off-the-cuff response, and we’ll see what the community "survey" says!) My guess for the top five vote-getting programs might be religious services, Torah School, adult education, social action, and onegs. While everyone’s list would be different, the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the community together is rarely thought of first. While some might include the Creative Arts Committee, few would name the Personnel Committee. How likely is it that fundraising would make our individual short lists?
Needless to say, you can’t have one without the other. The Mishnah reminds us that "without kemach (flour/sustenance/daily life) there is no Torah; without Torah there is no kemach". The same goes for the Adat Shalom ethos, obligating us to attendance and involvement and participation on the one hand, and to service and contributions and even ‘sacrifice’ on the other.
Consider the oneg: twice a year we expend time and money and energy to bring, set up and clean up forty measures of food. Because of that commitment, we have fifty other shabbatot when we are fed and free. And yet, aren’t our days on the oneg crew among the most meaningful? Service and participation, giving and receiving, are opposite sides of the same coin. That’s the spirit behind tzedakah--a commandment, derived from tzedek (justice / righteousness), often taken to mean simply ‘charity’. In fact, we cannot separate giving up resources in the form of charity from the intrinsic or psycho-spiritual reward (i.e. ‘that warm fuzzy feeling’) that we get for doing the right thing.
Especially in recent months, as non-profits everywhere struggle with increased needs and decreased resources, our tzedakah dollar is needed now more than ever. Few of us would disagree with anyone else’s tzedakah choices, even if our priorities are different--we share common hopes for a happier, healthier, peaceful, creative, just, and sustainable world. Yet we must remember that "tzedakah begins at home". Therefore, among the worthiest causes is what the rabbis called one of the ten mitzvot (commandments) that can be performed without limit: hakhnassat beit hamidrash, shacharit v’arvit — the maintenance of the house of study/prayer, morning and night.
Our community has done wonders in this regard. The recent High Holy Day appeal was incredibly successful in every way: dollars raised, number of members contributing, and the fair-share element of seeking gifts in proportion to the means of individuals and their families. Despite this much-needed infusion, however, we’re not out of the financial woods yet. Dues only pay a certain percentage of our annual operating expenses, and the “mandatory building fund" covers a still-smaller fraction of the cost of our beautiful new building. Gifts must make up the difference. Having already illustrated the basis in Jewish values for giving, I’ll end with three concrete suggestions:
Please continue to sustain Adat Shalom in the myriad ways that are possible. After all, without sustenance, there is no Torah. Here I’ve focused on material sustenance; how much more could I say (and will, in months to come) of the emotional and spiritual sustenance of the community. For again, the two are one: without Torah (and the ethical/spiritual/intellectual gifts it offers in community), there is no sustenance.
Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb