Do · ★ Campaign 6 of the Rebbe’s Ten · 60 seconds
Give Tzedakah
One of the most powerful things you can do in Judaism is also one of the simplest: give.
The Hebrew word is Tzedakah (tzeh-dah-KAH). It’s usually translated “charity,” but the root means justice — doing what’s right. In Judaism, giving isn’t being generous with what’s yours; it’s putting a little of the world back where it belongs.
The How
- Give something in the next sixty seconds. A few dollars online to any cause you care about. Done? You’ve joined the campaign.
- Set up a pushke (PUSH-keh — a tzedakah box). Any jar where you’ll see it. One coin each morning; many add one before lighting candles on Friday.
- Make it a rhythm, not an event. A coin a day is a Jewish life of giving.
The Light
The Rebbe’s signature teaching on giving, from the campaign he launched in 1974: what matters most is not how much, but how often. Ten coins on ten occasions shape a person more than one large check — because each act of giving opens the heart again.
He carried this one personally, in a way the world could see: for years he stood for hours every Sunday handing out dollar bills, one Jew at a time — each dollar meant to be passed on to charity, so that every person who met him left as a giver. Asked how a man his age wasn’t exhausted by it, he answered: when you’re counting diamonds, you don’t get tired.