Our next guest, Dr. Amy Sussna Klein, is a member at CKI. She is a early education consultant with a graduate degree from Tufts (my alma mater, too!) and University of Massachusetts, Amherst. We both love reading and participating in the CKI book group. She and I share something else in common too, we each have a daughter named Sarah Klein.

Over 20 years ago, I was helping a friend put together a conference, and the featured speaker was Larry Brendtro. Brendtro blew me away. He talked about meeting the needs of youth by endowing them with four key strengths:

(1) independence,

(2) mastery (a feeling of being able to do something well),

(3) generosity (basically, tzedakah), and

(4) a sense of belonging (i.e., being part of a community). I would argue this lists applies to adults as well as children, and will focus on the last of these strengths: community.

Community has been the emphasis for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. To become part of community and feel a sense of belonging, you need to get to know people in a particular group. Being part of a community is an essential component of human well-being, but how is a community formed? Sometimes, this happens through osmosis, for instance to the people who live in a small, tight-knit town where everybody knows everybody else. In today’s modern world, however, this is much less common than it used to be. We may not even know our next-door neighbors.

But there are other ways that communities can form. In particular, you can take steps to interact with others in ways that lead to the group forming a community (or which leads to you becoming part of a community that has already formed).

The key is this: The more you and others share experiences and goals and backgrounds, the more you will feel like a community.

Sometimes the initial part of joining a community may feel awkward. For example what if you have just moved to a new town? The first months in a new home, although you live in proximity to others in your neighborhood, you may not feel like part of their community. If you meet a neighbor while walking around the neighborhood, what would you say? “Nice weather, or “What a cute dog?”

But, CKI is determined to build community, and provided pathways that make these first few steps less awkward. The book club is one example. The awkwardness of finding a commonality (something to talk about is gone).

I have counted SEVEN ways that the book club helps to pull members into the CKI community:

1. Month after month, CKI members are invited to join.
2. Once you do joint it’s easier to interact with people you don’t know well or may not know at all, since you have all read the same book and you are all there to talk about that book!
3. The books chose each month relate to Judaism, so they relate to you!
4. The members of the book clubs share something in common with you ,as they are all either Jewish or have Jewish family members.
5. Furthermore, they are all members of CKI, so you have something else in common with them.
6. (I call this the “Cheers factor” – after the old sitcom by that name.) The book club meetings are a place you can go where “everybody knows your name.”
7. (I call this the “Energizer Bunny factor.”) Once you start getting involved with the book club, your further involvement with CKI keeps going and going and going….. That’s because the book club members are also involved in other important Jewish and CKI organizations, such as Sisterhood and Hadassah, and you’ll find yourself invited and welcomed into these. [Editor’s Note: This factor is not to be confused with The Energizer Rabbi!}

Amy Sussna Klein