Today, class, we will begin with a brief language lesson. Our word for the day is mitzvah, which is Hebrew for “commandment.” The plural is mitzvot and is pronounced with a long “o” (mits-vote). There are a total of 613 mitzvot in Jewish law – 365 negative commandments or prohibitions (such as Thou Shalt Not Kill) and 248 positive commandments (like Honor Thy Father and Mother). The mitzvot are derived both from the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and from later rabbinical commentary.
The word mitzvah has also come to express any act of human kindness, which seems very appropriate since a fair chunk of those 613 mitzvot have to do with the proper way to interact with our fellow humans.
Alrighty, let’s practice our pronunciation together:
mitzvah
mitzvah
mitzvah
Well done. You sound great!
I can hear you muttering quietly under your breath: why on earth are we discussing mitzvot today? Because, it was a fun way to introduce the Mitzvah Day Initiative! Mitzvah Day is an interfaith effort through which the members of Calvary Episcopal Church and Rodef Shalom Congregation conduct projects for area community service organizations to help them with a need they have defined. This year, April 22nd has been designated as Mitzvah Day.
The early childhood programs from Rodef Shalom will be directing their Mitzvah Day activities toward EECM. The budding chefs will be baking sweet treats to donate to our Hunger Programs and will also be doing a craft project to create center pieces for the tables at the Soup Kitchen.
Allow me to take a moment to say that Mitzvah Day is awesome. Seriously. It really is a terrific example of an interfaith collaboration to better our community and to that I must say: Rock On!
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