We all need community – a family where we can celebrate our victories, mourn our losses, and embrace our struggles. Nevertheless, opportunities for community are harder to come by, and loneliness and isolation are on the rise. In response to this crisis of disconnection, Rabbi Sharon Brous founded IKAR, a dynamic, multi-generational Jewish community striving to help its members discover healing, purpose, and connection through their ancient faith. In The Amen Effect (Penguin Random House, 2024), Brous shares the hard fought lessons she’s discovered along the way, with the hope that her experience can cast a vision not just for IKAR but for society at large, a vision that can help us bridge our differences in an increasingly fractured age.

At the heart of IKAR’s approach is what Brous calls the amen effect, “the sacred mandate to hear, embrace, and love each other up, especially on the hard days.” Even though we need community, we are all imperfect people, and a shared life exposes ways that we need to grow – losses that need to be grieved, wounds that need to be healed, and calls that need to be answered. It is in the midst of these challenges, though, that we can best show up for others, accepting them as they are and demonstrating that even though they might be broken, they are not alone.