Announing Our 1st Tzedakah Total!

One of my favorite Jewish stories is about an old man who was planting a carob tree one day.  A stranger walked by and asked the man, “Why do you bother to plan this carob tree?  It will take 70 years to grow and bear fruit, do you think you’ll live long enough to see that?”  The old man replies, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world, I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren so they will be able to eat the fruit of these trees.” 

This old man realized he played an important role in the world, beyond the immediate he could see in front of him, even beyond what he would see in his lifetime.  At MKLC, we want to empower our students with this same feeling.

One step we’ve taken towards this goal is our new tzedakah program.  We split the year into 4 units. During each unit, the whole school learns about one organization and donates to that organization any tzedakah collected during those weeks.  We just wrapped up our first unit about Mazon: The Jewish Response to Hunger.  We are proud to announce that we raised $296 during this unit. 

Our next unit began this past Sunday and it is for Gateway 180 Homeless Services in St. Louis.  One goal of the tzedakah program is to help students realize the breadth of organizations that exist in our community and help them figure out their personal priorities among the various types. To this end, we chose organizations from 4 broad categories:

1. a national Jewish organization that serves both Jews and non-Jews

2.  a local non-Jewish organization that provides an important service the whole St. Louis area

3. an organization that provides support in Israel

4. a special project to help strengthen B’nai Amoona (our synagogue can only serve others with all these important tikkun olam projects if B’nai Amoona itself is financially stable and our members taken care of)

We look forward to exploring homelessness and the pressing issues facing the entire St. Louis community, Jewish and otherwise, with our students.  We hope during this process, our students will find a personal connection with one of these organizations (or another that speaks to them) and begin to plant their own “carob trees” that will leave a lasting legacy for the future of the Jewish community and St. Louis at large.