Boston Pledges Good for Victims

Lubavitch.com

Thousands of individuals who attended a local unity event Thursday, in Salem, Mass. for the Boston Marathon victims, are finding empowerment by pledging commitments to explicit acts of goodness, and getting others to do the same, posting their resolutions on Goodness4Boston.com.

The idea, which has taken off like wildfire, was hatched by Rabbi Shmaya Friedman after Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll contacted him to participate at the Last Run and Candlelight Walk for the Boston Marathon Victims. Friedman arranged for Rabbi Yossi Lipsker, Director of Chabad of Boston’s North Shore, to speak at the event. But he also wanted to make sure that participants—1,000 were expected—would come away with a sense of empowerment at a time when feelings of sadness and helplessness are so pervasive.

“Nothing empowers you more than doing good,” said Friedman, Director of Programming at Chabad of the North Shore, in a conversation with Lubavitch.com. So with the help of a friend, the young rabbi constructed an enormous board and brought it to the event, bearing the invitation to Do A Good Deed for Boston.

Speaking to the huge crowd—more than 4,000 actually attended— Rabbi Lipsker rallied them to “embark on a spiritual marathon committing senseless acts of goodness and kindness, even to random strangers as our individual way of combating senseless acts of evil and terror,” and to pin a note of goodness on the board that “will be delivered to the families of victims.”

According to Rabbi Friedman, the board was covered within 10 minutes. “We printed 1500 pledge notes which were used up immediately,” said Friedman. A local hotel printed another 500 on the spot, gratis, during the event. “Those too, were used up immediately,” and Friedman quickly got to work setting up the Goodness4Boston.com website.

Joseph Cohen, 54, a Swampscott resident, was at the event and said he was impressed by “the range of pledges that filled the massive board, from “toddlers who needed help to formulate their thoughts to the elderly who carefully and reverently offered their personal pledge. Some pledged money, others time, still others merely to love and care for others.” It was, he said, “a solemn opportunity for everyone to declare their concern for others.”

After the event, the Mayor herself added her pledge, “to care for her city and her family,” on the board, and then posted a photo of the pledge board on her personal Facebook page. And learning about the idea from Friedman’s Facebook page, other Chabad rabbis soon followed suit introducing the idea to their own communities.

Chabad of the North Shore is now working with city officials to bring the goodness board Sunday to Boston’s public garden at Boylston Street, the site of the bombing, where so many more Bostonians will have the chance to contribute in a way that will “carry us through to next year’s marathon,” said Friedman.

Friedman is grateful for the event’s takeaway, and looks forward to seeing it grow into a “wave of goodness.”

“This was an opportunity to share Judaism’s universal message in an impactful way among such a diverse population of people from all faiths, who simply want to do their share to displace the darkness and evil by weighing in with their own acts of goodness.”