Generosity in Hard Times

I’m currently in training and raising money for the Waves to Wine Multiple Sclerosis bike ride. The Bay Area event will take place one week before Rosh HaShanah.  What a way to prepare body and soul for the most holy of our seasons and – as the sages call it – the most festive day of the year – Yom Kippur; the Day of Atonement.  Or, as someone a long time ago expressed it, the Day of At-One-Ment. Of course I have been soliciting family, friends, contacts, study partners (OK, everyone for whom I have an email address that isn’t a client) since mid-June.  In this hard times, people are digging deep, and to date – in the space of less than three weeks contributors have pitched in $1500.00.  As I wrote in a thank you note to one of the contributors, from whom I have borrowed this phrase (modifications my own and it will only make you chuckle if you heard what Gene originally said in our Mussar group) “I am surrounded by generous people!”

If you are reading this post and are moved to join the growing list of supporters, please head on over to http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/artgould and Wave that Flag (obligatory Grateful Dead reference), er, I mean, Abuse That Plastic – for a good cause. Or, as several have done, send me a note that “the check is in the mail”.  Oh… and don’t forget to actually put the check into the mail . I’ve put this in the “Torah Commentary” category, borrowing from Hazon who borrowed it from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who said “The Torah is a commentary on the world, and the world is a commentary on the Torah.” Now to find time today to go out and ride my donkey past angels waving flaming swords.