Jewish communities have always thrived when two dynamics are in sync: strong religious leadership and an empowered laity. The conversation in North America of late has focused on the first tenet, considering new ways to grow the leadership pipeline and draw more people into the rabbinate and Jewish education.

But the second one also needs our attention.

For millennia, Jews have gathered in large institutions to express their commitments. We pray and study together with those in our community, and this has always been a critical part of being Jewish. But coming together in large groups is not the only way lay people want to gather. Relationships are hard to forge in the context of big-box institutions; people want to meet others in smaller affinity groups as well.

Indeed, this desire is part of a larger trend. Take book clubs for example. Since the 1990s, when Oprah Winfrey popularized these gatherings, the number of book clubs in the United States has skyrocketed, with tens of thousands of clubs across the United States (and despite a culture that seems to favor short and snappy online content to long-form writing). But we know that book clubs are more than the books: they are about the connections and relationships. People have always and will always want to come together with others who share their interests and values.

Synagogues have also experienced this dynamic for many decades, with hundreds hosting small “havurot” — mini-communities within the larger community. Growing up in Providence, RI in the 1980s, I remember a number of families coming together to eat and pray in their own way in one of the rooms within our synagogue. Parents and kids looked forward to those meetings just as much as the “big service,” and a number of the friendships forged in that context remain strong today.

This desire for Judaism in small groups has only grown since then. For example, over the last seven years, dozens of small groups in western Massachusetts have come together for regular meetings, both in and out of a synagogue context. These groups draw people who are regular participants in the institutional Jewish world, but also those who have shied away from formal Jewish organizations. What’s even better is that many of the groups are directly supported by the synagogues and JCCs in the area; this is not a competition but rather a complementary way of engaging Jewishly.

Imagine a world in which, across the country, hundreds of these small groups get together on a regular basis to pursue a passion in their Jewish life. Using the western Massachusetts groups as a model, Hadar is launching this national experiment, called Hadar Community Groups. Our big claim: People want to come together in small groups, and simply need a bit of an incentive to do so.

We envision these groups to focus on the core activities of Jewish life, all broadly defined: study, prayer and song, and helping others. In our pilot phase, we have seen some of these stories come to life: a synagogue group in Boston that comes together to study Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers); a group of young families in Milwaukee that want to pray and sing together; a Jewish thought group in Washington DC who discuss lesser-known philosophers.

But this is just the beginning. Lay people who are looking to start these groups — and we’ve received 70 applications in the week since the program was launched — now have a central address for support both financial and technical. From high school students to boomers, in small communities and large, in institutions and outside of them, Jews can now come together more easily to form these groups.

At Hadar, we have spent many years supporting a vision of empowered Judaism – where lay people take Jewish learning and commitment into their own hands. We have fostered the growth of dozens of minyanim across the country and opened new frontiers in Jewish lay learning such as Project Zug, where two people can learn on their own with resources curated by educators.

But there is so much more potential in the world of lay empowerment. We believe a Judaism with small affinity groups coming together is a more dynamic and relational Judaism. If we grow this model, it will deepen the experience of Jewish life for thousands across the country.