Mitzvah

Mitzvah (Hebrew: מצוה‎ "commandment") is a word used in Judaism to refer to the 613 commandments given in the Torah and the seven rabbinic commandments instituted later for a total of 620. The term can also refer to the fulfillment of a mitzvah. The term mitzvah has also come to express an act of human kindness. According to the teachings of Judaism, all moral laws are, or are derived from, divine commandments.

In the monastery, it was our custom to go through our closets the week before Thanksgiving and to select items that we wanted to donate to St. Vincent de Paul or Goodwill. Tom and I do this several times a year, and this is one of those times. Besides the closets, we are taking the opportunity this year to do something similar to the sadly-in-need-of-cleaning basement.

We will take some clothes over to St. Vinnie's this week. But the basement is calling for more attention. I have suggested that we divide things into four categories:

1) Things that should be trashed. Period.
2) Things that we want to keep.
3) Things that will be boxed up for family to look at when they are here for Christmas to see what they want to take home with them. We have lots of sleeping bags, blankets and bed linens, folks. I even have a couple of full size (not queen) electric mattress pads to make sleeping cozy in the winter. There are also boxes of things that belong to the kids that they will want to go through and select what they want to keep. Hint, hint: That means things you want to keep in YOUR OWN space, not junk you want us to keep cluttering up our basement. Things no one claims will be added to what we have already put into the fourth category, which is ..
4) Things to donate to St. Vinnie's or some such thing. Likely-looking books, for example will be donated to the library for the next book sale.

NB: We will make exceptions for things that someone plans to take away in the relatively near future. After all, there is only so much room in a car.

How does that sound?

And anyone else who is looking for a mitzvah, I am sure there are lots of groups who are looking for contributions to help those less fortunate during these difficult economic times.