One of the catchphrases of the report of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering, published earlier this week, was getting the concept of volunteering “into the DNA of our society”. I often feel it is already there within our community — that the impulse towards doing a mitzvah, performing a good deed, and volunteering to help feels as if it is in our genes already, though we know it cannot be. But that strong impetus is ever present in our tradition, our acculturation, and our law.
We all know what “doing a mitzvah” means, even though the term mitzvah does not literally mean doing a good deed, but rather carrying out one of the commandments in the Torah. The concept of gmillut chassadim, deeds of loving-kindness, for want of a better translation, comes nearer “good deeds” as we normally understand them. The rabbis broadened the concept of the mitzvah of tzedakah — the religious obligation to give charity — into gmillut chassadim, deeds carried out from the goodness of your heart, not necessarily because you have been commanded to do them.
That is what is meant in that famous quotation from Pirkei Avot, or the Ethics of the Fathers:
“Al shloshah devarim ha’olam omed, al ha’Torah, ve’al ha-avodah, ve’al gmillut chassadim.” “The world is sustained by (literally ‘stands on’) three things — by the Torah, by worship, and by gmillut chassadim.” (Mishnah: Avot 1:2.)
So why is the desire to do deeds of gmillut chassadim, perform mitzvot, and volunteer, not more widespread within our community even now?
We have a strong volunteering tradition, from our internal community traditions of bikkur cholim, visiting the sick, to the work done more widely by the League of Jewish Women and Jewish Care’s volunteers, among others. I am convinced I was persuaded to take on chairing the Commission on the Future of Volunteering because I am Jewish.
Being part of a tradition where we believe that each of us individually has a role, or can personally right a wrong, deal with an injustice, or just briefly make the world a better place, even just for one person, has influenced me as it has influenced all those other Jews I keep meeting on my travels around voluntary organisations, local and national.
The same fire can be found in other faiths and communities. But that tradition of “doing a mitzvah”, that emphasis on tzedakah and gmillut chassadim, is deeply ingrained.
So why are we not doing even better? Why do so many of our organisations — synagogues in particular — complain that they find it hard to recruit volunteers?
Sometimes it is because we do not ask people to do the right things, or in the right way. We want them to do things that do not match what they want to do, or we keep the best bits for ourselves, or “we’ve always done it that way”. And sometimes people are nervous of a regular commitment — something we ought to be able to reassure them about, but frequently don’t bother. Sometimes, volunteering— even in our community — has the wrong image: too old, too much associated with sorting clothes in charity shops, not for the young, aspirational, well-heeled Jew. We need to rectify that.
That means getting more volunteers doing more things. But it also means recognising that volunteering does not come cheap. It is not a free good, because good volunteering means being trained properly to do things well. Just because we do things as volunteers should not mean we do them less than impeccably well. I wonder whether, with our strong volunteering tradition, we will be prepared to commit ourselves to the training needed to make our standards the highest in the country. For volunteers need to be trained, managed, recognised, and thanked.
Some of our communal organisations do that very well already, but if we were prepared to commit to high- quality training of volunteers across the board, it would make the difference between doing “good works”, as we already do, and making a real difference to people’s lives — both for those who receive services from volunteers, and for those giving of their time themselves.
It might also make a difference to those organisations in our community who are facing a lack of such help, and a lack of social awareness. Better training and preparation for volunteering might make people more likely to join in. And it would certainly help those already involved do things even better.
Despite that, our Jewish thinking influenced the Commission considerably. Some of its conclusions are closely related to concepts of gmillut chassadim. After all, whereas you give tzedakah, alms, only to the poor, you carry out deeds of gmillut chassadim for both poor and rich — you bury the dead, you comfort the mourners, you sit with the dying, you visit the sick. And that concept of mutual benefit — you expect to volunteer to do those things, but also expect to receive support when you need it — is a strong part of the Commission’s vision for volunteering in our society.
