Chief Rabbi’s Rosh Hashanah message
A recent survey by the American Psychiatric Association found that one in three people experience loneliness at least once a week, with 30% of younger people reporting feeling lonely at least several times a week.
Ironically, when asked how they dealt with their feelings of loneliness, half the respondents said they sought solace in some kind of distraction, like TV or social media, which obviously exacerbates the problem.
In modern Western culture, loneliness is increasingly described by social scientists as an epidemic – affecting not only mental health, but physical wellbeing. A world that promises more connectivity offers, instead, connections that are virtual rather than
real, digital rather than human, on screens rather than in person.
We have a deep craving for human connection. But loneliness is not alleviated simply by being around other people. The antidote to loneliness touches on something more existential – being part of something greater, a sense of belonging.
Judaism has offered us this solution for thousands of years: community. And it is expressed most powerfully through our shuls, which have long been the heart of Jewish community life, hubs of connection for generations. Being part of a shul and coming regularly is about more than seeing familiar faces. It offers something far deeper: a sense of community, the ultimate antidote to loneliness.
Community means belonging to a group with a shared identity – a circle of people who can support and hold you, a place where you belong.
This is the beauty of shul. The founders of our community instinctively understood this. Arriving on these shores from Eastern Europe to escape persecution and poverty, one of their first priorities was to establish shuls – beginning with the first in Cape Town more than 180 years ago, and then spreading across the country and dotting the countryside. Even as demographics shifted from rural areas to the big cities – and within Johannesburg and Cape Town, from one suburb to another – shuls have remained the lifeblood of the South African Jewish community. Shuls are islands of connectivity, love, and real human connection – places where we feel part of something greater than ourselves.
This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, let us all resolve to deepen our connection to community, taking an active role in making our shuls thrive.
In doing so, we will emerge a stronger, more unified community, enriched as families, inspired by shared purpose, with the resilience, strength and confidence to meet the future.
I wish our special Cape Town Jewish community a gmar chatima tova, and a sweet new year!
- Read the latest Edition of the Cape Jewish Chronicle here.
- SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the Cape Jewish Chronicle for just R450/year (or R38/month debit order) and you will remain connected. Simply email us at subscriptions@ctjc.co.za and click here for payment info.
- ADVERTISE in the Cape Jewish Chronicle and on this website. Contact Adéle on 021 464 6736 or email advertising@ctjc.co.za.
