Oh, we are a species that like to get inspired. We see a TV programme here. A rousing speech is given there. EMotional blackmail round the corner and to the left. This prompts us into immediate action. The odd Live 8 here. The odd giving a few pence in the charity box there. A charity record in the dustbin after a few weeks. But what about long term? After we have marched to Gleneagles, broken the windows of a few MacDonalds, placated our guilt, done our bit?
It is so hard to keep inspiration going. I read 'To heal a Fractured World"; I read "What will you do? Forty-eight things to make a difference" and got very excited and planned how I was going to change the world. But other things got in the way.... oh well, I'll get inspired again one day.
But that isn't good enough. We shouldn't just do good when we feel like it, when our emotions sway us this way or that. Our lives should consist in acting out those values that we hold dear. Our whole lives should be filled with meaning and responsibility:
"We need to give voice to the Biblical message that serving G-d and our fellow human beings are inseperably linked. The greasted gift is to be able to give, and the life we lead is measured by the good we do. Let the title of this book be a challenge to us all: WHat will you do?
The Chief Rabbi Professor Doctor Sir Jonathan Sacks Esq. MA. pHD. A-Level, GCSE, SATS level 2
We should do good because it is good 'lishma' (for its own sake). We're not going to change the world instantly and doing our bit shouldn't be predicated on its consequences. It is the small things, the things which will help 'a bit'; the are the things we should be doing and doing all the time. None of life (including charity) should be based on those transcendent moments, those one off events, times of ecstatcy and total confidence. As Leibowitz says: Life is about the prose not the poetry. In a way goodness is mundane. It is about what we do in the warp and woof of life that ultimately accounts. This is no means natural to me... This is why I need to write this load of rubish to give me a big poke up the backside.
Tzedek is Hebrew for charity but also justice. It is not (just) the kind of thing just to help us feel good about ourselves but what we should do as a result of a conscience decision to be part of the ethical species 'man' rather than the biological species 'homo sapien'.
So the Chief's suggestions and those of the London School og Jewish studies 'Jewish Responsibility Project' Braap, Braap! (please G-d may I act upon them)...
1. GIve away a bag of clothes you never wear
2. Visit a residential home
3. Welcome people to your shul
4. Donate your hair to children suffereing from hair loss (oops... i initially typed 'donate your children who are suffering from hair loss! I hope there is nothing subconcious there. I know I'm disturbed but donating my children [Issaachar, Zebulin, Amalek and Devorah-Simcha-Shalom-Meyer-Moishe-Zalman] is a bit extreme)
5. Volunteer abroad this summer
6. Twin a bar/batmitzvah with a child abroad
7. Help the homeless at Christmas
8. Have a really happy brithday- everyone can bring something that will be given to charity
9. Help Israeli hospitals and medical research- save the world!
10. Charity box at home
11. Save a life- give blood
12. Make a gift of your chametz before Pesach
13. Give children's toys to a hospital
14. Adopt an Israeli family
15. Buy one FairTrade product next time you go shopping
16. Bring music into someones life
17. Make up a minyan at a funeral
18. Donate breast milk- for neonatal intensive care units [I've tried...]
19. Volunteer to help people with special needs
20. Learn basic first aid skills
21. Donate your old specs
22. Make the first cheque of a new chequebook out to charity
23. Join the bone marrow register
24. Teach an elderly person how to use email and the internet
25. Share your dog [don't cut it in two though]
26. Recycle your mobile phone
27. Bring Judaism to a residential home [presumably Jewish people in residential homes! Not jumping out at random old men an getting them to lay tefillin. But then again... Noachides... there's a market]
28. Befriend an elderly person
29. GIve money to improve a child's life [not random children offf the street! Through children's charities!]
30. Set up a support network in your community
31. Help keep our community safe... join CST [or be a vicious vidulante with sticks, stones and Qassam rockets... or don't]
32. Mark a bar/batmitzvah by doing something special
33. Visit a person in hospital [and bring grapes! grapes are vital! if you go without the grapes it is as if you have never been at all! COnfucious says 'bring grapes' Martin Luther King said 'bring grapes' Jesus 'grapes are love; bring grapes' Mr. Tom Ellsworth, 512 Artley Avenue, Suffolk with a broken leg says 'mmmm. I like grapes']
34. Give books [esp. those heretical ones. you dirty stopout]
35. Prepare a meal for someone who needs it
36. Help someone get to shul
37. Donate your wedding dress to a gemach
38. Speak up! (e.g. anti-semitism or against chicken flu.Whatever!)
39. Help the homeless on the street
40. Donate your old computer
41. Distribute leftover challas from your local kosher bakery [and is there isn't one in your local area, build one! especially in COrnwall where I would love to live]
42. Help the housebound
43. Visit a children's ward
44. At your next celebration, get someone to give to charity instead of you
45. SUpport a project in Israel and visit it
46. Help the homeless with general life skills
47. Visit a shiva house and comfort the mourners
48. Open a charity account
So there we go.
"There are many more ways than 48, but this is a great start. Everyone should read this book. Be different; make a difference"
Bob Geldof
Well if Bob Geldof says it.....
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