Impact!

It is a typical scene in New York to have one or two men receiving a message on their walkie talkies and then immediately running out of the sanctuary during the services, or a family gathering, or a restaurant, etc. on their way to save someone’s life. These men are members of Hatzalah; a volunteer emergency medical service.

An individual by the name of Rabbi Hershel Weber founded an organization called Hatzalah, in Brooklyn, New York in the late 1960s. Rabbi Weber founded Hatzalah to address the needs of the Jewish Community in Williamsburg for an ambulance service that understood its cultural and religious needs, and to improve EMS response time. The organization was a basic first aid group trained in CPR and carrying oxygen. Soon after its inception, Hatzalah expanded, and today has over 80 ambulances and almost 2,000 volunteer EMT’s in the United States. Today, Hatzalah is the largest volunteer Emergency Medical Services and ambulance provider in the United Sates. In New York alone Hatzalah responds to over 250,000 calls a year.

We have just entered the “three weeks” the time on the Jewish calendar, which is designated as the time to mourn for the destruction of the Holy Temple. We use this time to mourn that we are still in exile 2,000 years later. We use this time to lament and ponder the devastation we, as the Jewish people, have endured throughout this dark time of exile. The Sages tell us the Jewish people need to improve their interpersonal relationships with one another in order to bring an end to this darkness. We have to eradicate baseless hatred and put an end to gossiping about one another.

Unfortunately, many of us might be thinking that improving our behavior is worthless because there is so much hate and anger in our communities throughout the world that our actions are inconsequential. During these three weeks our challenge is to realize that every single one of us can make a great impact with a small deed. Rabbi Webber started Hatzalah with an oxygen tank in the trunk of his car, over 40 years later the name Hatzalah is found on ambulances in five different continents.

Point to ponder: What is going to be our small act? How are we personally going to contribute to bringing an end to this dark time in our history? If we fail to make an attempt to improve our community, then who will?