Pay it forward

By GIL TROY

The Canadian Jewish News Internet Edition, October 23, 2003

Rabbi Emanuel Forman recently alerted Montreal’s Shaar Hashomayim synagogue to the plight of a young father of four paralyzed in a terror attack. The 37-year-old American oleh, Steve Averbach, rode bus number 6 early Sunday morning on May 18. Sensing something was amiss, he reached for his gun. A terrorist masquerading as a religious Jew blew himself up, killing seven and wounding 20 severely, including Averbach, who was paralyzed below the neck after a steel ball bearing ripped into his spine.

Israel’s Defence Ministry has honoured Averbach, a former police officer and Golani unit hero, for saving countless lives, because the bus was about to fill up with dozens of schoolkids and commuters. Averbach regrets he did not stop the bomber – an impossible expectation he imposed on himself – and wonders how to rebuild his life. “I was always pretty strong, mentally and physically,” he told a reporter. “And now… I control nothing, zero. I can’t turn over, lift a hand… So they tell me that I’m my kids’ father, and no one can take that away from me. But look at me, what kind of a dad can I be?… I want to walk and play with my kids, what can I do now? What does anyone need me for?”

Just before Rosh Hashanah, I spoke at an “Israel Update” to the synagogue’s sisterhood. I began by reading the names of recent victims of the Palestinians’ immoral turn from negotiation to terrorism. And I pleaded for the community to help Averbach. “Think of how much money we are about to spend on flowers, on wine, on brisket, on useless little presents thanking our hosts,” I said. “Couldn’t we redirect some of that money to Israelis for whom this New Year is bittersweet?” I challenged each member to give $1,000 to Averbach, either individually or with friends.

Remarkably, people responded to the appeal, and to Rabbi Forman’s subsequent discussion in his Rosh Hashanah sermon about Averbach’s new search for meaning in his radically transformed world. One woman rose at the sisterhood meeting, donated $1,000 and asked others to follow – and some did immediately. Another woman changed her holiday flower order, sending more modest arrangements with a card saying a donation had been made to Averbach’s fund. A high school student inquired about raising funds at her school – and other Jewish high schools in the area. I challenged her to broaden it to other high schools with Jews and all freedom-loving people opposed to terror. A Dawson College student later launched a fundraiser through Hillel that raised $1,000 in two days.

More people asked how they could help. We were living out the rabbinic teaching “mitzvah gorreret mitzvah” – one mitzvah tugs another. We were bringing to life the recent Hollywood movie Pay It Forward, in which one good deed breeds another. “We have been offered help by so many people around the world who have heard of Steve’s injuries,” Steve’s father wrote to the student who organized Hillel’s fundraiser, “but only a wonderful few have actually done something. You are certainly among the select few.” Reporting on other acts of kindness, such as the Hadassah angels ministering to Averbach and his family, the senior Averbach said, “There are many more wonderful people in the world than I ever realized.”

Yes, these modest efforts barely address the financial demands of someone facing decades of rehabilitation and limited job prospects. And synagogues could do much more, from institutionalizing a twinning program as part of all bar mitzvahs and weddings, to diverting a serious percentage of their building funds to meet the devastating emergency situation imposed on Israel by Palestinian death merchants.

But the symbolic power of these donations enhances their financial impact – both as models for others and for the supportive message they transmit to victims and their families. There are five million North American Jews and fewer than 5,000 victims, meaning a ratio of one thousand potential givers to every casualty of Yasser Arafat’s war.

Cash is the currency of the modern world. More of us need to use more of it to speak eloquently, morally and lovingly. “People don’t realize that when they give just how much they can benefit,” the president of Shaar Hashomayim sisterhood said that night. That’s the power of being a part of a moral community. That’s the beauty of paying it forward.