There’s a consensus brewing. Emerging across opinion pages, podcasts, and dinner tables is the idea that we’ve strayed too far from one another. The question driving many of our national and communal conversations is how do we renew our obligations to each other?

Just this week, I’ve listened to discussions about how generosity was meant to be one of liberalism’s founding principles. How our educational pursuits were meant to prepare us to be good citizens and servant leaders. How we were meant to talk to strangers. How we were never meant to bowl alone.

All these ideas are swirling within our Jewish community as well. For all our differences, the thing people want most is to connect—to feel like they belong and that the Jewish people would not be complete without them and what they have to offer. And, indeed, we are not. I believe wholeheartedly the Jewish community is incomplete without everyone at the table.

Which makes now a perfect moment to double down on the sacred, timeless work of community building. Next week is Giving Week and I am asking everyone who cares about the Jewish community and values the Jewish future to contribute. Your gift—of any amount—matters. Your participation matters. You matter.

Giving is a vote of confidence in our shared efforts to build a strong and joyful Jewish community, one that supports and brings together the full breath of Jewish life. It’s also what supports our work as a Federation to bolster a network of Jewish agencies and programs that care for people in need, engage people in every life stage in meaningful Jewish experiences, perpetuate and strengthen Jewish identity and peoplehood, and look after the safety of the Jewish people.

What’s more, the simple act of giving collectively, alongside so many others who care about Jewish life, makes its own powerful statement that we are here and that we believe in the promise of community and acting together to the benefit of others.

I lament the challenges and the tumult of our times. But I find incredible comfort and hope in the fact that our path to a brighter future involves so many beautiful things: connection, participation, curiosity, debate, and a love for Jewish wisdom and tradition.

It’s notable that in this era of hyper-individualism, people are hungry for mutual obligation. But that’s the punchline of responsibility and interdependence: it’s only in being tied to each other that we find the transcendence we seek. Obligations are on offer, I invite you to come claim them.