Last Monday night, I got an email from a principal of PoisunsU Jewish Day school in Toronto. He told me that they had been inspired by my 1000 Mitzvah project and the previous month had begun they own project to do acts of loving kindness in their school. They called their project 1000 Chesed. Chesed is the Hebrew word for “kindness,” “love,” or “loving-kindness.” Whenever a kids did an kind act they would number a paper candle and hang it on the school wall creating a “path of chesed”. He said after a month the candles extends “from the top floor, down three flights of stairs, around our gym and up three flights of stairs.” He had emailed to ask me if I would Skype the following morning for their school assembly to congratulate the kids and share some words of wisdom. With the time difference I had to be up and on the call at 6:30am. I don’t think I could have received a better Hanukkah present this year. It was amazing having this call and knowing that these kids had launched there own campaign of kindness. After sharing a few words of wisdom and answering some questions like, why had I started my project and how long did it take me, we said our goodbyes and I was smiling all day. I hope more schools, communities and groups will consider starting their own mitzvah project and create a path to chesed, kindness or even just consciousness with their communal efforts to get 1000 kindnesses recorded.
I am attaching a video that the principal made for his schools 1000 Chesed project. He admits it isn’t great but I wanted to include it in the post.
1,000 Mitzvahs 