Today there is a big rally outside the United Nations building in support of Israel. Thousands are gathering to hear motivational speakers and rally their support for Israel. Personally I think rallies are wonderful opportunities for the Jewish community to come together. My question is why do we always come together when the situation is difficult? Wouldn’t it be wonderful for us to come together to celebrate Israel’s technological advances or the continued survival of our people amid challenges? My hope and prayer is that in addition to coming together to support Israel in the difficult war it is fighting, we also will come together to support our people’s accomplishments and achievements. In addition to being united in times of war, let us also be united as one people to showcase all the wonderful things that Jews are doing throughout the world.

When I told my congregants in Tucson that I was going to become the Rabbi of the Jericho Jewish Center, a number of them said, “Oh, so you’re going to be the Rabbi of a JCC?” My response was “No I’m going to be the rabbi of the JJC, a shul called the Jericho Jewish Center.”

The confusion is not for naught. A number of shuls in the greater New York City area are referred to as Jewish Centers. Why is this the case? Jewish centers emerged from Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s idea of the “synagogue center,” a “shul with a pool.” Rabbi Kaplan believed that the synagogue should be the center of social, cultural and community programming, in addition to a place of religious worship. He began with his own congregation, The Jewish Center, which he founded in 1917. As the Jewish community moved into the suburbs, the majority of Conservative synagogues followed Kaplan’s line of thinking, inscribing their building as a Jewish center. There are dozens of these shuls today, including the Fresh Meadows Jewish Center, Midway Jewish Center, Princeton Jewish Center, Riverdale Jewish Center and of course the Jericho Jewish Center. Many of them formed in the 1950s and 1960s, when Jews began to move to the suburbs.

As the years passed, the synagogue lost its place as the center of Jewish gathering. A number of YMHAs (Young Mens Hebrew Associations) began taking the name Jewish Community Center (JCC). These organizations centered on athletics and social programming as well as preschools and teen programming and over time became the central places where Jews would congregate for big community events (Yom HaShoah ceremonies and Yom HaAtzmaut parades, to name a couple). The JCCs are more in vogue today, as they appeal to people’s fitness and social needs.

My challenge for the contemporary synagogue is to reacquire some of the appeal of the Jewish Center of the past through focusing on engaging the entire person. Shuls today have to realize that some will come for prayer services but others will come for social action, yoga, bridge or athletic competitons. We need to embrace the synaplex model that different activities appeal to different congregants and to meet people where they are at rather than where we want them to be. If we do this, we can start to regain some of the glory of Kaplan’s synagogue center of the past.

Judah HaLevi said it best: “My heart is in the east but I am in the west.”That is exactly how I feel when I watch the war in Israel on television or read about it in the paper. I pray for the day that rockets are no longer fired into Israel and that no more innocent civilians are killed. I pray for Hamas to be destroyed and a viable peace partner to come to the forefront. I pray for the safety of the soldiers and of volunteers who risk their lives to bring food, water and supplies into the heat of battle. I pray each and every day for a cease fire and for an eventual peace.

As we begin the Book of Deuteronomy, I cant help but think about what Moses felt being so close to the Land of Israel yet so far away at the same time. Moses begged to enter the land but no no avail. As the Book of Deuteronomy begins, “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan; in the wilderness.” Moses wanted to be in the Promised Land yet he was separated by the Jordan River. Similarly, I long to be in the Land of Israel, the Jewish homeland, but I am separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

The war has in part impelled me to begin planning a congregational mission to Israel, to take place in Winter 2015. I want to return to this land with such a rich history, where Hebrew is spoken every day and where people courageously progress in their lives each and every day. I want to return to this rich tapestry of cultures and religions, a land where I am at home for being a Jew yet which numerous Christians, Muslims, Bedouins and Druze also call their home. It has been 5 years since I was last in Israel, and I am ready to return and to lead a group to this wonderfully rich country, the homeland of the Jewish people. Israel needs our support more now than ever. I applaud those who are continuing to take trips to Israel this summer and look forward to my return to this wonderful country of survivors-those who persevere in the face of terror and continue to live life with such meaning and richness.

May the coming week bring a calming of the violence.