donating to the Jewish Federation...

So this morning I was reading about Rabbi Binyamin Steinberg's life and how he was always grateful to people for what they did.. a concept called hakarat hatov in Hebrew.. and then I got to thinking...

Steinberg touched the lives of a lot of people and those people kept up his legacy and passed on to tohers what they thought and learned.. at some point Hanoch Teller writes a book about him and I among many thousands of others get that book read it and are touched by it and its messages.. and we do things becuase those ideas are given more strnegth in our minds.. and slowly the impact of one man, becomes an impact on a millions or possibly millions of people... we are all part of a grand tapestry, becuase we are all living beings sharing a place in time and space on this earth..

... and the Federation miraculusly were able to capitalize on this...

So, if you think about how we are all interconnected. every life is like a tapestry interwoven and linked from one person to another.. our lives.. each life in fact is part of a domino effect. Indeed, if the Federation is out there someplace helping some poor Jew and all actions in life are a ripplee effect, eventually the good they do for this one person will reach me, my children, my children's children... and it is as always a ripple effect which becomes a force in my world and in my life, whether I can see it or not. If such is the case, well, despite how little I might have... how can I not give to them?

It is impossible to say that this is not partly a matter of selfishness, becuase is it not selfish to think that in giving charity one is ultimately helping oneself.. but the truth is we are rarely do anything without motivation of some sort.. our minds do not function in a vacuum. Pst years of experience and current thoughts mix to give us what we are and what we have now. No matter, at any rate, the Federation got its first donation from me ever today.