This week’s parsha  is Mishpatim, which is filled with dozens of interpersonal laws.  The Jewish People  are a nation who have not worshiped God before.  They were slaves for several generations in a polytheistic land. Since the Torah was just given to them wouldn’t it make more sense to follow it with a parsha of ritual laws, religious actions between us and God?   Isn’t that the unique stuff of religion?

Perhaps the message is that in Judaism not only is the interpersonal religious but the religious is interpersonal.   The interpersonal is religious because God cares about and commands us to behave well toward and to do acts of kindness for others.   In this sense the interpersonal laws and acts of kindness which we might know without the Torah are nonetheless a Divine command.   But also the religion is interpersonal.   We can not be religious Jews on our own, it takes family, community and peoplehood.  A Jew can not be fully observant on their own.   In the Temple times a private altar was forbidden. It must be communal.  So too for us, though we can pray some things on our own, there is much we can not do without a minyan, and the Talmud tells us that our prayers are accepted much more readily when we pray as a community.  In communal prayer we can say the holy words of kidushsa, kaddish and barichu.   But more than this, communal prayer is a way we can show support and caring for each other in a holy context.  We are a community focused together on assisting each other with all our religious and spiritual  lives.

This week we are having two minyanim for each service, one at shul and one at a shiva house.   We must each see this as an opportunity to help contribute to the unity and spirit of our community.  We should feel like a big family, there to care about and assist each other with the physical, social and spiritual aspects of our lives, to be there as one at the good times and during the difficult.   This is our role this week.  To be that kind of community that cares and supports each other is not only a sanctification of God’s name but an act of sublime beauty and sanctity.  We must not let this opportunity to be present slip by.  I call not just on our men but on our women.  Men and women are not the same, and their prayers are not the same.   We each bring ourselves and our unique experiences and vision to the community’s prayer.

We are not complete without it.