#23 Mitzvah Day

On Sunday my 6 year old and I participated in Mitzvah Day through Temple Beth El’s religious school here in Charlotte. Mitzvah means commandment in Hebrew and is colloquially used to mean something good. Doing a good deed is a mitzvah, and good deeds are what Mitzvah Day is all about. There are over 20 community service projects in which you can choose to participate. I went through them all with my son and let him choose which project we would do. We could have cleaned the grounds of his summer camp. We could have stuffed birthday goody bags for children too poor to afford birthday parties. We could have written letters to soldiers overseas. My 6 year old chose to clean the Hebrew Cemetery. That was not what I was expecting. I gave him a lot of time to change his mind before actually signing us up, but he held firm. It didn’t matter that none of his friends from religious school wanted to do that; he wanted to do that.

Of course I was wondering what part Eric played in his choice. He knows that Eric was cremated not buried, and after an excruciating (on my part) conversation, he even knows what that means. Still, I wondered if he wanted to make things “look nice for dead people” for Eric. So I signed us up. After bagels and coffee (for me, water for him) and an inspirational talk from the Rabbi we took our buckets and rags and headed to the cemetery.

It was actually quite interesting. There was a memorial dedicated to Jewish soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. There were headstones dating back to the 1700s. There were also several other families there, which surprised me a bit. Right away my son found another 6 year old and the two of them cleaned headstones together. They thought it was hilarious when they found the one for “Hedwig Frankenstein”, although they agreed it probably wasn’t the monster because they didn’t think he was Jewish.

My son noticed small stones on top of some of the markers and we talked about the Jewish tradition of leaving these instead of flowers when you visit a grave. Another volunteer told us that this dates back to desert burials, when the stones served to keep the sand from blowing away and kept the gravesites intact.

It was actually very peaceful. There was no place my child could run off to, so I could really concentrate on what I was doing. I don’t even clean my own house, but there I was scrubbing grime and mold off of headstones and getting satisfaction from it. There was a real sense of accomplishment as the names and dates became more legible. I tried to imagine the lives of these Southern Jews who lived in an era of more limited tolerance. I tried to let them know they are still remembered.

As we wrapped up for the day the organizer asked if anyone wanted to speak about why this was a good deed, or why they decided to choose this project. My son raised his hand. It turns out he wanted to clean the cemetery so no one would think it was haunted like cemeteries on TV are.

I still think Eric had something to do with it. He is influencing what we do whether we realize it or not.