Being a part of the team that participated in the first Yeshivah of Flatbush Hesed Travel Day was a very fulfilling and inspiring experience. Over 30 Joel Braverman High School students spent a recent Sunday giving back to their community. This hesed day, organized by Dean of Students Rabbi Naftali Besser, included visits to Coney Island and Maimonides Hospitals, the Haym Salomon Rehabilitation Center, a Bait Ezra/Ohel residence and Masbia glatt kosher restaurant/soup kitchen.
After a breakfast of orange juice and donuts, Chaplain (and YOF parent) Ezra Hanon taught us the correct way to do the mitzvah of bikur holim. He told us how to make the patients feel comfortable with us. We split up into groups of three and four people. Each group received different room assignments.
First we went to Coney Island Hospital and then to The Haym Salomon Home for the Aged, accompanied by Mr. Hanon, Rabbi Besser and Mrs. Batya Theil of the YOF Hebrew department. When we arrived, we were given towels, stuffed animals and toys, donated by YOF parents, to give out to the patients and nurses. It felt good to see how happy the patients were when they received the gifts. Even one of the nurses told us that we had made her day, after my group gave her a gift. She couldn’t stop hugging us.
After lunch on Kings Highway, we visited mentally and physically challenged clients at a Bait Ezra Home, throwing them a pizza party with music and arts and crafts projects.
Then six students were chosen to visit sick children at Maimonides Hospital.
“It makes me so happy to see that I can make a difference in a child’s life,” said Sara Reiss, a YOF senior, after her visit to Maimonides Hospital. “Happiness is one of the best feelings in the world and I’m so glad that today I was able to share that with the children.”
While the six students were at Maimonides, the rest of us went to Masbia, the only glatt kosher soup kitchen in the city. We were each given gloves, aprons and a job to help serve. Alexander Rapaport, the director of Masbia, explained to us how important the soup kitchen is and how it has changed the lives of over 170 people. He told us that he tried to make the soup kitchen as homey as possible through its design and by sometimes having his family come to help out. The yeshivah gave an extra gift to Masbia, our Tzedakah Commission, donating money to sponsor all the meals for the day.
Although many of the patients and clients that we met throughout the day didn’t speak English, we were able to communicate. That is, when I discovered that there is a special universal language that everyone can understand—the language of caring.
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Jennifer Alweiss is a junior at the Yeshivah of Flatbush.
