For TAM students, community service is part of their education
For some people, community service is a way of paying a debt to society, and for others it is a way of life. For the 27 students at Torah Academy of Milwaukee, it is an educational requirement.
And this academic year they will rack up more than 800 hours of hesed work, roughly translated as acts of loving-kindness. Each student at the Glendale high school for girls is required to fulfill at least 30 hours of hesed yearly.
For some girls that entails visiting the elderly and for others it means tutoring younger children. Some girls help children with special needs, and others go into family homes, acting as “another set of hands.”
But for all the girls, doing hesed is a precedent that TAM principal Sora Rauch hopes will shape their future. “The bottom line is to grow them into community-minded people.
“If you’re trained to do that in high school, that’s what you’ll do when you’re older.
Even if you work 50 hours a week, you still end up giving to the community. It’s going to come automatically,” she said.
That’s true for Feige Ort, who graduated last spring. In an interview earlier this summer, Ort said that doing her hesed work changed her “100 percent. No matter what work I end up doing, even if it’s not my main job, I want to work with people and help them.”
Moreover, it’s such an important value to Ort that it will determine whom she marries. “When I’m looking to get married and set up my home, hesed will be the number one [value] I look for.”
That value came from home, Ort said, but her four years at TAM reinforced it. “That is the number one thing in my family. It always seemed that my parents were giving hesed, helping people out,” she said.
“The more that you give to a person, they more they give to you,” said Ort, referring to the positive feeling she gets from helping people during her frequent visits to residents of the Jewish Home and Care Center.
Keeping focus
Nehama Anton, a tenth-grader, also finds doing hesed “gratifying.” Last year she tutored a fifth-grade girl who, Anton was assured, achieved good grades partly due to the extra help Anton gave her.
This year Anton will co-chair the hesed committee for her second consecutive year, a role that entails matching girls to specific jobs, collecting their time sheets, acting as liaison regarding any problems the girls confront and “constantly inspiring the student body to continue doing their hesed,” according to Aliza Pekier, TAM’s activities director.
Anton understands the value of doing hesed during high school. “In high school, you do a lot of stuff for yourself and the school. This is something you can do for others,” she said.
And 30 hours isn’t such a big deal, the girls agree. Though TAM students finish their studies later than most other students, at 5 p.m., “30 hours is a very easy amount to get,” said Bracha Torem, who graduated last spring and co-chaired the hesed committee for two years.
“There are Sundays and after hours. You make time. Besides,” she added, “it helps you to keep in focus that other people are important and that other people have needs you can help with.”
According to Pekier, the work is divided into four categories: working with children with special needs and families who need extra help; visiting the ill and elderly; tutoring students; and helping or teaching at schools or synagogues.
Though TAM has always required hesed hours, the program has been structured differently throughout the years. At first students were given time sheets and could fulfill their requirement as they wished. Now, each girl is assigned a specific job at the beginning of the year.
And these jobs are not selected randomly. “We try to match up where the drive of the student is and the needs of the community,” said Rauch.
Sometimes, a girl can use her hesed work as a way to explore career choices. “One girl worked with a child with special needs and she enjoyed it so much that I think that’s what she wants to major in,” Pekier noted.
And the choices are varied and limitless, she continued. “We have a big sister/little sister program,” in which girls can mentor elementary-school girls.
“We try to think of new areas where people need help,” she said. Though much of the work is done within the Jewish community, that isn’t necessarily so. And there is an added component that half of the work may be done in the girls’ home if the work is “above and beyond” their usual responsibilities.
As is often the case, the students’ hesed work is never done. “There are more families in need than girls to help,” said Anton.
But that may point to one of the benefits of TAM’s hesed requirement. “The students are aware of needs around them and they know they can make a difference,” said Pekier. “Even by doing something small as one hour a week, you can make a big impact on somebody’s life.”
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