April 04, 2008
Sometimes Good Things Just Happen
Sometimes things happen in the strangest of ways and good things come about with little or no real planning. Through a series of coincidences, Rabbi Adam Feldman and I were in touch with Yitz Feigenbaum at Beit Hayeled in Israel at about the same time (Beit Hayeled is a very special small home where kids who are removed from their parents by the courts have a chance to live in a loving, warm and supportive environment under the watchful care of Yitz and Irit Zucker who work together in this endeavor) …Rabbi Feldman mentioned to Yitz that he was collecting some tzedakah money from his congregants and would send it to Beit Hayeled for any needs they might have. Since it was right before Pesach, Yitz mentioned that clothing for the holiday and for the spring and summer was very much needed for some of the kids. When we learned this, I challenged Rabbi Feldman by offering a matching grant of up to $500 for any funds he might be able to send to Beit Hayeled. Sure enough, the congregation raised $650 which was matched by $500 from the Good People Fund and Yitz’s kids got what they needed to greet Spring in some beautiful new clothes.
A short time later, we received the following email from Yitz which says better than anything we can think of, just how important our joint efforts were….
Dear Rabbi Feldman & Naomi,
Just this morning Irit and I came back from visiting some of our kids who are on a short vacation and we took one boy to lunch at the mall. After lunch we went with him to the "Golf " clothes store and he picked out a nice new white shirt for the Chag. Irit in the meantime went and picked up three new outfits for the three sisters who…will not be going home at all for Pesach. We got back from the mall about two hours ago and I just received the following SMS message from the oldest sister – she wrote: "Yitz!! Really thank you so much for all the clothes!! You really made me so happy…Chag Sameach :)"All the exclamation points are her’s but I think the smiley at the end belongs to you guys.Todah Rabah & Chag Sameach!
Yitz
Sometimes doing mitzvahs is almost too easy!
