JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Members of Jacksonville’s Jewish community came together on Christmas morning for an annual tradition of delivering meals to homebound seniors in a program they call “Mitzvah Meals and More.”
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“Mitzvah” is a Hebrew word that roughly translates to “good deed.” For years, members of two local synagogues - Congregation Ahavath Chesed and the Jacksonville Jewish Center - have come together on Dec. 25 to cook, pack, and deliver meals to those served by the Meals on Wheels program. The community effort gives the program’s usual staff a chance to enjoy Christmas with their families.
“It’s a great partnership and it’s a great service, because we have The Temple (Congregation Ahavath Chesed) using mitzvah, which is their act of service, to assist us in, even on Christmas Day, ensuring these homebound seniors feel the love and support of their community,” Sam Hall said, the chief operating officer of Aging True, which operates the Meals on Wheels program.
For the volunteers, the day started at 8 a.m., cooking the meals of chicken, potatoes, vegetables, a roll, and a dessert. Then, it was time to package them up and load them into the cars of volunteers who would drive the meals to their destinations: roughly 520 seniors and other homebound people served by Meals on Wheels.
“Tikkun Olam, healing the world, repairing the world, instilled upon me by my parents from a very young age, my mom, for example, is actually working this morning, and she does it for the same reason, so that people can be at home with their families on Christmas,” Wiatt Bowers said, a board member at Congregation Ahavath Chesed who has helped coordinate this effort for several years.
“I think it’s a very important thing for us as a Jewish community to do,” he said.
In addition to the hot meals for seniors, the volunteers also prepared baked goods which were delivered to 75 fire stations around Duval County, northern Clay County, and northern St. Johns County, to bring some holiday cheer to first responders who had to spend the day away from their families.
“It’s amazing that two synagogues in the area are able to come together. Also, they’re doing such a great thing in the world, but they’re also making connections with each other, finding something to do,” Rabbi Ashley Englander of Congregation Ahavath Chesed said. “We do good deeds, not just for ourselves but for others, especially on a day that we can allow other people who do good things ... to take a rest and just pick up the work, because there will always be people in need.”