On December 25, while our non-Jewish neighbors took a holiday break, Chicagoland Orthodox Jews stepped up at Light the Night, an evening of chesed created 16 years ago by visionary Miriam Bromberg z''l. Seniors, pre-schoolers, and everyone in between joined forces to cook, sort clothes, deliver food to the homeless and much more, followed by Chanuka candle-lighting and singing. ABC7 TV News covered the event on the evening news! 

Light the Night, by the numbers:
  • 40 large bags of winter clothing, including 140+ winter coats for our unhoused neighbors
  • 30 holiday dinners cooked and delivered to people leaving homelessness
  • 100 "bracha" survival kits for our unhoused neighbors 
  • 75+ gift-wrapped toys for hospitalized children
  • Hundreds of cookies delivered to 24 police stations, firehouses, and hospitals 

 

Working together: Young leaders Abby Singer and Julia Benditzson partnered with Solu on a winter clothing drive as part of their Diller Teen Fellowship. Their efforts paid off spectacularly: they collected 140+ coats and dozens of bags of clothing to keep our homeless neighbors in Evanston and Chicago warm! Many volunteers joined them in sorting and packing clothes at Light the Night.

Solu Torah: What does Chanuka have to do with Chesed?!

Masechet Shabbat rules that, ideally, we should place chanukah candles at our front door (Shabbat 21b) -- to ensure pirsumei nisa, publicizing the Chanukah miracle. But I believe there's additional benefit: we're forced to spend time at our door.

And who might be at our door? Masechet Shabbat gives a clear answer: our poor neighbors. The tractate famously begins with a pauper asking for money at the doorway. Poor people are known in the mishna as "Mehazrim al hapetachim," those who go to the doorways.

Chanuka is the holiday of the doorway. There's so many in need, just beyond our doorstep. On the 8th night of Chanuka, you walked out the door -- to homeless shelters, hospitals, firehouses, to help our neighbors. Yasher koach!