GETTING IN THE LAST WORD....

Yesterday I received an elated phone call from a thirteen-year-old student. She was attempting to describe the happiness and satisfaction she felt, having just returned from a meeting at which she donated a portion of her Bat Mitzvah gelt to a project that reaches out to Jewish teenagers and young women who are in abusive relationships or at risk for abuse. "I was thinking, wow, this is totally awesome, this is really cool," she said.

She had called me from a car on her way from a meeting at the offices of Shalom Bayit. Shalom Bayit is a Jewish women's task force on domestic violence, and is one of the organizations that applied for a grant from the Temple Isaiah Seventh Grade Fund (Temple Isaiah's Tzedakah in Action foundation).

Rachel took part in the Seventh Grade Fund along with a more than seventy of her peers. She remembered Shalom Bayit as one of the organizations that had appealed to us for funding, and turned to them after her Bat Mitzvah. She had decided to donate 18% of her Bat Mitzvah gelt to this organization — which, she said in serious tone of voice, "is really, really a lot of money." (Eighteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew word Chai, or "life.")

"I felt empowered in a special way... my parents didn't make me or force me to do it — I did it all on my own!" Attempting to describe the powerful feeling the act of tzedakah had given her, Rachel went on to say, "I was happy and they were happy, because I had just helped a lot of people."

After having coordinated the program described in this book, I understand exactly the feeling that Rachel was describing. It was of a certain synergy that occurs when true tzedakah is in action. Both the receiver and the giver of tzedakah know that good is going to be done in many places because of what both parties are doing: the joy is staggering and beyond words. It was a simple act of tzedakah, but it changed and touched lives.

Before having actually taken leadership of the program, I knew that Tzedakah in Action, as coordinated by Aaron Dorfman and described in this book, was very well-organized and profound. It is only after I implemented the program and experienced it for myself that I understand the powerful, and seemingly magical impact it has on the students and countless others. To varying degrees, it has had a powerful effect on the non-profit organizations involved, the students, the teaching staff, Temple Isaiah member families, and I don't know how many people and places in our community and around the world.

This year's Seventh Grade class was once known for being particularly reluctant, self-absorbed, and skeptical. Towards the end of the year, I watched in fascination as a complete transformation took place right before my eyes. Seventy twelve- and thirteen-year-olds sat down in a U-shaped Board of Directors-style room arrangement, with packets of proposals, evaluation sheets, and pens, listening intently to presentations, raising their hands and asking extremely intelligent questions. The presenters who traveled from as far away from Washington, D.C. were amazed at the spectacle of dozens of pre-teens empowered with great responsibility — and tens of thousands of dollars — and every single one of them living up to the task. I was and am still very impressed.

The class had chosen to seek out human rights organizations for funding. The thousands of dollars we distributed as grants as part of this program could have been spent on expensive gifts, but the vast majority of students agreed to forfeit them and send a $200 donation into the Seventh Grade Fund. Now, instead of being spent on clothes, toys, CDs and gift certificates, this money will free slaves in India, educate thousands about worldwide slavery, bring an urgently needed beacon of peace to Israelis and Palestinians amidst a tragic ongoing war, and save lives in Bangladesh.

To outsiders, the life-saving work done with the money may seem to be the most tangible effect the Seventh Grade Fund had this year. But those who experience the program know that its benefits are never-ending. It began when the first students began to appeal to me, saying,

"But isn't there a way we can raise more money?"

It continued when individual students handed me checks in the triple digits taken from their own Bar and Bat Mitzvah gelt, and when students like Rachel went out of their way to make the world a better place. The students left the program with a new set of values and priorities that puts paramount importance on tikkun olam. They will wake up every morning of every day knowing there is something they can do to help. We have set up a small but powerful force for good, which I am confident is eternal.

The program requires a lot of thought and some tedious administrative work. While considering the grant proposals, we dealt with some quite difficult and heart-breaking issues that were difficult for anyone, let alone Seventh Graders, to think about. My classes spent many long hours studying grant proposals that were often wordy and hard to understand. These are the only possible downsides I can think of to carrying out this program. These downsides are insignificant. The payoff is tremendous, exponential, and life-changing.

I urge you to never doubt the viability of this program, for from this moment on, doubt and hesitance are the only things keeping you from implementing it in your community.

In Pirke Avot, Rabbi Tarfon taught, "It is not up to you to complete the task, but you are not free to desist from it."

We have not yet repaired the world. There is a lot of work to do, and within Rabbi Tarfon's teaching is the commandment to go out of our way to make the world a better place. This is the commandment to learn about the injustices and imperfections of this world and do what we can to alleviate them, rather than pretending they don't exist or worse, acknowledging that they do exist and pretending there's nothing we can do about them.

My seventh grade class has just heard that commandment and has spent the year fulfilling it not just by studying mitzvot and tzedakah, but by actively performing them – for the study would be meaningless without action. This is Jewish praxis; this is Tzedakah in Action.

— Gabe Salgado, June 2002