As I begin my role as Interim Executive Director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (Jofa), I have been thinking a lot about connection. About how holiness is built not only through grand visions or towering ideals, but through the often-unseen points where people meet, hold one another up, and choose to belong.

This past Shabbat, I attended the bat mitzvah of family friends and was deeply moved by the sermon delivered by Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove. He drew our attention to one of the most easily overlooked details of the Mishkan, the desert Tabernacle. Not the gold. Not the artistry. Not the sweeping symbolism. But the adanim, the sockets.

These sockets are mentioned more than one hundred times in the Torah. They are the bases that hold everything together: joining wood to metal, beam to curtain, board to board. Each socket was cast from the same half-shekel contributed by every Israelite, equal in measure, equal in purpose. The Torah’s message is unmistakable: the holiness of the Mishkan did not rest on marble or grandeur. It rested on connection.

Rabbi Cosgrove reminded us that the Hebrew word adanim echoes Adonai. God’s presence, he taught, is found precisely at the points of contact, where one thing meets another, where heaven and earth touch, where people reach toward one another. Judaism has always understood that presence and absence are not opposites, but partners. We summon holiness not only through what is physically present, but through the relationships we sustain, the memories we hold, and the communities we build.

This teaching feels especially resonant for Jofa at this moment.

Jofa’s work has always been about building sockets: creating the points of connection that allow Torah, leadership, and opportunity to flow more freely through Orthodox communities. We seek to bring people in and to help individuals feel authorized, empowered, and welcomed into the sacred work of learning, teaching, and shaping Jewish life.

One beautiful example of this is our new Jofa at Home initiative. This year alone, eleven participants—ranging from high school students to adults across the US, Europe and Australia—are teaching Torah in their own communities. These are not abstract ideals. These are living connections: lay people becoming teachers, voices once unheard now shaping conversation, Torah taking root in kitchens, classrooms, and sanctuaries across the community.

Like the sockets of the Mishkan, these moments may not always be the most visible. But they are what hold everything together.

Jofa’s mission is not only to reach vertically toward heaven, but horizontally toward one another. When one person opens a door for another. When one heart reminds another that they belong. When someone who once felt on the margins realizes they have a place at the center of Torah life. This is where holiness lives.

As I step into this role, I do so with deep gratitude. For the leaders who built JOFA before me, for the communities who sustain it, and for the countless quiet acts of connection that make our work possible. My hope is that together, we will continue to strengthen these connections: forging relationships, nurturing leadership, and drawing one another, and the Divine, a little closer.

Because when we show up for one another, what feels absent becomes present. And our community, while not yet perfect, becomes something profoundly better.

I invite you to come join us in this holy work. Learn with Jofa, teach with Jofa, host conversations in your community, and help us build the connections that bring Torah, leadership, and kedusha, holiness, closer to all of us. Bring your voice, your questions, your learning, and your longing. Become a point of connection through which Torah, courage, and care can flow. Together, we can draw one another, and the Divine, a little closer.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)