Welcome to the Kitah Chet Havura!!!!

Shalom Kitah Chet!!!!

I have heard wonderful things about this group! Particularly that you all go quite a ways back, and that you are all already very close-knit.

Great! You therefore have way of a head start on what had been one of my main goals for our sessions together; Pursuing and strengthening fellowship as we immerse ourselves in, what I personally believe to be, some of the most inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes deeply challenging passages of texts; Some of which preserves wisdom which very well might have originated with our ancestors as far back as 3,000 years ago!!!!

I'm hoping that as we do this, a number of things will happen. Here are just a few:

• We will strengthen our relationship to each other;

• We will strengthen our pride in being part of a tradition which has produced some astounding and wonderful works;

• We will strengthen our relationship to the Almighty;

• We will see that the literature in our own tradition has a never-ending trove of wisdom for us, relevant to wherever we are in lives today;

• We will wrestle with deeply relevant topics that range from the BIG - such as the nature of God - to the down-to-earth, nitty-gritty day-to-day stuff, such as how the Torah might help ascertain whether to tell the truth when it might negatively affect a friend.

Before we jump right in, I want to turn the question to you all; First off what do you think about the above list? Do you find anything on there surprising? Challenging?

(I know when I was your age in Hebrew school, I certainly had a MAJOR issue with at least one of them, and gee did I love making sure that my Hebrew school teacher knew it. And I never held back, and we had some great discussions! I hope you too will always feel comfortable sharing when there's something you don't agree with, or take issue with; that's oftentimes when the real meaningful learning begins.)

Also what else is not on the list, but might also be a positive result, or a worthwhile goal in our getting together on a weekly basis in this space in order to read, to learn, to discuss, and to just be with each other and talk?

In light of the above, I thought we would start out our time together by just taking a look at a few scattered passages found throughout our TaNaKh which speak about friendship, just to see some of the things that our Israelite and our Judean ancestors had to say about it.

I wonder; How similar, or how different, did friendship look back then? Let's see if any of these verses below might help us answer this question.

(By the way, the time frame for these is between 1,000 and 300 BCE!!!)

Here's one more question for us to have in mind as we read through these: What value would you say each of these verses are speaking about?

(Any idioms in English you can think of that gets to the same point here? Also... what's going on with the three-fold cord?)

(I bet you've heard at least a part of this one before; but I bet some of you have never see it in the full context! Weird image, right? Any thoughts on this?

One thing I love about the writings of the TaNaKh is how they explore abstract and deeply philosophical concepts, but by way of vivid descriptions of the world they see around them, such as how the poet here speaks about "friendship." Keep your eyes open for more!)

So what do you think about theses verses? Did you find any of them to be particularly meaningful? Challenging? Which did you find yourself having the strongest reaction to?

This year, I'm really hoping that everyone will feel a sense of pride in being part of our Havura; That you'll enjoy our sessions, that you will find the content to be relevant, sometimes challenging, sometimes inspiring, always thought and discussion-provoking.

So with this in mind, we are going to wrap up by making a Brit.

Think about the various friend-groups you are a part of, the various social circles. It might be a club, or a sports team, a band, or just the friends in your neighborhood. Think about the unspoken social guidelines you naturally adhere to when in these groups.

How can we draw on the best of these, adapt them for our ZOOM-experience, and compose a brit which we will all pledge ourselves to doing our very best to uphold, so as to create a Havura environment which will help us hit all of the goals we previously spoke about?

In addition to thinking about your own experience with your own friends, think back to some of the passages we read and discussed together.

Let's see how many different worthwhile guidelines we can come up with - hopefully everyone will think of at least one - I'll jot all of them down, and then let's see if we can narrow it down to the most important seven. (Seven is an important number in our tradition.)

Kitah Chet Havura Brit List

• Be respectful to all present;
• Open-mindedness to hearing differing viewpoints;
• Treat this space respectfully; Be mindful of others' experience;
• Fully present; giving attention to whomever is speaking;
• Respecting each others' (speaking) space;
• Coming prepared;
• Honesty; Be wiling to speak your mind and to disagree, but with utmost respect.