This evening, as we dip apples in honey, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah and its promise of sweet new beginnings. After a summer consumed with heartache, we hope and pray that this new year will be different.

This remains a time of new beginnings for me personally, having become CEO of UJA-Federation of New York on July 1. I’d expected a quiet summer to learn the ropes and plan for the fall, but as we know things didn’t work out that way. The very day I started, we received the devastating news that the three kidnapped boys in Israel had been murdered. Within days, rockets were being fired from Gaza, and Israel was at war.

During the same period, thousands of Jews from eastern Ukraine were forced to flee from their homes. Many left with nothing but the clothes on their backs, including Holocaust survivors who never imagined they would be displaced again.

Given these events, I traveled this summer twice to Israel and once to Ukraine, witnessing firsthand UJA-Federation’s unique ability — through a remarkable network of agencies and grantees — to respond on a moment’s notice to the needs of those in crisis.

I also spent the summer continuing to visit our network of beneficiary agencies across New York. At this point, I’ve been to more than fifty — the work that takes place at these agencies on a regular basis is nothing short of heroic, and each visit invariably brings tears to my eyes.

I’ve come deeply to believe that UJA-Federation represents a unique expression of Jewish collective responsibility, a modern-day global kehila (“sacred community”) that has been vital to the well-being of Jewish life for thousands of years. It remains so today and, with your help, will continue long into the future.

While UJA-Federation will celebrate its centennial in 2017, its roots actually date back thousands of years. There’s a written summary of the oral laws of the Torah from the second century that sets forth rules of charitable giving, and in particular details the creation of a communal fund to provide for those in need. The text specifies that a minimum of two people must together collect the funds, and that a minimum of three people must distribute them. (Turns out our current fundraising and allocations committees are in reality centuries old!)

Today, as a kehila for the 21st century, we must reflect, serve, and belong to the entirety of the Jewish community. Those are not mere words. Although Jews share a common history and destiny, we are an ever-evolving community, composed of Jews with widely diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore, an important part of our mission must be to unite Jews from across the spectrum around issues of common cause and work to repair the fraying bonds of our Jewish community. And we must work to ensure that Israel, which is so central to our communal identity, remains a vibrant, secure, democratic, and Jewish state.

There’s a striking aspect of the prayers we recite in synagogues across the world on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. While the holidays are a time to reflect on our personal lives, the prayers are framed in the plural, in the collective. Even the most personal prayer in the Yom Kippur liturgy — the confession of sin, the Viduy — is recited in the plural voice: “We have sinned … we have acted treacherously …” This is because Judaism, at its core, is about collective responsibility. About feeling a sense of connection and responsibility for fellow Jews the world over. And that same sense of connection is the impetus for all that we do. We are there for the community in times of crisis and on a regular basis, helping to write the next chapter of global Jewish history.

May the coming year bring sweetness, peace, health, and life, as we continue together in the sacred work of caring for the needs of our global Jewish community.

Shanah tovah