The Power of a “Kehillah”

One of my favourite things to think/speak/write about is the power of community; I’ve said before that community, to me, is the group of people with whom we surround ourselves and a part of whom we consider ourselves. When using a translation service like Google translate, community translates to Kehillah in Hebrew; however, as we learn in this week’s Torah portion, a Kehillah is actually a group of like-minded individuals who share a common bond and are inspired by a greater responsibility to God and community, which is a powerful bond in and of itself.  I’ve been thinking about community even more than normal lately, as I have recently embarked on a new Jewish-Ottawa-community initiative while simultaneously feeling somewhat cut-off from my personal community due to personal circumstance.  As well,  a couple of weeks ago I had the absolute pleasure of watching my eldest daughter’s first meaningful community experience with her peers, her “Kabbalat Siddur”, or “Siddur Party”, with her grade 1 class at OJCS.  As we watched our children speak, sing, and dance, and then finally receive the prayerbook that will carry them through their formative years of Jewish life, we parents had moist eyes and many of us realized that in witnessing our children form their Kehillah, we had formed our own as well.  THIS is what makes our school so special, so ‘apart’, from all others.

By the same token, our OJCS Board of Directors is also its own Kehillah, a group of like-minded (not always) individuals striving towards a single purpose: to ensure the sustainability and long-term excellence of Ottawa’s community Jewish day school.  With the tremendous support of OJCS families, faculty, and administration, we continue to make great strides towards our goals; the starting work on Ottawa’s first #makerspace to be housed in an elementary school is just the latest example of how the OJCS Kehillah is changing Jewish journeys for our students, encouraging a new generation of leaders, and transforming what elementary education in Ottawa can be.  Our work as a Board has to focus on continuing to grow the opportunities of the school to harness its power as a strong Kehillah to shore up even more support, in terms of financial as well as community backing so that the school continues on its path of renewed excellence.  Our Board Kehillah is up to this challenge.