VOLUNTEERING IS CARING AND SHARING

In today’s busy and complicated world it is not always easy to step back and see where we are going as a temple community. We are so busy putting out fires and just trying to maintain the day-to-day work that we lose track of the big picture. We must, however, take time to reflect.
 
We are what we give back to our temple family, and as volunteers, we have the courage to believe that what we do will make a real difference. Sharing is the keyword to describe the way in which volunteers approach their work. They do not seek to impose their values, their ideas or their agendas. Rather, they find out what people need and want, and they work with them to make it happen.

We have volunteers who help B’nai Mitzvah students learn to read their Hebrew prayers. Volunteer students who act as mentors for younger students. Volunteers who help clothe the needy, feed the hungry, and house the homeless; volunteers who look after friends who are sick, or drive them to appointments if they have no family to care for them. Some volunteers make hospital visits and shiva calls. Others beautify our temple grounds and improve our building. Whatever they do, they do in the interest of making the world a better place.

Volunteers can help transform their community for the benefit of all. They put their hands and their minds and, most of all, their hearts at the service of others. Their courage and dedication should be an inspiration for others, for all of us, to act. But we need to promote volunteerism as a valuable activity and to facilitate the work of volunteers.

The motivation of volunteers can be summed up in one word: Sharing! Volunteers share their time. They share their skills and talents, even their money. But above all, they share human experience. They know that this attitude is the true measure of success in life and that it makes society strong and healthy.

Volunteering is an action deeply rooted in the human spirit. Human beings help each other because of their love and compassion for one another. Yet volunteering is not simply something that we do for others. Our own values and humanity are at stake: We are what we give. Volunteering is a freely assumed moral obligation. We help one another because we feel a sense of satisfaction in doing so. It is not an action imposed by an external authority. By caring and sharing we become more fully human while, at the same time, enhancing the moral texture of our community, the social fabric of our society. Caring and sharing have been major components of human behavior throughout our civilization. Caring and sharing are a necessity, not a charitable act.