Friday, June 13, 2025
At Temple B’nai Torah in Wantagh, congregants of all ages came together last week to take part in Mitzvah Day, a day of caring and service.
Mitzvah means a good deed performed as part of one’s religious duty, and throughout the day, temple members engaged in activities aimed at helping those in need. Several stations were set up at the temple to address various issues facing struggling community members, from homelessness to hunger.
According to Rabbi Daniel Bar-Nahum, Mitzvah Day, which took place on May 18, was scheduled at the end of the school year to remind children in the temple to make the world better. The idea, he explained, was to kick off a summer in which children remember values that are most important to them, which include helping those in need.
“It’s everything that we want our community to be,” Bar-Nahum said. “It’s coming together, it’s helping to repair the world and it’s meeting people through all generations.”
At one station, congregants crafted no-sew fleece blankets for residents of Bethany House, a nonprofit based in Baldwin that offers emergency shelter and transitional services to women and children. Temple member Janet Goldstein has participated in the project for eight years, donating 15 blankets each year.
“It’s a comfort to them when they go to sleep at night,” Goldstein said. “It’s like giving them our own little hug from the temple.”
A new Mitzvah Day activity this year was stuffing teddy bears for children in need. Congregants filled 50 bears with stuffing, for donation to the Waldo Sanctuary, a migrant shelter in the Bronx.
For temple member Howard Lev, involving children in the teddy bear project was especially meaningful. It helps teach them that every day can be a Mitzvah Day, he said.
“As a kid, you’re excited about making it, but then you’re excited about what’s going to happen to it,” Lev said of the bears. “If you teach somebody about mitzvah early on, they’ll do it forever. They’ll look for things to do.”
This year, the temple partnered with Splashes of Hope, a Huntington-based nonprofit that creates murals for children’s hospitals, veterans homes, and other clinical settings to help brighten their patients’ or residents’ lives. For Mitzvah Day, the organization set up a station outside the temple where children and their parents painted a mural to be delivered to the Family Service League, a social service agency that helps vulnerable families on Long Island.
“Everybody feels like they’re part of a good thing,” Sandy Caracciolo, a Splashes of Hope volunteer, said. “It is so fulfilling.”
A returning activity this year was Party-in-a-Box, a project that provides underprivileged children with supplies for birthday celebrations. The boxes are donated to the Long Island Family and Children’s Association, and include cake mix, frosting, plates, napkins, a toy and a card for parents to fill out. On Mitzvah Day, temple members assembled 30 boxes.
Mark Derwin, the temple’s youth director, said that members of the Senior Youth Group collect donations to fund the boxes for three or four months. “It’s always wonderful when we can help children in need,” Derwin said.
At another station, children decorated and packed snack bags for young clients of the Interfaith Nutrition Network, a nonprofit in Freeport that provides essential services to those challenged by hunger, poverty and homelessness.
Other temple congregants made greeting cards and filled bags with self-care items for seniors, and organized dignity bags filled with personal care items for homeless women, to be delivered to the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless.
In addition to hands-on projects, Mitzvah Day featured informational stations at which congregants could learn about organ donation and bone marrow screening. Other activities included sorting and boxing donated nonperishable food items, which were later picked up by Island Harvest, a Melville-based food bank.
Activities were organized and supervised by several groups in the congregation, such as the Social Action/Social Justice Committee, which focuses on helping those in the community who are struggling. According to a committee co-chair, Rona Kauffman, members organize collections, educational presentations and other activities that stress civic engagement all year long.
For Kauffman, Mitzvah Day is a culmination of all that work. “I’m very proud of it,” she said. “There’s a lot of generosity, and it’s a lot of work.”
