2 min read
ByLaura Marks, Laura Marks
'The need for acts of kindness is greater than ever and so we, the Mitzvah Day team along with thousands of volunteers across the country, needed to come up with something new.'
November 12, 2020 14:53We are changed”, wrote the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, “not by what we receive, but by what we do.”
While most known for his incredible intellect and communication skills, Lord Sacks was also a doer.
Watching him roll up his sleeves, don a Mitzvah Day T-shirt and help paint the walls at the Marie Curie Hospice with faith leaders from across the Jewish and non-Jewish world, put his words into action.
This year, with so much to do, and so many fears for both our present and our future, it is hard to know where to start with the “doing” needed to support the challenges facing society.
Mitzvah Day as we have previously known it cannot happen. Our places of worship are closed and many favourite projects of years gone by — from group cooking to tea parties in care homes —simply cannot be done.
But the need for acts of kindness is greater than ever and so we, the Mitzvah Day team along with thousands of volunteers across the country, needed to come up with something new.
It was obvious to us all that two major crises in society — food poverty and loneliness — have only been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trussell Trust, a faith based national chain of foodbanks, reported that in April there was an 89 per cent increase in the number of emergency food parcels given out including a 107 per cent increase in the number of parcels given to children, compared to the same period last year. It is set to get worse.
The Campaign for Loneliness reported that half a million older people go at least five or six days a week without seeing or speaking to anyone at all.
Loneliness is more pronounced in women and people with disabilities and young people are particularly affected. The pandemic lockdown is only making things worse.
Given the confluence of the month of lockdown and Mitzvah Day, it seemed appropriate, even essential, to focus this whole month on what we as an outward facing Jewish community, along with other people from all faiths and backgrounds, can do to help.
It couldn’t be easier to get involved — food banks need food, lonely people need phone calls, cards or videos, homeless people need warm coats.
So, this month, our trustees decided, far from letting the lockdown get in the way of Mitzvah Day 2020, this must be a whole Month of Mitzvahs filled with every day acts of kindness.
In the first week, we have already seen the smiles brought to care home residents receiving personalised cards and videos, the warmth provided by the blankets being knitted and the subsistence from the food packages being put together, often including thoughtful notes and “pamper” items.
And on it goes… people coming together, as a whole national and international caring community, however they can, to reach out, to show we care, as “Every Mitzvah really Matters.”
The challenge to all of us, acting as one, is clear. “Community”, wrote Lord Sacks, “is society with a human face — the place where we know we’re not alone.”
Laura Marks OBE is the founder and chair of Mitzvah Day
