A more ambitious way of framing your thinking about where to live: What do you need to grow?
Living a full Jewish life is no different than making any other significant decision about the structure of our lives. Just as there is no universal answer to the question of what career to pursue or which partner to settle down with, there is no single way to ap- proach how to live as a Jew. Contemplating a move to a small community, or whether to stay in the one you’re already in, requires self-awareness most of all. Do you need access to kosher restaurants? An in-person daily minyan? A Jewish day school? As Rabbi Rachel Isaacs put it to me, “If you expect a catered Kiddush every Shabbat, or if your solution to Shabbat morning kids’ pro- gramming is to just hire a Jewish educator, then you might not be cut out for a small community.” Isaacs should know: in addition to be- ing the rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Waterville, Maine, (total population: 15,828) and a professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College, she runs the Center for Small Town Jewish Life, an organization de- voted to providing resources to Jews in iso- lated communities across America. A more ambitious way of framing your thinking about where to live: What do you need to grow? Rabbi Falik Schtroks and his wife, Simie Schtroks, have been the Chabad emissar- ies in Surrey, B.C., for the past 30 years. They say that, in small communities, every person becomes important and “every Jew becomes one letter in the Torah.” As Rabbi Falik put it, there is no stagnation in human life; you either grow as a person and as a Jew or you are in decline. For some people, becoming an identifiable, and even essen- tial, part of a social fabric—the way you can in a small town but not a large city—can be a tool for growth. Others will miss the social dynamics inherent to larger communities,
The Montefiore Institute was built in the 1910s near Sibbald, AB. In 2008, long fallen out of use, it was relocated to Calgary’s Heritage Park.
Beth Israel, in Edenbridge, was completed in 2008; it is believed to be the oldest surviving synagogue in Saskatchewan.
models of rabbis living in isolation. Nota- bly, we have the story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who, fearing for his life because of a decree against him, hid in a cave for 12 years and did nothing but study Torah and eat from a carob tree that was growing at the cave’s mouth. (Sometimes, you really just need some peace and quiet to get your book finished.)
ings of the Elders , writes that we should not separate ourselves from the community. This is, arguably, the conventional view in the modern world as well: Jewish life is best lived when we are together, and easiest to maintain when the critical mass you get in cities allows for robust institutions, services, and synagogues. On the other hand, tradition also gives us
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