Doing Mitzvot as a Family

By DONNA HALPER

All over the country, in congregations of all sizes, and in areas with few or many Jews, Jewish families are willingly putting time and energy into the mitzvah (commandment) of making the world better.

What they all seem to share is a belief that Judaism is not a set of rules and rituals; it is a way of life, and it can definitely be a family activity.

"Our congregation believes very strongly in social action," says Marci Bollt, assistant to Rabbi Arthur Oleisky of Temple Anshei Israel in Tucson, Arizona. "We have some parents who volunteer with their children at a local shelter. Others help at a food bank. Our youth group has had some wonderful experiences doing volunteer work, and their parents are very supportive of the idea. Some of our volunteers are as young as the fourth grade. They are prepared for it, and they feel good about it."

The fact that tikkun olom—repairing the world—can be especially meaningful for young people as well as for their parents came up repeatedly in conversations I had with rabbis and youth group leaders. Rabbi Steve Forstein, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, started a newsgroup on the Internet for rural Jews and Jews who do not live near many other Jewish people. He finds that these people want very much to DO as well as to BE Jewish. "In Sioux Falls, Jewish parents and children cook and serve a free meal once a year at 'The Banquet,' an interfaith feeding facility for the homeless and the poor." And, he noted, even the younger kids can get involved. "We try to start our kids at the Banquet project at 8 or 10. There are small things that kids can do at that age, and it can be very satisfying for them to participate."

In the synagogue there are also opportunities for families to do mitzvot (good deeds) together. In Massapequa, New York, for example, Rabbi Jay Lapidus of Temple Beth El told me of a club he started. He had noticed that the traditional single gender clubs (such as Brotherhood or Sisterhood) were now attracting mainly an older audience, and while that was certainly fine with him, he also wanted to get the younger members and their families to participate. "So a year ago, I founded a Young Jewish Families club. A typical event was to invite the members to a sukkah party so that they all would have the experience of Sukkot, the sukkah (wooden hut) and the etrog (citron) and lulav (palm fronds)."

Such events give children a sense of community, while giving busy adults a good reason to come to temple and bring the kids. In fact, while researching this article, I noticed how more and more congregations are making the effort to involve children in all aspects of the worship service, including inviting them up on the bimah (pulpit). Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg told Reform Judaism magazine that at his temple, Shir Tikvah in Troy, Michigan, "...when it's time for the Torah reading, [I] invite the children to come up first. They hold the breast-plate, binder and mantle. Then the adults come up and stand in a circle around the children." This custom and others like it certainly help to bring families together in the doing of a mitzvah (commandment or good deed). And speaking of children who want to do a mitzvah, one Boston day school found that their kindergarten kids were quite enthusiastic—they did a walk-a-thon to celebrate Tu B'Shevat and raised $700 to plant trees in Israel!

At the High School of Jewish Studies in Newton, Massachusetts, Principal Bonnie Lieberman speaks of the positive impact that volunteer work has had on her students and their families. "Volunteering in a Jewish way is something that kids can really appreciate— they may not have money to donate, but they do have time and energy, and when they see a way to put it to good use, they really want to do it. Thanks to CJP, which gives us a grant to develop the program every year, and thanks to the rabbis whose congregations send their kids to our school, we can organize a very positive experience for them. Our students volunteer as para-professionals tutoring younger children, they baby-sit for parents who are taking courses, they collect groceries for the poor. We are able to train them and teach them that it's a very important mitzvah (commandment) to help others. And it also helps that their parents can participate too. Every year, for example, we get huge family participation in Project Ezra (which enables Jewish volunteers to substitute for Christians on Christmas day), as well as in delivering food to several food pantries."

The High School of Jewish Studies students also visit nursing homes, where the elderly residents often feel lonely, especially around the Jewish holidays. "We find it carries back to the home in other ways," she told me. "Some of our families are doing things together to save the earth—such as recycling. Putting all of this in a Jewish context sends kids the right message about Judaism as a way of life."

A number of rabbis told me they have begun web page newsletters, where members of the congregation can tell others about the mitzvot (good deeds) they are doing— not to brag or to show off, but to express their genuine pride and happiness in being able to bring some joy into someone else's life.

Rabbi Sholomo Levy of Congregation Beth Elohim in Saint Albans, New York, feels it is especially important that good news about Judaism be shared—in fact, he said, his web site is getting so many 'hits' that he can't keep up with all the requests for information. Family participation, in everything from learning Hebrew to doing tikkun olom is an essential part of his congregation, and like other rabbis with whom I spoke, he is using the 'net to get the word out that there ARE people participating in Jewish life—more people than you might think.

There are no magic answers to ensuring that the next generation will remain committed to Judaism, but as Joel Lurie Grishaver said in a recent article in the Baltimore Jewish Times, "Take every opportunity to deepen your children's own feelings of Jewishness and their ties to the Jewish community... But don't just do Jewish things for your children's sake; in the end, this will only serve to make Judaism childish, something to be outgrown years before dating and marriage. Rather, [parents should] do Jewish things for yourself, and then find a way to involve your kids."

And that is what many Jewish parents are doing—they are finding a cause or a charity that deserves support, and then creating the opportunity for their children to join them in the mitzvah. In the Tanakh, Micah reminds us that G-d requires that we "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with G-d." As a family, volunteering together provides the chance to turn Jewish values into positive action. And the benefits can last a lifetime!

Three books that may inspire your family to work to change the world together:

40 Things You Can Do To Save The Jewish People, Putting G-d on the Guest List, and Raising Jewish Children in a Contemporary World

Helpful Web Sites:

The Mining Company, which provides jumps to everything from Jewish cooking to organizations that will teach you Hebrew on-line, can be found at: judaism.miningco.com.

Jewish study materials that are fun for kids and educational for parents can be found at: www.torahaura.com.

To learn about and find out how to help Ethiopian Jews, go to: www.circus.org.

The Anti-Defamation League site, which has essays and articles that parents and children will find very helpful in fighting prejudice, can be found at: www.adl.org.

And if you want to read about and discuss Jewish identity, wonderful essays from a wide range of Jews (including Leonard Nimoy and Dr. Ruth Westheimer) about why they love being Jewish, can be found att the American Jewish Congress site at: www.ajc.org.