The Art Of Subtle Activism

when we talk about people being involved in community activism there are many different dimensions of activism that are equally meaningful some of them are through large organizations or small organizations but some of them are not through organizations altogether they may be individual efforts to help others and in some ways and in fact frankly in many ways those may be the most meaningful contributions that any individual could make to the jewish community you know very often i'll come across people when my in my travels will say listen i have really nothing to contribute i i i don't have tremendous resources i don't have extraordinary talents what am i going to do for the community one of my observations is that the single greatest pain that people suffer at least currently in my experience throughout our community but throughout almost any community that i've encountered outside of judaism or within the number one pain that people suffer is loneliness you know despite the fact that we may live now in urban centers and we may have enormous communications vehicles we have an increasingly lonely experience and people could be living in a a high-rise apartment building and have no connection to anybody else within their building or within their community there is nobody i have ever met that doesn't have the capacity to pick up the phone and call somebody who might be lonely and that is an enormous hesa that's an enormous volunteerism and activism in the most subtle way and we undervalue that being a relationship for anybody whether they are alone or whether they're not even someone who's in a large context in a large family people are lonely because no one's reaching out to them and they don't have the validation that they so deserve and yearn for and everybody could provide that the same thing is true with hess said on on social needs outside of loneliness for example feeding the hungry so some people are in a position to donate significant sums to ensure that there's food available for the hungry most of us are not but there's so many opportunities to pack pop boxes for tom cruise or another meals on wheels type organization or to deliver things or to give people rides who need to get to the hospital as a as a beaker holden vehicle everybody everybody has a vehicle to be an activist being involved in large organizations is appropriate for many people but not appropriate for everybody probably not appropriate for most people so when you ask how do people get involved is it restricted to a certain type of background not quite the contrary i think i can't imagine a person who can't be helping the community [Music]