Shabbat Shalom.
Life is filled with encounters with people, both
friends and relatives and total strangers.
Each one has the potential to greatly affect you – to change everything.
When I was 6 or 7 years old, I was hanging out with
neighbor Mahesh, who is four years older than me. So I went over to his house to shoot baskets
– it was almost the only time we ever played together. I was just beginning to get interested in
basketball. So I asked, “What’s your
favorite team?” and he said the Boston Celtics. So I decided, why
not, sounds good - and I became a Celtics fan for life. I watch a lot of games and follow them more
closely than any team in any sport. And
if you ask most of my friends, they would tell you right away that I am a h-u-g-e
Celtics fan.
Mahesh went his way.
He’s in high school now and I don’t see him much. We hardly ever played basketball together
after that day. But his influence on me
is still very strong. On a court on one
day, one encounter changed my life and my sporting world.
Jewish history is all about how simple encounters,
even with strangers, can make a big difference in our lives. My portion is the first one in the book of
Leviticus – Vayikra – which describes the ancient form of religious worship
known as sacrifice. We don’t do sacrifices
anymore, but there are still lessons for us to learn.
One lesson is the word sacrifice itself – In Hebrew, it’s
KORBAN, which comes from the Hebrew word “Karov” which means “close.” To give a sacrifice was a way that our
ancestors brought themselves closer to God.
But in doing that, they had to take a trip to Jerusalem, which could
have taken many days, and on the way, they would have encounters with many
different people, including a brief encounter with the priest who took the
animal from them at the temple.
It’s similar today – no we don’t sacrifice animals
(Don’t worry, Dylan). But in being part
of a synagogue, while we are praying to God, we are also coming closer to other
people. On the first day of Hebrew School we meet a new teacher and new madrich, or teacher’s aide, people that I may not have
known that well. By the end of the year
it’s clear that they have made a big difference in our lives. Mrs. Hammerman was a great teacher this year
and made going to Hebrew School a more positive experience. (The Rabbi did NOT tell me to say that). It’s encounters like these that help us
become who we are. And it doesn’t just
happen in a synagogue of course, it’s everywhere.
A few years
ago, my family traveled to Guatemala. It
was a very fun trip but along the way, I did see a lot of poor, hungry people
on the streets. In the markets, people
would sell you five bracelets for, like, 25 cents. So I bought a couple of dozen and just gave
them to all my friends. True, we managed
to lose almost all of them within a week, but this brief encounter in the
market helped these poor people and it made my friends happy.
For my mitzvah project, I am doing two things. I’m volunteering my time at Person to Person,
where I am helping to sort food, clothes, toys and tools, so that people in
need can come and get them. I’m also
donating some of my bar mitzvah money to an organization that my grandma
started in Hilton Head, called Backpack Buddies. This charity provides food over the weekend
for disadvantaged children who get free meals at school during the week.
Although I will probably never meet the people who I
am helping at Person to Person or Backpack Buddies, I know that I am affecting
their lives every bit as much as Mahesh changed mine – maybe even more.
Through acts of kindness like this, the brief
encounter that can change a life doesn’t even require you to even be in the
same state as the person you help. But
it still can change a life.
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