Doing Good on Christmas

FOR SOME JEWISH FAMILIES, the old Christmas to-do cliché might be seeing a movie or enjoying Chinese food. For other families (or those looking to do something different), however, the Dec. 25 holiday presents an opportunity to do something a bit more meaningful. If your family doesn't already have plans for Christmas day, consider volunteering.

Treating Dec. 25 as a family mitzvah day or community service opportunity is a good way to feel good together as a group and, as Kveller.com blogger and actress Mayim Bialik puts it, “find joy in the holiday season.” 

For Bialik, community service makes sense as alternative to Christmas. “The answer, of course, is thousands of years old,” she writes in her Kveller.com blogpost, “Help Others This Holiday Season.” “It’s super simple,” Bialik writes. “It doesn’t cost anything. And it’s a Jewish concept: Help others.”

SERVICE & CHILDREN
Performing a mitzvah or exemplifying the Jewish ethics of tzedakah (charitable giving) or tikkun olam (social action) can certainly be fulfilling for any person, but is also an especially important learning opportunity for children.

Dasee Berkowitz is a family consultant and educator who, like Bialik, writes for Kveller.com. In her post, “Charity Rituals for Kids,” Berkowitz points out that performing acts of tzedakah helps children to “understand that what they do matters and that, in small ways, they can make a difference in this world.” 

DEC. 25 MITZVAH DAYS
The varied and creative ways to perform a mitzvah or serve the community are limitless. In her blogpost, Bialik offers just a handful of possible service opportunities:

• Deliver flowers to a senior citizens’ home.
• Make holiday cards for kids and women in battered women’s shelters.
• Serve up Christmas dinner at your local mission.
• Donate toys to toy drives for homeless children.

Find inspiration in these ideas, or consider what other Jewish communities already have planned around North America:

• Jewish and Muslim Day of Service (St. Louis)
  The Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, along with the Islamic Foundation of Greater Saint Louis, are co-sponsoring the third annual Jewish and Muslim Day of Service. Volunteers of all backgrounds and faiths are needed to help out at over twenty community service sites throughout the Saint Louis region.

 

• Mitzvah Day (Detroit)
  The Mitzvah Council and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit invite volunteers of all ages to sign up for the annual event and participate in dozens of social service projects and volunteer activities throughout metro Detroit.

 

• Mitzvah Day (Pittsburgh)
  The Shalom Pittsburgh Mitzvah Division coordinates an annual hands-on Jewish community volunteer on Christmas Day. It typically brings out in excess of 475 volunteers to approximately 50 sites annually

 

• Fifth Annual Jewish Community Volunteer Day (Miami)
  The Greater Miami Jewish Federation, with help from Florida Blue wellness centers, is inviting volunteers of all ages to help cook and serve meals for those in need, wrap presents for children in hospitals, and knit baby booties for the youngest victims of domestic violence.

 

• Winter Break Pantry Push (Chicago)
  The Jewish United Fund and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago are promoting this effort as part of their Joyfully Jewish Programs endeavor. Volunteers will help sort and shelve items at The ARK’s Rhea Segal Food Pantry.

 

• Christmas Dinner Project (Hollywood, CA)
  Temple Israel of Hollywood and friends have been serving holiday dinner to over 1,500 homeless and hungry people in Hollywood every Christmas for the past 26 years.

GET READING
While your family ponders and plans its Dec. 25 mitzvah, consider reading the PJ Library selection, Trees of the Dancing Goats written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco.

 

December 22, 2013