We are just over a week away from Mitzvah Day 2024, and I am in the middle of what I call my “Mitzvah Day panic”.
It’s that moment when I suddenly have dozens of e-mails to send, project supplies to finalise and a last-minute activity to sort out!
Life as Maidenhead Synagogue’s Mitzvah Day Coordinator – a title I have held mostly continuously (with a gap of two years) since 2011 – has been full of adventures, some stress and a lot of joy. A LOT of joy.
It all began when I saw the advert in our synagogue newsletter – an invitation to an event where you gave your time, not your money, to support charities and environmental projects.
I remember sitting on a tiny chair in a cheder classroom, helping children learn how to crochet. It was noisy, manic and brilliant.
In that moment, I really understood the Mitzvah Day ideal – that anyone could give to others in need, no matter their age, ability or financial wherewithal, if they were willing to give their time.
Fast forward more than a decade, and now people start asking me in September what we’re planning.
The teachers at cheder, who are the backbone of the event’s success, continue to volunteer and bring their ideas to the table about how to improve the day.
It’s a true team effort with parents, the project coordinator (my right hand since day one), caretaker and administrator all working with me to get everything ready.
And then there are the guests. Over the years, we’ve had a consistent group of interfaith visitors come to join us, including the formidable and wonderful Muslim campaigner Julie Siddiqi MBE, who has also become a very good friend.
Our guests never fail to tell me how much they enjoy the synagogue; that it wasn’t what they expected (in a good way) and that they feel so welcome.
I think we forget as a congregation that sometimes we appear a bit “hidden” behind our gates and security.
Mitzvah Day is a wonderful opportunity to open up to the world a little bit and showcase who we are and what we do; to embrace what our communities share together.
Of course, there have also been times that the project hasn’t quite gone to plan – the children come back crying, there’s been a meltdown in the kitchen… and then there was that time we had to call the fire brigade…
Once a teacher even reassured me: “Don’t worry darling, you can go lie down in a dark room to recover now!”
My biggest joy comes from watching my volunteers from our cheder grow up before my very eyes. Even my own son has been participating in Mitzvah Day since he was 10-months-old, and he is now almost 11.
I learned only a few days ago that a young man who visited a care home with us last year, went on to write a letter to the resident he met there, completely independently.
Another young woman has her batmitzvah rehearsal on Mitzvah Day this year, but is going to the care home afterwards to visit the residents because she enjoys it so much. And then there’s Jonathan, now doing A-levels, who, since aged seven, has volunteered passionately for the cooking activity.
There is no doubt that for our Jewish community, the past 13 months have been some of the hardest we’ve endured. When I feel a bit hopeless, I remember what Julie Siddiqi says – that we can’t change what happens elsewhere, but we can be the change we want to see in our own communities. Mitzvah Day is a way I can help be that change, and it has brought me incalculable joy and happiness.
mitzvahday.org.uk
