Community

Spirituality

Chang" The

od
School

Chabad program hopes acts of
kindness will inspire others.

SHELLI DORFMAN
StaffWriter

L

ooking for one good deed to
spark another, the Chabad
Lubavitch Organization is
making public community
promises to perform mitzvot in hopes
of encouraging others to do good.
Paper bricks, each bearing the
name and amount of mitzvot each
participant expects to do in the next
year, are taped on a specially designat-
ed wall in the lobby of the Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield.
The Chabad International Week of
Friendship and Kindness program
focuses on the Jewish philosophy that
it is the small acts of goodness and
kindness that add up to make the big
difference.
"You don't have to be a hero to
change the world," says Rabbi Shneur
Keselman of the Chabad Lubavitch
Outreach Center in Oak Park. "You
just have to do what's good, regardless
of who you are, or how insignificant
or unimportant it may feel. It's the lit-
de things that count."
Rabbi Elimelech Silberberg of the
Sara Tugman Bais Chabad Torah
Center says, "Every mitzvah is signifi-
cant."

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Chabad Lubavitch
Organization seeks
pledges of good deeds
for inclusion on a
special mitzvot wall.

1/21
2000

60

The worldwide program — whose
subtitle is "Build a World of Good"
— has inspired the distribution of 1
million brochures in several lan-
guages, each including a brick-colored
rectangular form.
Lubavitch, also known as Chabad,
is a Jewish outreach and social services
organization. Rabbi Keselman says,
"Lubavitch means "city of love" in
Russian. We've always been into mak-
ing the world a better place."
The campaign honors the legacy of
the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel-
Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe.
This week marks the 50th anniversary,
of his initial leadership of the founda-
tion. He died in 1994 at age 92.
For Carolyn Stabenow's fourth-
grade Jewish Parents Institute class, a
trip to the wall on Sunday morning
was just the start of a chain of
mitzvot. It will start, she says, with
each student doing at least four
mitzvot at home.
As each one is performed, the stu-
dent will then bring tzedaka money to
school. Stabenow will use the money
to buy trees planted for Tu b'Shevat
this week.
Other children who visited the wall
and hung bricks on Sunday say their
mitzvot would include "calling bubble
in Florida" and "helping people who
are sick." Some visitors wrote on their
bricks that they would do four
mitzvot or seven or 10.
Yona Isaacs, 7, a first-grade student
at Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield, says
she hopes to do 365 — one mitzvah a
day = for the entire year.
Jocelyn Ruth Krieger of Southfield,
representative of the Lubavitch
movement, helped guide visitors to
the wall, suggesting mitzvot they
could do.

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oshe Poker, interim
of Bais Menachem
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Yona Isaacs, 7, places a brick on the wall
of mitzvot.

"Most think mitzvot are doing
good deeds, but there are 360 mitzvot
in the Torah."
Rabbi Silberberg says, while the
program was initially meant to be one
week, Jan. 14-21, "hopefully, it will be
ongoing." He sees it as "an inspiration
to fulfill the program's motto, 'to
change the world, one mitzvah at a
time.'" ❑

For information or to obtain
bricks, call (248) 661-8000,
(800) MITZVAH or any
Chabad synagogue worldwide;
e-mail
mymitzvah@800mitzvah.com
or access the Web site,
vvvvvv.800mitzvah.com

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