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Passing on Jewish Values, One Clink at a Time

 Few items are as ubiquitous in Jewish lives as Tzedakah boxes.  They stand proudly in our homes, synagogues, and Jewish organizations. As the “Greatest Generation”, the “lost generation” and “baby boomers” we grew up with tin blue and white JNF boxes and watched our grandparents and parents, returning from work or preparing for Shabbat, drop in precious coins.  For our people and our communities, Tzedakah, supporting those who need our help is not charity, it is social justice.

For her first birthday, I bought Bina, my granddaughter, a Tzedakah box. Clearly, she did not know what it meant, but she enjoyed the clinking sound as the coins dropped. The visceral pleasure of guiding the coin into the narrow slot, watching it disappear, and hearing the pleasant “clink”, led to habit, which led to muscle memory. Now as a first grader in a Jewish day school, the act of giving tzedakah is becoming a shared experience and part of the social contract of her six-year-old community. And it is rising in her consciousness as a core, an essential Jewish value.

Teaching young children to share is a central element of parents’ and grandparents’ responsibilities.  As Bina’s younger brother Hallel lustfully grabs at her dolls and toys. I watch with warm delight as his parents encourage him to share. Sharing with people you do not know is among Maimonides's highest levels of Tzedakah. Even for young children, the essential message of Tzedakah is that we are all members of our human family.

As grandparents of children being raised in Jewish households, we recognize and embrace the importance of imbuing in our children a commitment to Tzedakah. But we also know that our children best learn behaviors and attitudes when we model them. Let's start clinking!!


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