When the New South Wales government asked Jewish faith leaders what they wanted after the explosion of hate that targeted their community and claimed 15 lives at Bondi beach, they requested positive action.
The idea Rabbi Nochum Schapiro presented to the emergency meeting of the NSW Faith Affairs Council convened by the minister for multiculturalism, Steve Kamper, was simple. It was for everyone to perform one mitzvah – an act of kindness.
At the nightly vigils outside Bondi Pavilion, only metres away from where the blood was shed, Sydney’s rabbis shared stories of the different ways all 15 victims showed kindness during their lives. From Rabbi Eli Schlanger driving hours across the state to support a single prisoner to Marika Pogany volunteering to deliver Meals on Wheels to elderly people, and 10-year-old Matilda’s happiness at the thought of her friend receiving an award at her school presentation day.
The One Mitzvah for Bondi campaign invites every Australian of any faith or background to do a good deed “in memory and honour of those who no longer can”, as Rabbi Eli Feldman of Newtown synagogue put it. “Let us continue to bring their light to the world.
Mourners gather in front of tributes left outside the Bondi Pavilion. Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images
“But also to foster the type of society where the evil that these two messengers of darkness represented, and were able to carry out, won’t be able to grow.
“When we care for each other, when we step up for each other, when we volunteer to make a difference, that really creates the type of beautiful society that we all would love to see in this country.”
In the religious sense, there are 613 mitzvahs – divine commandments given to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai – but in common usage the term has come to mean any charitable act.
Kabir Singh in his Pocket Rocketz food truck
The campaign encourages acts big or small, such as calling someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, stepping up to help a neighbour, friend or family member in need, as well as donating voluntary work or money to charitable causes, giving blood – as a record number did in the days after the attack – or any other way of supporting those in need. Each of these acts is a mitzvah.
While mitzvahs and tikkun olam (making the world a better place) are core values in Judaism, according to Feldman, they find commonality in other faiths, from Islamic Sadaqah to Christianity’s emphasis on social justice and helping the needy.
Kabir Singh had never heard of the word mitzvah before the campaign but he recognised the principle from his own Sikh belief system – which encourages giving to those in need without expecting anything in return. After all, his parents have run Guru Nanak’s Free Kitchenette Sydney, a charity feeding the homeless, for the past 15 years.
Though unable to donate blood owing to medical reasons, Singh said it was “in my blood” to do what was in his power to help.
As a small business owner, running the Pocket Rocketz food truck serving Indian-Australian fusion food, he decided to donate “my time, my produce and whatever sales” from his truck from last Friday through to Sunday.
Singh donated 100% of his profits for three days
Singh said he was inspired by customers giving extra cash, knowing that the money was being raised for victims and their families, as well as having conversations with the community, such as serving an old high school friend who told him his business partner was the son of Boris and Sofia Gurman – the couple who first attempted to stop the Bondi shooters and died in each other’s arms.
Singh’s sense of “six degrees of separation” is something many in Sydney are experiencing, he says, and is what “the whole one mitzvah campaign was about – community and togetherness”.
While Singh had originally planned to donate half of his profits, by the end of the weekend he decided to give 100%.
Deliciousness, a Sutherland-based bakery, also joined in the campaign, baking and dropping off cupcakes to Bondi police station.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, told the vigil on Sunday, which marked one week since the terror attack, the campaign had been inspired by the spirit of Schlanger.
Before he died, the rabbi had been in the process of launching “Project Noah, a reminder every one of us is a child of Noah charged with building a good world”. He invited every citizen of NSW of any faith or no faith to increase acts of goodness and kindness, Minns said.
“The rabbis I’ve spoken to in the last days have been very insistent that this is the best way of healing our country,” the premier said. “If hatred spreads through words and actions, then so does goodness.
“Peace doesn’t happen by accident. It must be actively pursued through compassion, through kindness and moral courage. Government can encourage it and support it but people must live it.”
The campaign has been taken up by the Jewish community, according to Feldman, with people visiting the injured in hospital, making and giving food and toys and affected families, as well as performing religious mitzvahs, such as men strapping tefillin (leather cube-shaped cases containing biblical texts) and women lighting candles for Shabbat.
Dr Cassandra Goldie, the chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service, lauded the campaign as a “simple, yet powerful call to each of us, from all walks to life, to choose acts of love and kindness, not division and darkness, in these devastating days since the Bondi attacks”.
Surf life-savers stand shoulder to shoulder at a memorial event. Photograph: George Chan/Getty Images
She added: “We know the transformative power of acting with compassion, care and kindness … We build unity, love and care with every move we make.”
She said she had learned this as a child of a second world war veteran. “Democracy and peace is precious. Each action we take can move us in one direction or the other.”
Anthony Albanese acknowledged the campaign when announcing a special honours list to recognise acts of bravery in response to Bondi terrorist attack. “Recognition of people’s good deeds is a good thing,” the prime minister said. “It’s not why people do it, but it’s what our nation should do.”
The NSW government has invited people to describe their good deed in hour of the Bondi victims on this site or to post about it on social media using the hashtag #OneMitzvahforBondi.
Feldman said Schlanger, his friend and colleague who was “passionate about making this world a better place”, would be “so proud” of the campaign.
