A note: There was a problem with WordPress in terms of credentials. Simon had administrator privileges and could edit. I as an editor no longer could. We’ve decided for the next few days there will be two posts in order to catch up.

G-d said to Abraham, “Lech lecha, Go.” There is lots of commentary on this text.  Abraham is told to leave his land, the place of his birth, and his family and go to the land that G-d would show him. It is a model of concentric circles. It is hard to leave your land. Harder still to leave the land of your birth. Hardest still to leave your family—everything familiar. And yet, that is what G-d asked Abraham to do.

This resonates with us today. Today we live in a very transient society. It is common for kids to leave for college and not return to the land of their birth. It is common to hear people say, especially at holidays like Thanksgiving, that their friends are the ones they choose to celebrate, that those friends have become their family. There are even famous scenes in every sit com in America–Seinfeld, Friends, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother–all about the family we choose.

It seems to me that there are pluses and minuses in this. On the one hand, if you are not living near your family, it creates independence and self-reliance. On the other hand, if you have an emergency or just need a babysitter for a night out, your parents are not around the corner and your extended family may be in another state. Grandchildren may not have a close relationship with grandparents. Parents may not teach kids how to change the oil in the car or hang a picture or water the garden or mow the lawn. Mentoring may be harder to come by.

And the nature of community may change.

Yet, people still want to belong. They want to experience something bigger than themselves. They want to feel connected. They want to know that there are people they can count on—and those people may not be in their own families.

So when they leave their families, and the land of their birth, they begin to create community. It maybe a college extra curricular club. Or cheering in a football stadium. It maybe a group of people that gathers for a casual dinner or pizza on Friday night. It maybe the people you meet at the health club. Or the neighborhood pool. It maybe a group of parents who meet on the playground or who gather for a playgroup. It maybe the soccer moms or the Little League coaches. It maybe a PTO board. Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts. Or the Torah school parents who sit at the round tables on Sunday mornings.

Or it may be your workplace. The lunch room. The water cooler (do people still have these?) The cookie exchange. The Kiwanis or Lions or Rotary. For me it maybe places like the Martin Luther King Commission or the U46 Clergy Council or the Coalition of Elgin Religious Leaders. At one time it was the dance academy that Sarah attended and through which she danced five years of the Nutcracker. Each year the kids would make an ornament to place on the tree that grew–and the director talked about community. Sarah might tell you that she is part of the theater community or the running community.

In each case there is an expectation that these are people that you have a shared experience with and that you can count on. They are the families that you choose.

Community—your family, the place of your birth and wherever you wander, wherever G-d might lead you. Each is a place of community.