A Caring Committee Guide for Synagogues: Roles, Rhythms and Records

A synagogue caring committee organizes the congregation's acts of chesed: bikur cholim visits, meals and rides, help in a house of mourning, and calls through the year after a death. A strong committee has a chair, a few clear roles, a simple monthly rhythm, and one private record of who needs care, so no member is missed.

Congregations give this group many names: caring committee, caring community, chesed committee, or bikur cholim committee. The work is the same. This guide shows how to set up the roles, how requests reach the committee, what to do at each stage of illness and mourning, and how to keep good records without breaking anyone's trust.

What a Caring Committee Does

A caring committee turns the care of a whole congregation into specific tasks with specific people. Most committees cover these needs:

• Bikur cholim. Visits and calls to members who are sick, in the hospital, in rehab, or at home.
• Meals. Meals after a birth, a surgery, or a death, and during shiva.
• Rides. Rides to medical appointments and to services for members who no longer drive.
• Shiva support. Help to set up the house of mourning, organize meals, and gather a minyan.
• Calls and cards. Regular calls to members who live alone, and cards for hard dates.
• Simchas. A meal or a gift basket after a new baby, so the committee is not only there for sad news.

The committee does not replace the rabbi. The rabbi gives pastoral counsel and leads the rituals. The committee makes sure the practical help happens, and it tells the rabbi when a member needs more.

Roles to Fill on the Committee

A committee works best when each person knows their job. Small congregations can give one person two roles. Large ones can split a role between two people.

Give every role a backup. Volunteers travel, get sick, and burn out. A backup keeps the work going and gives the main volunteer a real rest.

How Requests Reach the Committee

The biggest gap in most caring committees is not volunteers. It is information. Hospitals do not call the synagogue. Families are busy and often do not think to tell anyone. Make it easy to ask for help:

• One way in. Give members one phone number or email for care requests, and print it in every bulletin and email newsletter.
• The office and the rabbi pass it on. When the office or the rabbi hears of a need, they tell the chair the same day.
• Ask before you share. Before the committee hears the details, ask the member or family what they want shared. Some people want a visit. Some want only a meal and privacy.
• Confirm the owner. Each request gets one owner within 24 hours, and the chair checks that it happened.

Bikur Cholim: Visiting the Sick

Bikur cholim is a mitzvah, and it asks for presence more than words. Rabbi Rachel Barenblat writes on ReformJudaism.org: "The best gift you can offer is your presence, and your attentiveness to their needs." She also reminds visitors that "it's not our job to offer explanations for why we think they are sick."

Practical rules for your visitors:

1. Call ahead. Ask the member or the family when a visit is welcome.
2. Keep it short. Fifteen to twenty minutes is usually enough. Leave before the person is tired.
3. Listen more than you talk. Let the member lead.
4. Offer to pray, but do not insist. Ask if they would like their name read for the Mi Sheberach, the prayer for healing.
5. Ask one practical question. "Would a meal on Thursday help?" is easier to answer than "Let me know if you need anything."
6. Record the visit the same day. Note the date, how the member is doing, and the next step.

Many of the same principles apply in any faith. For more on hospital visits, see our guide to starting a hospital visitation ministry.

Shiva, Sheloshim, and the First Year of Mourning

Jewish mourning has clear stages, and each one gives the committee a task. My Jewish Learning gives this timeline of Jewish mourning:

• Aninut: from the death until the burial. The family is busy with funeral plans. The committee can help with food and calls.
• Shiva: "The first week after the funeral." This is when the committee is busiest.
• Sheloshim: 30 days, "counted from the day of the funeral (and so includes the period of shiva)."
• The year of mourning: a mourner for a parent says the Mourner's Kaddish "daily for eleven months (or a full year)."
• The unveiling: the dedication of the gravestone, "usually in the month before the first yahrzeit."
• Yahrzeit: "the yearly anniversary of a loved one's death."

