By
Josh Taub,
South Bay Council Executive Committee member
Three
years ago we started a tradition with our children of attending
and participating in Super Sunday. The first year we brought
our oldest son Trevor, a year later included his sister Camille
and
then this last year we included our two-year-old son Asher.
We have always felt extremely fortunate to
have a blessed life, good health, and live in a wonderful community,
with a supportive
and loving family. With all of these amazing gifts in our lives,
it was important to find ways to be supportive of people and
communities in need of some of the basics we take for granted.
While we have started to do certain things such as participate
in Super Sunday, we have not yet begun to contribute at the level
that we would like to as a family in the future. We have engaged
in a variety of charitable work with our children: visiting shelters,
adopting families during the holiday season, building lemonade
stands to support a tragedy far from home and most recently repeating
our annual visit to Super Sunday. We participated in each of
these with the goal of trying to instill in our children a sense
of obligation to help others within our community and around
the globe.
This was the first Super Sunday that Trevor (8 years old) actually
got on the phone, read the script and raised hundreds of dollars,
on his own, on behalf of the Federation. Each year the kids have
a fundraising goal in mind and leave not only accomplishing that
goal but also knowing that they helped others in the process.
This year when their shift was up they wanted to continue working
the phones!
Tzedakah refers to the religious obligation to perform charity,
and philanthropic acts, which Judaism emphasizes as an important
part of living a spiritual life. With this in mind, Super Sunday
has given each of our children a sense of responsibility to others
within the Jewish community and enhanced the overall spirituality
in our lives.
There is a saying that there is nothing more selfish then charity.
This is definitely a true statement. Once our children have experienced
the emotions and feelings associated with giving, our hope is
that this will be the beginning of a life filled with helping
others and thus enhance the value of their lives and the lives
of those around them.
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