Showing Love to Our Neighbors

Friends,

Our Torah portion this week contains one of our central teachings: "Love your neighbor as yourself. (Lev. 19:18)" Rabbi Akiva (c. 50 CE) teaches that this is the most important verse in the entire Torah. More than ever we need to both receive and show our love for those in our community.

I have been encouraged by so many of our members who have been working to provide for our neighbors. Chevra Hands continues to make masks and the Pe'ah garden is planting food that will soon fill food pantry shelves. JCARR continues to care for our refugee families and CMI has begun making deliveries to people in our own CMI community. We are grateful for the Chesed Team for reaching out to our members and providing help. Yet there is still so much work to be done!

This week I encourage you to consider how we might begin to fulfill the needs of those in our greater New Haven community who we might not know so well. Like many of you, I was shocked to see the lines outside of the Hamden food pantry and to read that they ran out of food – meaning that many of our neighbors are going hungry. I encourage you to consider donating to them to help fill their shelves via the instructions below. No one should ever go hungry in 2020.

Witnessing so many acts of g’milut chasadim, loving kindness, inspires us to find and express the love that connects us to our neighbors, both near and far. Like illness, love is also contagious – it can spread, grow and transform entire communities and even the world. I pray that our love for one another lifts us up as we do all we can to protect and provide for the vulnerable among us.

May we continue to find holiness in the acts of loving kindness and connections that we make every day. We continue to pray for those afflicted by Covid-19 and please do not hesitate to reach out if you or someone you know is in need of any kind of support.

I wish you all blessings of hope, strength, courage and health,

Rabbi Immerman