Chabad Responds to Tragedy With Mitzvah Drive: "Hearts to Hokies" Campaign to Begin Friday
Title
Chabad Responds to Tragedy With Mitzvah Drive: "Hearts to Hokies" Campaign to Begin Friday
Description
Joshua Runyan
<i>Chabad.edu</i>
As a university and nation began the transition from shock to mourning one day after the deadliest shooting attack in American history, the network of more than 100 campus Chabad Houses declared a "Week of Goodness and Kindness" as a way to honor the memory of the slain. The goal of the effort, according to organizers, is simple: to translate the pain of grief into the healing of positive action.
Beginning this Friday, Chabad on Campus representatives will be handing out "Hearts to Hokies" pledge cards at the campuses they serve. Students will be encouraged to pledge a good deed in the merit of those lost; the collected cards will be presented later to the students of Virginia Tech. Students and others can also complete an online "pledge card" at <a href="http://www.hearts2hokies.com/">www.Hearts2Hokies.com</a>.
"This tragedy hits uniquely close to home for college students across America," stated Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive director for the New York-based Chabad on Campus International Foundation. "Our campaign provides a tangible way to react in a substantive manner. It reminds that grief can be channeled into positive action, and highlights the concept that many small acts add up in a meaningful way."
According to Gordon, "we look to our traditions for solace and direction. We recognize the essential human need to do something, to make something good result from tragedy, to attempt to somehow bring balance into the world by increasing in 'senseless' acts of goodness and kindness."
In the immediate aftermath of an apparent rampage by a Virginia Tech student, two Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries from elsewhere in the state - Rabbi Yossel Kranz, executive director of the Richmond, Va.-based Chabad of the Virginias and Rabbi Shlomo Mayer from the Chabad House at the University of Virginia - traveled to the site of the attacks to assist with the needs of the students and faculty.
And as Mayer and Kranz were busy on Tuesday coordinating the care of a victim's body in accordance with Jewish law - Virginia Tech professor of mechanical engineering Liviu Librescu, a 75-year-old Romanian Holocaust survivor who was shot by Cho Seung-Hui while shielding his class from the assailant's bullets - and arranging its transport to Israel for burial, their colleagues as far away as Seattle were planning Chabad's national response.
"Jewish tradition teaches that each person is created in the Divine image," stated Rabbi Moshe C. Dubrowski, director of operations for the New York-based Chabad on Campus International Foundation, in reference to the April 16 carnage at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., that left 32 victims dead and more than 20 injured. "All those affected by this tragedy are in our thoughts and prayers."
"The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, taught of the need to turn tears into action," explained Dubrowski. "In the light of this horror, Chabad on Campus urges students to increase in acts of goodness and kindness."
"It's terrible and no one should ever have to know such a thing," said Chaya Estrin, who with her husband Rabbi Ellie Estrin, directs the Chabad House at the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. "It's okay to mourn, it's okay to be upset, but after crying, we have to channel our grief into positive actions."
The University of Washington has had its own share of tragedy recently, following the April 2 murder of a 26-year-old researcher by an estranged boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself.
In the wake of this week's news out of Virginia, "many students are in a state of shock, they don't know what to do," said Estrin.
All the more reason, said Chana Mayer, co-director of the University of Virginia's Chabad House, to give students a chance to positively affect the world around them.
"A little light dispels a lot darkness," said Mayer. "It doesn't have to be something complicated or expensive; simple good deeds are powerful things right at our fingertips."
For more information please visit <a href="http://www.hearts2hokies.com/">www.Hearts2Hokies.com</a>.
--
Archived with permission of Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
Original Source: <a href="http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.asp?AID=512150">http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.asp?AID=512150</a>
<i>Chabad.edu</i>
As a university and nation began the transition from shock to mourning one day after the deadliest shooting attack in American history, the network of more than 100 campus Chabad Houses declared a "Week of Goodness and Kindness" as a way to honor the memory of the slain. The goal of the effort, according to organizers, is simple: to translate the pain of grief into the healing of positive action.
Beginning this Friday, Chabad on Campus representatives will be handing out "Hearts to Hokies" pledge cards at the campuses they serve. Students will be encouraged to pledge a good deed in the merit of those lost; the collected cards will be presented later to the students of Virginia Tech. Students and others can also complete an online "pledge card" at <a href="http://www.hearts2hokies.com/">www.Hearts2Hokies.com</a>.
"This tragedy hits uniquely close to home for college students across America," stated Rabbi Yossy Gordon, executive director for the New York-based Chabad on Campus International Foundation. "Our campaign provides a tangible way to react in a substantive manner. It reminds that grief can be channeled into positive action, and highlights the concept that many small acts add up in a meaningful way."
According to Gordon, "we look to our traditions for solace and direction. We recognize the essential human need to do something, to make something good result from tragedy, to attempt to somehow bring balance into the world by increasing in 'senseless' acts of goodness and kindness."
In the immediate aftermath of an apparent rampage by a Virginia Tech student, two Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries from elsewhere in the state - Rabbi Yossel Kranz, executive director of the Richmond, Va.-based Chabad of the Virginias and Rabbi Shlomo Mayer from the Chabad House at the University of Virginia - traveled to the site of the attacks to assist with the needs of the students and faculty.
And as Mayer and Kranz were busy on Tuesday coordinating the care of a victim's body in accordance with Jewish law - Virginia Tech professor of mechanical engineering Liviu Librescu, a 75-year-old Romanian Holocaust survivor who was shot by Cho Seung-Hui while shielding his class from the assailant's bullets - and arranging its transport to Israel for burial, their colleagues as far away as Seattle were planning Chabad's national response.
"Jewish tradition teaches that each person is created in the Divine image," stated Rabbi Moshe C. Dubrowski, director of operations for the New York-based Chabad on Campus International Foundation, in reference to the April 16 carnage at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., that left 32 victims dead and more than 20 injured. "All those affected by this tragedy are in our thoughts and prayers."
"The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory, taught of the need to turn tears into action," explained Dubrowski. "In the light of this horror, Chabad on Campus urges students to increase in acts of goodness and kindness."
"It's terrible and no one should ever have to know such a thing," said Chaya Estrin, who with her husband Rabbi Ellie Estrin, directs the Chabad House at the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. "It's okay to mourn, it's okay to be upset, but after crying, we have to channel our grief into positive actions."
The University of Washington has had its own share of tragedy recently, following the April 2 murder of a 26-year-old researcher by an estranged boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself.
In the wake of this week's news out of Virginia, "many students are in a state of shock, they don't know what to do," said Estrin.
All the more reason, said Chana Mayer, co-director of the University of Virginia's Chabad House, to give students a chance to positively affect the world around them.
"A little light dispels a lot darkness," said Mayer. "It doesn't have to be something complicated or expensive; simple good deeds are powerful things right at our fingertips."
For more information please visit <a href="http://www.hearts2hokies.com/">www.Hearts2Hokies.com</a>.
--
Archived with permission of Chabad on Campus International Foundation.
Original Source: <a href="http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.asp?AID=512150">http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.asp?AID=512150</a>
Creator
Joshua Runyan
Date
2007-07-02
Contributor
Brent Jesiek
Rights
Sholom Charytan (SCharytan@Chabad.edu)
Language
eng
Citation
Joshua Runyan, “Chabad Responds to Tragedy With Mitzvah Drive: "Hearts to Hokies" Campaign to Begin Friday,” The April 16 Archive, accessed November 21, 2024, https://april16archive.org/items/show/654.