Our next guest blogger is Barbara Simon Njus, a retired literature professor, who is a life-long resident of Elgin and lifelong member of Congregation Kneseth Israel. She is one of several people who spoke on the topic of What is Community over the High Holidays at CKI. She is a very deep thinker which I appreciate and she is extraordinarily kind doing things behind the scenes to help the wider community. But she is extremely modest too, so while she appears as an angel, I can’t say more.

Community is belonging.   Our community is like an extended family.   We gain strength and comfort from our togetherness. From this comfort, we renew ourselves. From this strength, we help others.

We are a Jewish Community.   In its most basic form, this is the minion. Our Jewish identity is unique, but also universal, as we share our humanity with all people.

Our community is modern and ancient. The Torah is our guide, our source, our wisdom. There is the old adage: For generations, the Jews have kept Shabbat, but Shabbat has kept the Jews. Sabbath by Sabbath, High Holidays by High Holidays, we reaffirm our faith and our togetherness.

As a Jewish Community, we are also part of the greater Elgin community. While we help ourselves, we also help others, through projects and partnerships with other houses of worship and other community groups like the Crisis Center, PADS, and Food for Greater Elgin.  We Feed Greater Elgin, too, with the Sisterhood annual corned beef lunch.

Imaginative Bar and Bat Mitzvah projects: collecting art supplies for children at the Crisis Center, playing baseball to raise money for Alzheimer’s research, walking to raise money to fight ALS – – these projects show our young members learn the mitzvah of ,, tikkun olam, to repair and heal the world, at the same time as they assume their responsibilities as adults in our Jewish Community.

Some of you may remember The Jewish Catalogue from 1973, a “do-it-yourself “ guide to Judaism.   Towards the end, there’s chapter entitled, “How to bring Mashiah [the Messiah].”

May we strive to bring Mashiah by all we do, as individuals, and as a community. In all we do together, day by day, deed by deed, mitzvah by mitzvah, may we go from strength to strength for our next hundred and twenty years.