Inaugurating our year-long series of holiday social action projects for families with children...

Family Action: Rosh Hashanah

Hayom Harat Olam (from the High Holiday liturgy): It's the Birthday of the World!

We are the family of the world--let's celebrate the world's birthday and take care of it for the entire year.

Like a member of our family, the earth helps us. Like a family member, the earth needs us. Like a member of our family, we can care for and consider the needs of the world. This year, create a family birthday celebration for the world.

Birthdays are for making wishes. Wishes can take the form of blessings. Take a family walk at dawn or dusk, or go to your family's favorite outdoor place. For what are you especially grateful? Express your appreciation and your wishes for the world in the form of a blessing: Let your blessing help you to see how you can help the world.

Holy One of blessing, Your presence fills all creation:

• We thank You for the beauty of the world that we see in... .
• We hope that...
• Help us to make our dreams a reality by helping us to...

How can your family demonstrate its caring about the natural world?

• Contact the Green World Project 1-800-825-5122 for information about planting tree seedlings. Use them as a table decoration for Rosh Hashanah and then give them as gifts to your guests.
• Take cuttings from your family's plants. Present them to friends and relatives who will care for them and raise a new generation of oxygen-donors.
• Click on therainforestsite.com and webreleaf.com to support efforts to save rain forest acreage and reforest areas of decimated woodland. Make your family's computer a 'mitzvah machine' before you allow game-playing time!

Birthdays are for presents. What presents can the members of your family give the world this year? Recycling is a gift to the world and its people.

• Contact the Redistribution Center for information on working with local shopkeepers and major corporations to redistribute goods that are no longer considered saleable. Speak to Ranya Kelly c/o The Redistribution Center, 7736 Hoyt Circle, Arvada, CO 80005. Learn how Ranya has 'rescued' 500,000 pairs of shoes and a total of $4,000,000.00 worth of products!
• Conduct a redistribution drive in your home, synagogue or school. Select an item that you can bring to a local group home or organization, then collect it wherever you can. Children's books, gently used gloves and boots, hotel-size toiletries are items that occupy the corners of most homes and have real recycle-value. Redistribution makes life better for people in need and saves needed landfill space.

Birthdays are for special treats! Can you imagine a birthday without cake and special foods?

• Bake a cake to take to a local group home or soup kitchen.
• Calculate (with your children!) what it costs to prepare your special Rosh Hashanah family dinner. Then "invite" a person to your holiday table by making a donation to MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger (12401 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025, or www.mazon.org) in the amount that one dinner actually costs. Set an extra place at your holiday table and have your children explain how someone you don't know is symbolically joining your other guests at the table.
• Select some special treats on your next family trip to the supermarket. Have each of your children buy something they particularly enjoy. Donate the items to a local food collection. We sometimes are so responsible in our donation of healthy foods that we forget everyone enjoys a treat!

Enjoy your family's birthday celebration for the world!