During Shiva

The shiva coordinator can arrange meals, help gather a minyan for services in the home, and send volunteers who know how to make a shiva call. My Jewish Learning's guide on how to make a shiva call says "the tradition suggests being silent, allowing the mourner to open the conversation," and "a shiva visit should be no more than an hour." It also suggests that visitors label food as meat, dairy, or pareve. Share these customs with new volunteers, because many people have never made a shiva call.

After Shiva

This is where most congregations lose touch. The house is full for seven days, and then it is quiet. A simple plan for the first year:

For a full month-by-month plan and what to say, see our 12-month grief care calendar. It is written for churches, but the rhythm of calls fits a congregation of any faith.

Yahrzeits: Remember the Date With the Family

A yahrzeit is observed on the Hebrew date of the death, so the date on the regular calendar moves each year. Most synagogues already keep yahrzeits in their membership software, which calculates each new date and sends reminder letters to the family.

The caring committee can add a personal touch, especially for the first yahrzeit. A call a few days before says, "We remember too." An invitation to the minyan where the mourner will say Kaddish can mean a lot to someone who has been away since the funeral.

A Monthly Rhythm for the Committee

A short, regular meeting keeps care from depending on one person's memory. Use this checklist each month:

• Review every open request. Does each one have an owner and a date?
• Review the mourners list. Who is in sheloshim? Who is in the first year? Who has a first yahrzeit in the next 60 days?
• Review members who are ill, in rehab, or homebound. Who has not had a visit or a call this month?
• Check the meal and ride sign-ups for the next four weeks.
• Check upcoming simchas: new babies and b'nai mitzvah families who may need help.
• Ask each volunteer how they are doing. Rotate anyone who has carried a heavy load.
• Send the rabbi a short summary of needs that need clergy attention.

Records: What to Keep and What to Leave Out

Good records protect members. Bad records hurt them. Keep these rules:

• Write what the next volunteer needs. The date, the type of help, how the member is doing in one line, and the next step.
• Leave out details that are not yours to share. Diagnoses, family conflict, and money troubles stay out unless the member asked you to share them.
• Keep one record. Group texts and personal notebooks get lost, and they leak. One shared record with access limits is safer.
• Limit who sees what. A meal volunteer needs an address and a delivery date. They do not need the visit notes.
• Keep the history. When a volunteer moves on, the next one should see what happened before.

Using ShulCloud and Notebird Together

Many synagogues keep their membership in ShulCloud. Many of the synagogues that use Notebird connect it to ShulCloud, and ShulCloud stays their system of record. Notebird is the place where the caring committee records care.

How the connection works. An admin installs the Notebird Synagogue Exporter, a Chrome extension, and clicks "Export to Notebird" while signed in to ShulCloud. Notebird brings in people, households, contact details, birthdays, anniversaries, and b'nai mitzvah dates. Yahrzeits come in too, if you turn them on. Hebrew names come in as lines in each person's profile notes. The connection is one way: nothing goes back into ShulCloud. Run the export again to bring in changes, up to once every four hours.

How yahrzeits work. Notebird does not calculate Hebrew dates itself. ShulCloud does. Each yahrzeit comes in as a milestone on the next date ShulCloud calculates, with the name of the person who died and the relationship. Run the export again during the year to bring in each new date. Yahrzeits show in the Milestones list for the week ahead and in each morning's Early Bird Report on the day.

Care groups for the committee. Notebird starts synagogues with care groups such as Bereaved, Hospitalization, Elderly Care, and Homebound. Give a volunteer the Group Member role, and they see only the members in their groups. A sensitive note can be restricted, so only people with restricted access, such as the owner, organization admins, and care admins, can read it.

Tasks with an owner. "Call the Cohen family before the unveiling" becomes a task with a name and a due date. It shows on the volunteer's list and in their Early Bird Report until it is done.

Learn more on our page for synagogue caring committees, or see how other teams share care in our guide to building a care team.

Start With the Roster

You do not need software to start. Print the roster, fill each role and its backup, and hold your first monthly meeting. When the list of requests outgrows a sheet of paper, try Notebird free for 14 days with your ShulCloud data.