Posted on July 23, 2009

As the week progresses, we at Areyvut are working on compiling a Bnai Mitzvah guide to chesed projects. Today, it hit me: a twelve-year-old has so much potential! They have so much to offer! Think about it for a moment… let’s say the child is having fifty friends and fifty family members at their Bar/Bat Mitzvah party. That’s one hundred people capable of changing the world in one night! There is so much that you can do. Whether it entails organizing a fundraiser to raise money to buy a wedding dress for a bride who can’t afford it, having a huge baking party and donating all proceeds to a food pantry or soup kitchen, or even decorating pillows to bring to children in hospitals, this is a once-in-a-lifetime golden opportunity. The smile on the face of that bride with a brand new dress, or the child in the hospital with a new, decorated pillow says it all: I could not have done it without you, and I will remember you forever. You have changed my life beyond words.