Of course, much volunteering comes, as it should, out of altruism, to make the world a better place — tikkun olam. But it also comes from recognising mutual obligation, and creating a society where we volunteer to make a difference to each other. Cancer-support groups are a good example. No professional, however wonderful a doctor or nurse, can ever match the advice given by people who have gone through the same things in support of a newly diagnosed cancer patient — it has an entirely different flavour. Similarly, the best of bereavement counsellors cannot match the experience of hundreds of people coming to share the shiva with the mourners — though it may well be useful to experience both. We need volunteers — the sense of our community supporting us — and we will need to strengthen that impetus more and more in an increasingly fractured society.
So what might it mean if we were really to ingrain a culture of gmillut chassadim into our communities more widely? There are so many instructions to care for our poor “brothers”: “If your brother becomes poor, and his hand fails, you must strengthen him, and bring him to live with you.” (Leviticus 25:35.) Meanwhile, we must leave the corners of our fields for gleaners to harvest: “Unto the needy and the stranger you shall leave them.” (Leviticus 19.10.) And our obligations go beyond our own Jewish community: “In a city where there are Jews and Gentiles, the collectors of alms collect from both Jews and Gentiles; they feed the poor of both, visit the sick of both, bury both, comfort the mourner whether Jew or Gentile, and restore the lost property of both- for the sake of peace.” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Dem. IV, section 6f 24a, line 67.)
These days we see that best in that area of social responsibility, that sense of obligation to others, where a modern understanding of tzedakah and gmillut chassadim meet. The work of Tzedek, with its volunteers doing great things in the UK and abroad, is one example. Another is the American Jewish World Service, and yet another the work inspired by the Pears Foundation around social responsibility, particularly important around Darfur, a running sore on the world’s conscience.
We saw it in the cross-community presence at Make Poverty History in Edinburgh a couple of years back, where everyone got together to walk around the city, even though it was Shabbat. And events like Mitzvah Day are part of this too. The third Mitzvah Day took place recently under the auspices of the Jewish Community Centre for London and it will go national next year under Laura Marks’s inspirational leadership.
We call it Mitzvah Day — but it goes beyond what we are “obliged” to do, and enters the realm of the truly voluntary. It means people volunteering to give up their time, and in some cases their money as well, to do something for others. This year, most projects were carried out for non-Jewish organisations in the wider London community. The 1,200-plus participants ranged from old to young, with everyone in between, male, female, and one dog. In some cases, Mitzvah Day volunteering has turned into a regular commitment. And everyone loves it.
It appeals, at least in part, because we feel it is in our DNA. But it is also a way of expressing being Jewish that does not require learning — though it helps to know why we do it — or ritual. It is just something we do — as Jews — for others.
Some synagogues have made that a feature of their mission. B’nei Jeshurun (BJ), the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in New York, is perhaps the best example. On its website we read that “a commitment to tikkun olam (repair of the world) is a defining characteristic of B’nai Jeshurun. This commitment is rooted in the prophetic vision of Judaism, which demands that we dedicate ourselves to social action and social justice. Our task is to hear the message of the prophets and to make that message meaningful in these days and in this place.
“We must continually ask ourselves as individuals and as a community ‘Ayekah — where are you?’ Our challenge is to be able to answer with honesty ‘Hineni, here I am’. Our tradition demands that each of us work to eliminate the occurrence and effect of poverty, to speak out against injustice, and to shape a more caring society and a more peaceful world.”
BJ was revived in the 1980s by Rabbi Marshall Meyer, an extraordinary and charismatic social activist. He had previously served as a rabbi in Buenos Aires, campaigning for the disappeared as well as visiting hundreds of prisoners, Jewish, Christian, and atheist, in the regime’s notorious and brutal system. He got BJ members — in their hundreds — out on the streets of New York, helping the homeless and working with a neighbouring Episcopalian Church to feed the hungry. He was clear that this was the Jewish way. And he was right.
Volunteering is not only for our young, for our retired, or for those with masses of time on their hands. It is for all of us, individually, in families, as communities. Saying we are too busy, or we’ll just give money, simply will not be enough.
Given BJ’s example, I wonder whether some of our synagogues in this country might begin to put such a visionary statement into their mission — and act upon it too. We all know what doing a mitzvah means.
Will we be prepared to up our game, and carry out our mitzvot as effectively and inspirationally as possible, across our community and beyond? I hope so, for we have a good story tell, but so very much more to do.