I wrote this as the Closing Remarks for the MKJF's Campaign Event on November 1. In the end I didn't deliver them (no one ever complained that a rabbi spoke too little) but I think they're interesting so I include them here.

I'm often looking at Jewish texts with one eye toward their use in Federation settings, writings with the themes of peoplehood, Jewish unity, charitable giving and Israel. I found a quote from Mordechai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, that addresses all of these, and I want to share parts of it with you. Now, Kaplan can be a difficult writer, so rather I'll hit the highlights.

What are the implications, Kaplan asks - social, political, cultural, and religious - of thinking of the Jews as an international people with its cultural center in Israel?

The social implications in their relations with one another is the sense of oneness and the mutual responsibility for each other's spiritual and material well-being. In relation to the non-Jewish community, it means the right to continue to possess and develop our identity as a unique group, "combined," Kaplan says, "with the readiness to cooperate as Jews in all endeavors for the establishment of a free society based on justice and peace."

The political implications of Jewish peoplehood are the concern of Jews everywhere with a responsive society that looks after the less fortunate among us, as well as our concern with the freedom, stability, and security of the state of Israel.

Culturally, Jewish peoplehood means the fostering of Hebrew language and Jewish cultural expression by Jews in both Israel and the Diaspora, as well as each community's interest in the experiences of each other. In relation to the non-Jewish world, it means, where appropriate, the integration into Jewish culture of values found in other cultures which are compatible with Judaism, and the sharing of Jewish cultural creations with other cultures. This is what Joshua Nelson does with his melding of African American musical forms with Jewish religious content, and what we're going to be doing by sharing this music with our community and with the entire city of Wichita.

Although religion as such is the direct concern of the Federation, Kaplan points out that the modern conception of Jewish peoplehood has legitimated Jewish presence in the Diaspora even when settlement in Israel is available, and recognizes that freedom of conscience, even in religious matters, has become an integral component of Jewish life.

The conception of the Jewish future as the culmination of these factors, Kaplan writes, "marks a higher stage in the development of the Jewish [people]. It places the basis of Jewish unity not in an authoritative traditional creed or code but in the common purpose of Jewish to raise the moral and spiritual level of their group life."

That's Kaplan's take. This is a Jewish Federation text if ever I saw one. For where is it that members of Jewish community of all customs, backgrounds, and beliefs come together in the shared endeavor of building Jewish peoplehood? Where is it that we organize ourselves to care for one another, for Jews all over the world, and for the well-being of the city and society in which we have chosen to live? Where is it that we organize ourselves politically in order to represent our communal interests, and culturally, to bring Jewish cultural expression to ourselves and to the community around us? Where is it that we are free to choose the means of Jewish expression that are most meaningful to us? It is in the Jewish Federation that we accomplish all these things.

As we begin our campaign year, may we keep these factors close to our hearts, as the main motivation for the work we do. May always remember that, the adage kol yisrael arevim zeh le'zeh - all members of Jewish community, all over the world, are responsible for one another - is never as fully expressed - socially, politically, culturally, even religiously - as in the work of the Jewish Federation. And may fulfilling that adage be our goal, as it has ever been the goal of Jewish people everywhere.