Dear Friends,

The Talmud [Taanit 23a] contains a “Rip Van Winkle” folk tale, a tragic account of a miraculous man named “Honi the Circle Drawer,” who sleeps for 70 years. He awakens to a world without comrades or community and ultimately dies of loneliness. “As the people say,” the tale concludes, “ O havruta o mituta. It’s either friendship or death . ” Perhaps that ancient aphorism is the source of the modern wisdom that “life is with people.”

In my 20 years in our synagogue, I’ve seen this truth every day. At Ansche Chesed, the “Community of Kindness,” our life is with each other. We share our joys and our struggles with our fellow members because we know that we will stand beside each other when it is time to rejoice and when we need to hold each other up.

This long year of isolation has demonstrated how essential our togetherness is. So for our synagogue’s annual benefit, in the spirit of “friendship or death,” we want to salute our many years of doing the mitzvot of sharing life’s major moments and minor ones. We always stand beside each other in celebration and support.

Together we’ve done the commandments of helping brides and grooms celebrate, and we’ve welcomed new Jewish babies to the covenants of Abraham and Sarah. We’ve celebrated young people growing up by reading the Torah. We do the mitzvah of ahavat ha’ger, or “loving the immigrant,” welcoming someone born in another faith or ethnicity who chose to join the Jewish community. The Community of Kindness excels at the mitzvot of bikkur holim, visiting each other when we’re sick, levayat hamet, accompanying the dead, and ni h um avelim, caring for the mourner. We come through for each other in life’s extraordinary moments, and ordinary ones, in caring gestures and words.

Please join us in saluting the members of the Community of Kindness by participating in our annual benefit. Think of those who shared your joy at times of growth and birth, or who supported you in tough times of loss or illness. Think of someone at AC who lifted you up during Covid-induced isolation, with a walk in the park, or a well-timed smile over Zoom. Please thank them by taking an ad in our virtual journal, saluting individuals by name or by group. And join us on May 23 for our Zoom based celebration.

We need you there. It would not be the same without you. Because at Ansche Chesed, life is with people.

Warmest wishes,

Jeremy Kalmanofsky