Courtesy of JewishSacredAging.com

I have just completed a marathon of weekend travel for work, visiting congregations across the country in my capacity as a consultant and family concerns specialist for our movement.

While exhausting (flying is not the fun it used to be), it is also exhilarating. The "charge" you get is being with a congregation on its home turf, getting to know its culture and learning from its members.

I have had the privilege, since the beginning of October, to be in all types of congregations, from 2,600-family "mega" congregations, to 60-family congregations in rural West Virginia.

Through workshops, sermons, discussions, dinners, and lunches, despite size and challenges, there were constants. No matter where I was, congregations stated a need to reinforce and expand the sense of community and relationship. It was as if they were saying that the congregation may be one of the last places in our society in which people, individuals, are honored, cared for, and valued—not for who they are or what they earn or what job they do, but for just being them.

I submit to you that this need for human relationships, connection, and community is the bedrock of all religious congregations. More valuable than the theology of the institution is the reality of community. I will bet you that the normative members of your church or synagogue or mosque do not really care, or even know, that much about the theology or history of the denomination of which they are members.

What is more valuable to them is not theology but community: a sense of belonging, a sense of being with people. This is especially important these days, when society seems so intent on isolating us from each other. Just sit on any plane or train or bus or car and look at how many people are plugged in. I especially love one of the new rituals we have created. The plane lands, and within 10 seconds (if that long), everyone takes out their cell phones. As the plane taxis to the gate, you hear the cacophony of bells, ring tones, buzzers, and the like. God help us if they ever allow cell phone conversations in flight!

Our society is about to begin more than a month of orgiastic excess and economic temptation. Success will be measured in sales figures and not in souls. So, a favor. Take time to give thanks for the community you have. Give thanks, and honor the friends and relationship that are the real sustenance of life, for it is in those relationships that we find meaning, and it is through those relationships that we are defined.

Shalom.