Mitzvah of the Month – The First Year

When God sent Moses to Egypt to free the Israelites, Moses resisted the call. Questioning his own abilities he asked, Mi anochi, who am I to undertake this? He pleaded with God, “I have never been a man of words. Make someone else your agent.” Such was the humble beginning of the first, great story of human liberation and social justice. Moses ultimately answers the question, Mi anochi, not with words, but with actions. He acts to free his people, relieving their suffering and igniting a spark for social justice that has been kept alight by the Jewish community for generations.

This past year our community has been kindling that spark every month as we relieved the suffering of others through our Mitzvah of the Month program, launched on Mitzvah Day 2010.
From October through July, over 100 volunteers of all ages have worked with 14 different organizations to help hundreds of our most vulnerable neighbors.

We fed the hungry by packing hundreds of bags of food and handing them out at the Yorkville Common Pantry. More than 50 people helped our High School students pack 500 Thanksgiving bags for the clients of our own Food Pantry. Another team of volunteers served hot lunch to the elderly residents of a Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty* residence. In yet another initiative, MOTM volunteers joined forces with the Men’s Club and High School students to serve lunch and entertain more than 80 clients of Project Ezra. April saw our community’s first participation in Midnight Run, an opportunity to provide clothing as well as food. After collecting and assembling hundreds of bags of food, clothes and toiletries, a group including many of our teens rode in vans throughout Manhattan to deliver the items to the homeless late one Saturday night.

Several of our projects gave us the opportunity to honor the elderly. There were the meals served at the Met Council residence and for Project Ezra. In addition, our youth choir, Tavim, made the elderly residents of Jewish Home Lifecare* laugh and cry twice during the year when they sang for Hanukkah and again for Purim, led by Cantor Elana Rozenfeld. The residents loved the children so much that we have an open invitation to visit and we will do so again.

The Torah tells us repeatedly to care for the “widows and orphans,” in other words, for the most vulnerable in our communities. On Martin Luther King Day we sent one group of volunteers to paint a community center in a large Brooklyn housing estate with Habitat for Humanity, while another team delivered information about Food Stamps and Medicaid to residents of a neighborhood in the Bronx. Our Congregational School students collected and assembled 200 bags of school supplies for children living in homeless shelters run by Women in Need. When we hand-delivered the bags to the shelter, we spent time with the children doing crafts, and Jody Prusan came along to provide live entertainment. Still other volunteers spent an afternoon with the children of the Henry Ittleson Center* in Riverdale. Together with these young people who have experienced severe trauma in their young lives we decorated cookies, painted craft projects and sang and danced to Matt Check’s impressive repertoire of Michael Jackson songs.

In Judaism, treating others justly extends to honoring the dead. On a Sunday in May, PAS volunteers braved the rain to clean up a section of the Baron Hirsch Cemetery in Staten Island, working in partnership with the Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries*.

In a project that cared for our neighbors and for our neighborhood, we spruced up the gardens at the Abraham III Residence* which houses formerly homeless people with psychiatric disabilities nearby on the Upper East Side.

Practicing the mitzvah of visiting the ill, we will end the year on a high note in July, by spending the morning with the children of Sunrise Day Camp.*

Yasher koach to all who worked hard to make our first year a great success! We are grateful to all the members of the clergy and senior staff who participated in projects. We especially thank the volunteers who led our dedicated teams: Lisa Dessler, Debbie Gahr, Leith Greenslade, Lite Sabin, Lisa Siegal, Dawn Spiera, Sally Tycher, and the extraordinary Silverstone and Moses-Gurevitch families.

To see more Mitzvah of the Month photos, click here.

The Mitzvah of the Month initiative provides the PAS community with opportunities to become more actively engaged in social justice at home, in Israel and in the world. Mitzvah of the Month also fosters increased understanding of the plight of vulnerable Jews and others throughout the world and publicizes the inspiring work of Jews who are making a difference in the lives of those most in need.

On Mitzvah Day 2011, we will launch another year of rewarding mitzvah opportunities. Plan to join us often for Mitzvah of the Month!

* UJA-Federation of New York Beneficiary Agency