What the New Year Asks of Our Relationships

As Labor Day comes to a close, a new academic year is in the air. The crisp fall weather and approaching Jewish holidays bring with them a familiar sense of renewal. This season invites us to begin again by entering new classrooms, taking on new roles, facing new challenges, and becoming part of new communities. With each experience comes a new opportunity to build relationships with the people in our midst.

It’s also a time when we invest significant energy in relationship building. We attend retreats, ask introductory questions, and create experiences designed to help people connect with one another. We do this because we recognize that how we build community at the beginning of the year sets the tone for the relationships we hope to build throughout it.

This is the playbook of a strong relationship builder.

Strong relationship builders understand that meaningful communities are built through relationships.They help people feel seen and valued by noticing when someone needs support, and creating opportunities for people to belong.Much of this work is often responsive, when someone shares that they are struggling, so we check in. Someone walks into a room alone, so we introduce them to others. We notice what people need and respond with care.

These instincts are essential. If we want to build and sustain Jewish life for the future, we are called to go one step further by moving from strong relationship builders to strategic ones.

A strategic relationship builder brings an additional layer of intentionality to these same qualities. They consider not only what a relationship needs in the moment, but how it can be nurtured over time. They pay attention to the person in front of them, where the relationship stands, and how it is evolving. Being strategic means using that awareness to consider what the relationship might need next.

As we enter a new academic year, I invite us to consider three practices that can help us move from strong relationship building to strategic relationship building.

1. Relationship building doesn’t end. It evolves.

Imagine a group that has been meeting every week for six months. They know one another’s names, where everyone is from, what they do, and who always arrives five minutes late. From the outside, they look connected. Then someone asks a different question: What is taking up a lot of space in your life right now? The conversation shifts. One person shares that they are caring for an aging parent. Another is considering a career change. Suddenly, the group is learning things about one another they never knew. 

Relationships evolve, and the way we nurture them needs to evolve too. Early on, we may be helping people establish a foundation for connection. As relationships develop, our role shifts from help to establish connection to helping to deepen it.

That deepening doesn’t happen simply because we continue putting people in the same room. Proximity creates the possibility for connection to occur and familiarity with one another creates comfort. Neither proximity nor comfort guarantees deeper relationships.

A strategic relationship builder knows that the goal isn’t to do icebreakers all year long. It’s to design interactions that reflect where a relationship is now and where it has room to grow.

2. How we nurture relationships should change based on the moment.

A sentiment I hear often in my work is, “Icebreakers don’t work.” When an activity falls flat, we tend to assume the activity itself was the problem. Perhaps the better question is whether it was the right activity for that particular group at that particular moment.

A strategic relationship builder learns to read the moment. Sometimes a group needs play; other times it needs reflection. Sometimes people are ready to go deeper; other times they need an opportunity to laugh, celebrate, or simply be together.

What works for a group in one moment may not work in another. Someone entering a community for the first time may need an easy way into the conversation. Six months later, that same person may be ready to share something more personal. A group that usually embraces deep conversation may have had an exhausting day and need something light.

There is no universally meaningful interaction. Meaning comes, in part, from how well an interaction meets the moment. A strategic relationship builder therefore begins with a different question. Instead of asking, What activity should I do? or What’s a good question to ask? they ask: What does this relationship need right now?

That small shift moves us from facilitating the interaction we planned to designing the interaction the moment calls for.

3. Relationship building isn’t separate from the work. It is how the work gets done.

A strategic relationship builder recognizes that relationship building isn’t something we add to an agenda. It’s a way of moving through the work.

Relationships shape what becomes possible within a community. They influence whether someone feels comfortable contributing an idea, whether a student tells us when something isn’t working, whether a colleague feels safe disagreeing with us, whether someone asks for help, and whether a participant begins to see a community as their community.

This means opportunities to build relationships exist far beyond the activities we design for that purpose. Strategic relationship building happens when we notice whose voice hasn’t been heard in a meeting. When we remember something someone shared several weeks ago and follow up. When we change the question we planned to ask because the group needs something different. When we know to invite someone deeper into a conversation and when to give them space.

None of these moments requires a retreat or a dedicated relationship building activity. They require us to pay attention.

Together, these moments communicate something powerful: Your presence here matters.

Why does this matter?

As a new academic year begins, there will be plenty of opportunities to build relationships. The challenge is not simply to create connection at the beginning, but to continue nurturing it long after those first moments have passed.

The relationships we build shape whether people simply participate in our communities or come to experience those communities as their own. That distinction matters for the communities we are building today and the Jewish future we hope to sustain.

Rosh Hashanah asks us not only to begin again, but to examine how we want to move forward. As you step into your communities this new year, I challenge you to bring that same spirit of reflection to the relationships you are building and ask yourself one question: What would a strategic relationship builder do?