What We Can Learn from Ice Buckets

The goal of this blog is to add something cool your Friday night dinner. Please print and share.

This week's question for your table is:

What's your opinion of the ice bucket challenge?

More specifically:

1. Would you do it?
2. Who should I do it?

Yesterday I was privy to a conversation where a group of rabbis were debating whether or not it was an undignified activity for a rabbi to participate in.

I frankly didn't know enough about the project to respond. I have not paid attention, not seen any videos, ignored every single tweet and post about it.


So I did some research....

LA Times sports writer Bill Dwyer has mixed feelings.

This public health blogger argues in favor of it.

Forbes, too, comes out in favor.

(And, interestingly, that Forbes article led me to this one that anyone out there trying to raise money may find useful.)

Regarding the dignity issue, my own perception is that a rabbi's participation is innocuous and would be regarded as "in good fun" and not undignified. I assume and hope that the rabbi would preface his video with a dvar Torah along the lines of:

"We should all be giving 10 percent of our income with or without this ice bucket challenge and if one person here today makes such a commitment, it will be worth every shiver. I personally long for the day when human beings are so focused on taking care of each other that we no longer need gimmicks to get people to give. But in the meantime, I'll do whatever it takes to help people and I hope you will too!"

It seems to me that the takeaways here are:

1. People will participate in something outside their comfort zone if you call it a "challenge" yet make it super easy to succeed and even fun and get them on video having fun, and that video has to be really really short.
2. People will give more money when the message is really simple and easy to get: "stop this terrible disease"
3. People like cold stuff when the weather is warm

That, as my grandfather z'l would have said, is my 2-bits.

For your table: What are your 2-bits?

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Yes - it is still possible to subscribe to our new Amazing Nature for Teachers program - for your child's teacher or school - does your child's or grandchild's school even know about it?

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For Whose Benfit?

For Whose Benefit??

As presented a few weeks ago, your Table Talk is in summer L'Chaim mode.

The suggestion is this:

At some point during the Shabbat meal, pour everyone their favorite beverage for a l'chaim.

But ask them not to drink until after you finish the story. Make this a ritual every Friday night, and your family will look forward to it.




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L’Chaim Story
Parshat Re'eh

“For Whose Benefit?”

Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg was very active in the mitzvah of tzedakah. Not only did he give of his own meager salary, he also took the trouble to collect money from others, urging them to give according to their ability. In every way he could, he gathered a great deal of money for charity.

As Pesach is an expensive holiday, he made an extra effort at that time of year to collect.

He once came to a wealthy man’s house for this purpose. The man welcomed him with honor and offered drinks and cakes. Rabbi Shmelke asked for a large donation for tzedaka, but the man said that his financial situation was not as good as it had once been and he was losing money. Therefore, he said, he was unable to give a large amount and wished to donate a small one instead.

But the Rabbi refused to take this small amount from him. He got up to go!





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For copyright reasons, the rest of the story may not be displayed here, but we'll be happy to send it along, just send an email.
 
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Question for your table... What do you say - Does tzedakah benefit the giver more than the receiver?


Shabbat Shalom


PS - For guidelines on giving tzedakah, including prioritizing, click here.

PPS - Want to make your Table Talk rabbi happy? Like it, tweet it, or just forward it to someone who might enjoy it.

Excerpted and adapted with permission from Stories My Grandfather Told Me, Vol. 5, © 2001 ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications. All rights reserved. Get the book here.

Sandy Hook: Blame the Maya?

The goal of Table talk is to turn the Friday night dinner table into Shabbat experience. Please print and share.

20 Sandy Hook Teddy Bears

Someone asked me the other day if I was going to write about Sandy Hook Elementary School.

To be honest, I wasn’t.

What more can I offer for your table talk that hasn’t already been offered?

Half of the victims have yet to be buried; emotions are too raw. Words of comfort are what are needed.

There are no words. Maybe hugs.

But he insisted that you, dear reader, would want a table talk on this theme.

As I have noted in the wake of other calamities like the earthquakes in China, Haiti, and Japan, the daily level of human suffering in the world is high.

Since last Friday’s massacre, approximately 50 American children were killed with handguns.

Some of them are accidental, like the father who accidentally shot and killed his seven-year-old son in the gun store parking lot.

Today, some 16,000 young children died of starvation. Oh, and yesterday too. And the day before that.

Vibrant young Americans continue to return in body bags from Afghanistan, more than one per day, yet their photos never appear on the first page of the newspaper. Most of them don’t even appear on any page of the newspaper. (If you'd like to do the media's job and know their names, bookmark this page. If you want to gaze into their eyes, click here.)

American bombs – sent with your dollar and by your government – accidentally kill and maim  thousands of women, children and other innocents in Afghanistan, but we don’t see their pix or hear their names on NPR. Here's a site that tries to humanize this tragedy.

Yet unlike these daily tragedies, our collective grief for the angels of Sandy Hook reached such a level that Newtown had to open a special branch of the post office to handle the influx of care packages.

We’ve got big problems, but together, we have the wealth and knowledge to end hunger, eradicate many diseases and reduce violence.

But our wealth and knowledge has to be mobilized. Otherwise we’re back to auto-pilot.

So here are three questions for your Shabbat table… and I’ll venture one suggestion below.

Q1 – Why wasn’t the Batman massacre enough to get us moving?
Q2 – Do you think Newtown might be the same – all too soon forgotten?
Q3 – If you were personally moved to action by Sandy Hook, what would it take to get you to stay awake and not slip back into business-as-usual?

Jewishly, there is simply ethic that – should you choose to adopt it – will guarantee that you will put your money where your mouth is.

The ethic is – if you are really serious about doing something to help repair the world – right here and now make one commitment.

Commit - out loud - to give X percent of your net income for the rest of your life to worthy causes.

10-20 percent is the recommended range, but if that's above your comfort level, start with less. But make that commitment in this rare moment of clarify.

It’s hard to do, right?!!!

But if you will just do it, you might just find that not only will you heal the world, you’ll heal yourself.

Teach this to the kids: When you get 10 bucks, a dollar goes to the charity of your choice.
As I wrote in May, 2008, I’ve never met someone who didn’t want to leave the world better off than we found it. Anyone who has ever loved a child wants to. So here's a fourth and hopefully uplifting question for your table:

Is life on earth getting worse, or is the world in balance getting better?


Shabbat Shalom  

(PS – volunteer time counts)

(PPS - One of our biggest needs is demonstrably in the area of education.... How did the Maya, an abhorrent civilization of warfare and human sacrifice, become a respected source of futurism? Or any other wisdom? Should this man have been protected from himself? How about this one? Finally, read this and weep.)