Powering your Passion!

As a member of the national Chai Mitzvah team, I divide my time between facilitating groups and reaching out to participants. For the past couple of months, I’ve had the pleasure of listening to folks all over the country respond to a simple question: “How is the Chai Mitzvah experience working for you and your community?” What I’ve learned is this: 

Some facilitators have not yet offered the program for which they registered, citing Covid and/or staffing issues. If this is you, feel free to contact me and we can explore some work-arounds to get the program going. As you can imagine, groups are meeting in person and Zoom. One Grandparents and Beyond group is including “Jewish relatives and non-Jewish friends” on WhatsApp. 

Feedback about the Chai Mitzvah experience is tremendously  valuable, ranging from help—it’s so hard to get teens to commit every month!  to … we’re really enjoying Mussar—more middot, please… to I was nervous about facilitating, but the participants carried the group; it was fun and easy.

I heard from facilitators who took inspiration from our booklets and added their own sources. This, I responded, is one of the beauties of the program; the sources we provide are timeless rather than topical, and discussion leaders are encouraged to incorporate current events or dig deeply into one aspect of the monthly topic.  

And it struck me that many groups find success with one or two of our curricula and are only slightly aware of the wide variety of experiences we offer. In addition to new curricula, we invite people (YOU!) to join us for our virtual programs, to read our facebook page and to take advantage of holiday programming. 

Finally, our conversations give me the opportunity to stress that while people (YOU!) will certainly learn Jewish values and traditions during your Chai Mitzvah experience, our most important goal is to inspire you to POP, that is, to, demonstrate the power of  passion — by learning, volunteering and spiritually connecting with others in your community and the Jewish world.

Our most important goal is to inspire you to POP, that is,
to demonstrate the power of  passion — by learning, volunteering and spiritually connecting with others in your community and the Jewish world.

Do you have an idea, question or concern about your Chai Mitzvah experience? If so, we’d love to hear from you below. ‘Til then, I wish you a spring and summer of powering your passion!

– Jill Maidhof