A Jewish Call To Action

From Synagogue to Shelter: A Jewish Call to Action

For ten years, I immersed myself in exploring my Jewish roots. It was the last of the many spiritual paths I had explored—perhaps the most personal. I found myself drawn to an Orthodox synagogue in my neighborhood, where I spent countless hours in prayer services, Torah classes, communal Shabbat lunches, and the celebration of holidays.

The Torah

There was a quiet depth there.

Tradition.

Order.

Ritual.

But something inside me remained restless.

Each week, I looked for an opening ~ some moment to bring up the issue that weighed most on my heart:What are we doing about homelessness?

I had seen Christian churches with soup kitchens and shelters open 24/7, Indigenous groups offering healing lodges, and various outreach shelters.

But only once had I come across a clearly Jewish-led initiative ~ an organization handing out sandwiches, some warm clothing, a hot drink ~ that truly addressed homelessness in a direct, compassionate, and dignified way.

I wanted to talk to someone.

But it never happened.

There was always another psalm to sing, another halachic debate, another Kiddush to attend.

And then, one winter, as snow began to fall on the streets of Toronto, the urgency grew louder than the silence of inaction.

So I stopped waiting.

I transformed my garage into a Healing Haven.

It wasn’t elaborate. It wasn’t official. But it was real.

A friend, facing homelessness, moved in. He had nowhere to go and winter was approaching. We cleaned the space, added insulation, brought in a heater, meals ~ and created, together, a small sanctuary.

In those weeks, I finally felt what it meant to live Torah.

Not just study it.

Not just pray it.

Live it.

And in that experience, the words of Martin Buber came alive within me:

“A community of faith truly exists only when it is a community of work.”

Judaism is not meant to be a faith of abstraction, of rituals removed from reality. It is a faith of action, of chesed (loving-kindness), of tikun olam (repairing the world) ~ not just in theory, but in the flesh and bones of daily life.

The greatest tragedy of our age

I began to wonder:

• What if every synagogue had just one room designated for sharing the Healing Haven idea with the congregation and wider community?

• What if every Jewish home took in just one person in need?

• What if we answered the ancient call of Leviticus 25:35 not just with charity—but with hospitality?

  
  

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot support himself among you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.”

~ Leviticus 25:35

Not in a shelter,

Not in an institution,

But beside you.

That verse does not suggest bureaucracy.

It calls for relationship.

 A People with a History of Exile

We, as Jews, know displacement.

From Egypt to Babylon to Spain to Poland ~ we have wandered, been evicted, been exiled, been homeless.

Shouldn’t we be the ones leading the way in solving homelessness?

Not by opening more shelters.

Not by outsourcing compassion.

But by creating havens ~ one home, one soul at a time.

 What Judaism Can Teach the World

Judaism, at its heart, is a faith of dignity.

It teaches that every human being is made in the image of the Divine—b’tzelem Elohim.

What greater act of faith than to recognize the Divine in a person sleeping under a bridge, someone navigating trauma, burnout, or a life transition, and invite them into your home?

This isn't about charity.

This is about covenant.

This is about living what we believe.

I may never have had that conversation in the synagogue, but I have it now—every day,in the quiet sanctuary of my own garage,where Judaism is alive, and healing is no longer an idea, but a human reality.

“A community of faith truly exists only when it is a community of work.”

~ Martin Buber

We have sanctuaries for donkeys where their motto is 'We'll Never Turn a Donkey Away'.

It's time for places like that for human beings.

Save one life, you save the world.