WINCHESTER, California –The Jewish Federation of San Diego County held its annual Men’s Event on November 15, a virtual event this year, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The hour-long program included prominent Federation officers and Israeli officials showing appreciation for the many donations received during the year, giving well wishes and expressing hope for continued success, and a number of local men describing how the Federation deeply touched their lives.
The keynote speaker, Rabbi David Wolpe, the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple of Los Angeles and one of the most influential rabbis in America, according to Newsweek magazine, offered motivation to and inspiration for the San Diego Jewish community to continue supporting Federation efforts. Wolpe spoke of the Federation fulfilling the Torah’s command “it is not good for a person to be alone” by describing how the Federation helps those feeling abandoned or who are bereaved or hungry.
Wolpe, in one of his stories, tells of a bereft eleven-year-old boy, living in Boston and walking to shul every day to say Kaddish for his recently deceased father. A few weeks passed when the synagogue’s sexton showed up at his door saying that he lived nearby and they should walk to shul together. Only years later, as a man with a child of his own, did he discover that the sexton lived far away, walking many miles to the boy’s home just to support him, calling this true chesed, an act of kindness without the expectation of anything in return—this is the Federation.
The “magic of the Federation” is that it takes on the task of being responsible for one another, bringing together a powerful network providing humanitarian relief and sustaining the Jewish community. The success of the Jewish nation is its resilience, and the beauty of the Federation, according to Wolpe, is that it is a conduit for “disinterested goodness.”
Like Maimonides highest gradation of charity, the Federation allows for the support of the needy without revealing the donor, and perhaps embarrassing the recipient. We are the luckiest Jewish community to ever exist, and should share our blessings. Never once in all his years as a rabbi, Wolpe concluded, did he ever hear anyone say, “I wish I hadn’t given so much.”
Donations to the Jewish Federation of San Diego County can be made online at https://www.jewishinsandiego.org/givenow.
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Fred Reiss, Ed.D. is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of several books on the Jewish calendar, including A Deep Dive into the Jewish Calendar for the Mathematically Challenged. He may be contacted via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.