Local Mitzvahs & Global Mitzvahs – No Small Mitzvahs

Days filled with Mitzvah work and teaching about Mitzvah work nearly always leave me feeling good.  Sometimes sad (we can’t do enough), sometimes inspiring (I wish I were more like her), sometimes frustrating (it doesn’t work when I try that).  But talking about good people doing good things is stimulating, makes me think of new things and almost always leaves me better off at the end of the day than at the beginning.

Today was spent with USY Group 2 (with some other Mitzvah work squeezed in between).  After a very inspired opening by Rabbi Jonathan Porath explaining the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1960s and 1970’s (for these teens, more than 20 years before they were born) and the mass immigration of FSU Jews to Israel in the 1990’s we went to the Diplomat Hotel, now home to about 600 Jews from the form Soviet Union.  Alice Jonah, our Mitzvah hero on site is no stranger to my regular readers.  For 20 years she has worked, nearly single-mindedly, to improve the lives of these immigrants who left their homes and families late in life to throw their lot in with the Jew.

One of the things Alice did about 10 years ago was help the residents start a choir.  You might think, “how is starting a choir such a big mitzvah”?  The short answer is I don’t know if it’s a big mitzvah – I just know I’ve seen first hand that there are no small Mitzvahs.  This choir brings joy and pride to the singers and the audience.  It creates community among people who might otherwise stay in their efficiency apartments all day.  Communal singing (in Hebrew, Shira b’tzibur) has probably been part of human communities for millennia – in our age of ear buds, play lists and personal MP3s, we don’t share music anymore in a public way.  I know my friends Barry Krasner and Eleanor Epstein understand this.  It makes you feel good to sing in a group.  These people feel good, and got the USYers singing and dancing with them (I shot a few seconds of video, hopefully I will be able to post them).  The happiness was infectious.

After a mediocre youth hostel lunch (which, btw, followed a disappointing dinner at a new restaurant in the German Colony, Roza (where Coffee Shop used to be – small portions, inattentive service, quality ok but not great – maybe 1.5 stars) we had a great session with Mitzvah hero Bradley Cohen, founder of all for the kids.  Bradley, one of our younger Mitzvah heroes, enlists Israelis travelling abroad to help him in performing mitzvot to benefit kids in India and Southeast Asia (he left this afternoon for Thailand, spent 4 months last year in India).  Bradley is trying, rather single-handedly, to both improve the lives of kids in orphanages and schools while simultaneously improving the image of Israelis abroad and teaching young post-army Israelis about Tikun Olam.  Bradley speaks beautifully, soulfully and in addition to the story of his own journey, takes the teens we work with through some meditation and martial arts centering techniques.

We ended the day with brainstorming and discussions about finding Mitzvah heroes to teach you how to do the good stuff, that you don’t have to wait for the perfect plan or the perfect opportunity – just start somewhere.

After a very full day (I was up at 3, working by 4:20 am) I was able to unpack my luggage, shop for some staples (milk for coffee, fruit to snack on) I ate my first ½ schwarma at Doron's and now I’m about to call it a night.

Is it still cooler in Israel than the US east coast?

And it was evening and it was morning (and then evening again) on the first day.