Today is the annual Mitzvah Day in London–a tradition that began in many U.S. Jewish communities and that is now spreading to Jewish communities across the world. Julia Neuberger explains:
For some years now in the United States, Jewish communities in any given area hold an annual Mitzvah Day, literally a “good deed day”. In Los Angeles, for example, tens of thousands of Jews mark the day by giving time, rather than money, to support not only their own community but their neighbours’ communities too.
My friend, Laura Marks, experienced Mitzvah day for herself when she lived in the US. She was much moved by the spirit behind it and the atmosphere it engendered, so she brought the idea to London, to the Jewish Community Centre for London (JCC), which has been the nursery garden in which it could take root.
The JCC will be taking an active part again this tomorrow, but now Mitzvah Day is going national in the UK too, under Laura Marks’s charismatic leadership. This year, mitzvot (good deeds) will be being done from Exeter to Leeds and Glasgow to Brighton. Over 10,000 British Jews are involved, maybe cleaning out an overgrown garden, collecting recycling, visiting an elderly or disabled person, or in one of 250 other ways, reflecting the 250 projects taking place around the country.
But the idea has not only gone national. It has also spread to other communities. When asked why she would involve herself in something called Mitzvah Day, Atheah Ghani of Nottingham’s Muslim community replied: “With common moral values across our faiths of respect for fellow human beings, care for the rest of creation and building towards peaceful coexistence, there wasn’t a single reason for me not to get involved.”
Read it all here. Seems to me that this is a day we all of us should celebrate (and not just one day each year).