Abundant Giving
This week’s parsha, Vayakhel, speaks to the way the entire community of Israelites pulled together in order to build the mishkan. God conveys the instructions to Moses on what is needed in order to build the mishkan. In the dream scenario of any Executive Director of any nonprofit, the people donate the required materials in abundance, bringing gold, silver and copper; blue-, purple- and red-dyed wool; goat hair, spun linen, animal skins, wood, olive oil, herbs and precious stones.They donate so much that at some point, Moses has to tell them to stop giving. Yes, you read that correctly – they had to be asked to STOP GIVING.
It’s nearly Spring and all I can think about is giving – deadlines and goals to be met for this fiscal year’s fundraising. It’s a never ending process. We meet a goal for one campaign and 6 weeks later, another fundraising campaign begins. It’s a weird feeling, asking people to believe so much in what you’re doing that you need them to invest in it so it can grow and yet, it’s a practice I never knew I would come to enjoy and that’s mostly because I believe in the good work of this organization so much it just makes sense to invest. We, this little nonprofit, sit outside the gates of Miami University. We are solely responsible for the advocacy of Jewish inclusion in any of the University’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Just this week we launched our Antisemitism and Allyship workshops – a curriculum developed by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League – to be delivered to any University department of faculty and staff as well as any student club, organization, or Greek community. Our workshops are free of charge and tailored to the needs of whatever group is asking for the education. The University isn’t providing this education and advocacy opportunity, we are. Hillel is also providing Hebrew language workshops, Israel learning workshops, regular paid internships and jobs for students, hand delivering homemade kosher soup to sick students, dropping care packages off with students experiencing stress or just a bad day, as well as free meal opportunities for at least 8 nights a month. So when it comes to asking our community to either invest in our work either for the first time or for the third time, it’s actually easy as I imagine it was easy for Moses to ask the Israelites to give of their goods in order to build the mishkan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m Moses and this Hillel is in no way as holy as THE mishkan but, in my very humble opinion, it’s not far off.
Shabbat Shalom,
Whitney
