November 2004
What’s Your Mitzvah Passion?
A few weeks ago, on the Days of Awe, we examined our deeds and contemplated
ways to do more for our community and our world. Now that we’ve had some
time to absorb the messages of the holidays, can we make our good intentions
happen? As my teacher Reb Zalman says with some humor, “It ain’t happening
if it ain’t happening in Assiyah (mystic’s term for the physical world
or the world of Action).” Here are a few selections from my sermon at Kol
Nidre:
“What’s your mitzvah passion? Each of us has one waiting to be discovered.
For starters, we need people to volunteer for our Social Action Committee, chaired
by Marv Megibow. It’s time to expand CBI’s social-action efforts.
This year, we hope to hold a Jewish Community Mitzvah Day (around March), in
which dozens of us will volunteer for local organizations. We also need to weave
social concern and compassionate deeds into every holiday and function….We
have to make tzedakah and mitzvot almost automatic reflexes….In the words
of tzedakah-activist Danny Siegel, we can all get in the “Tzedakah habit.”…The
donation that you make to the Rabbi’s fund out of joy for your daughter’s
Bat Mitzvah may be the saving grace for someone who needs a little help to turn
his or her life around.
“Some people might think, is it part of our mission to help poor Jews who
aren’t members of our synagogue? This has been the mitzvah of Jewish communities
throughout history. As Hillel said: ‘If I am for myself alone, what good
am I?’ We are, therefore, exploring ways to provide a more organized system
of social services to the community, whether through an internship in Social
Work or through a connection with the Jewish Family Service in Sacramento.
"This year, we need to develop a congregational team of Mitzvah Mensches
who are willing to sign up to make visits, cook a meal, or give a ride to services,
or as I mentioned on Rosh Hashanah, to host a couple of Hillel students. If
this is your passion, if this is your response to the Shofar’s call, we
will have a mitzvah sign-up page in the November bulletin.”
As promised (I hope that my holiday sermons are at least as reliable as politicians’
campaign speeches!), there is such a mitzvah questionnaire/sign-up in this newsletter.
It has two sides, so that two members of a household can fill it out. Please
fill it out soon, and bring it to CBI or fax it in (or you can just e-mail your
responses to me at jhdanan@aol.com.
We are also pursuing the issue of providing social services for needy Jews in
the Northstate. We are in touch with the Judi Turtletaub, Executive Director
of the Jewish Family Service in Sacramento (and proud mother of a Chico State
student), and are planning a meeting with her to discuss some ideas.
Please take a moment to fill out the Mitzvah Questionnaire (with some bonus
questions about Kabbalat Shabbat), or just send your ideas about how you would
like to help make our community more caring and compassionate. And if you yourself
need pastoral services or communal support, or if you know of someone in our
community who does, please always feel free to share that by calling me.
May we all merit many wonderful mitzvot,
Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan