He videotaped bar and bat mitzvah children as they read Torah for the first time, he helped people lay tefillin, he gave out the honors when Morty Levine wasn't able to be there, and when Zev wasn't there, everyone knew. This past summer, Zev was no longer able to be at the minyan. He fell ill and was in and out of the hospital until his death.
During this time, a huge number of BJ members visited him: people from the morning minyan, bikkur holim (visiting the sick), his Shabbat connections partner (our program in which BJ members call to wish elders in our community Shabbat Shalom), etc. Phone calls and e-mails circulated constantly on how Zev was doing and how we were doing as a community with our visits to him. This outpouring of love and concern is at the essence of what it means to be a Kehillah Kedoshah (a sacred community).
At Zev's funeral, while reading Psalm 121, "I look up unto the mountains, from where will my help come?" I looked up to see a room full of BJ people who came to honor to Zev. So often, we look up to the heavens for help, search for God in the mountains, and while I believe that God can be found in those places, many times we find that God's help is often most palpable in the divine image of human beings. Kedushah (holiness) is touched through the love and obligation that we feel towards one another.
"Inspire and Require" – that is our mission at BJ. Perhaps some of us don't feel that God is ultimately commanding us to do the "require" – the command. Perhaps that is the way God works... through the sense of requirement and privilege of participation that being part of a Kehillah Kedosha inspires. Zev did not ask that people visit or make phone calls or speak at his funeral. All of those things happened because he showed up, he counted, he made his humble presence known and in doing so, he enabled a sacred community to form around him.
I believe it is possible to strive to be a Kehillah Kedoshah – even with 4000 people. Community is not about what I "get" for paying membership – community is about how I show up, what I give, how I search for holiness. It is possible... Zev's story is that story... how will we each participate in making this search and obligation real?
–Rabbi Felicia L. Sol
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