Pitch in

There’s something about the year’s end that pushes us to count our blessings — and our obligations. Maybe it’s the seasonal gift giving, or the end of the tax year, or the pressure to reconcile ourselves with last New Year’s unmet resolutions.

Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, as the pleas for donations pile up in my to-do basket at home, I know that I’ll be looking hard at what I can give. But if past is precedent, I may set the requests aside to, uh, marinate a while. All too often I try to tackle the whole pile at once on Dec. 31, before the ball falls at midnight.

Despite my end-of-the-year procrastination, I do look on one of the 613 commandments in Torah — which falls outside of the Big Ten — as an imperative: charitable giving.

But it’s not just about money. The gift of time and effort can be valuable, too. Maybe even more so because the experience of working alongside others can be just as enriching as the effort it takes to do so. The problem, however, is often: Where should I volunteer? And when? Sometimes it takes a push, or a way in.

This month, there’s an easy answer: Mitzvah Day. Synagogues and Jewish organizations throughout the region have designated Sunday, Nov. 7, as a day to come together to do volunteer work — be it clean-up projects or cooking or weeding a public garden or making something for kids and/or seniors in need. As part of this issue’s cover package, Ryan E. Smith writes about some of the opportunities to get involved in this year’s panoply of opportunities, and Ryan Torok’s article on Big Sunday founder David Levinson’s new book, “Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins: How Absolutely Anyone Can Pitch In, Help Out, Give Back, and Make the World a Better Place,” offers advice that is both humorous and helpful on why and how to become a volunteer.

But Nov. 7 needs one more notation on your calendar, too. This year, it has been designated a special day for the Jewish community worldwide, a Global Day of Jewish Learning, in celebration of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s completion of his 45-year project writing a complete talmudic commentary.

Among the international daylong learning celebrations taking place on this day is one in the hills of Malibu — from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. — at Camp JCA Shalom, sponsored by LimmudLA, The Board of Rabbis of Southern California, Shalom Institute (parent of JCA Shalom) and The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

This Day of Learning will be divided into three 80-minute sessions (plus breaks in between), with at least six to eight options for Jewish learning offered during each session. The day will include Torah lessons led by rabbis of every denomination, Jewish yoga classes, sacred hiking, programs for 2- to 5-year-olds by PJ Library, offerings for teens and tweens, and Israelis talking about modern Israeli art, among many others.

The model is the international program known as Limmud — a series of all-volunteer annual conferences staged in various cities around the world, all of which aim to bring Jews of all callings together to learn from one another. Los Angeles’ annual LimmudLA takes place each year over Presidents Day weekend in Costa Mesa, with hundreds of sessions on all kinds of topics (my favorite from last year: a late-night jam session run by Blue Fringe’s Dov Rosenblatt — if you haven’t heard of this crooner-rocker, look him up!). Jewish learning, we quickly found, can be fun — it’s not just about books or study but also engaging in all kinds of conversations, from gender issues to biblical revisionism, provoking very Jewish questioning — as well as some great musical jams.

Volunteers will be sharing their knowledge with you, and in your Jewish studying, you will be fulfilling a commandment as well.

All mitzvot on a day full of them.

So consider this special Mitzvah Day,and hopefully you’ll find your way to take part, somehow.   

Despite my end-of-the-year procrastination, I do look on one of the 613 commandments in Torah — which falls outside of the Big Ten — as an imperative: charitable giving.

For more information on Mitzvah Day, see the article on Page 16. For information on the Global Day of Jewish Learning, visit