If the Jewish community has a sometimes deserved reputation for insularity, this is far from the whole truth and later this month there'll be plenty of people to prove it.
Ten thousand took part in Mitzvah Day in 2008; the number is expected to rise to 15,000 on Sunday the 15 November this year. Jews, young and old, will be involved across the country in activities as diverse as mucking out on city farms, singing in residential homes, cleaning up cemeteries and collecting spectacles for Visionaid. They will be joining others across the world, from Ireland and France, to the US and Israel. The aim is to bring Judaism to the forefront of social action and to show that charity is not just a matter of donating money but of giving time and personal commitment, a message especially relevant in these times of economic challenge. The event is not intended to be a one-off; rather it is meant to provide entry points into broad areas of volunteering and social action and to develop ongoing commitment to community, local and global, in the most universal sense.
This year Mitzvah Day comes at the beginning of national Inter Faith Week. The aims of the two institutions overlap in crucial ways; both seek to demonstrate that those of different faiths can and must share responsibility for our world, from caring for the vulnerable to working hands-on for a just and sustainable global environment. They also show, in defiance of Dawkins, that faiths can, and often do, lead the way. Advocates for Mitzvah Day include prominent Muslim and Christian leaders. Many of the day's projects will engage people of all faiths and none, working alongside in soup kitchens, countryside conservation and homes for the elderly. Theoretical debates about what our theologies have in common are important; they can influence the messages from many a powerful pulpit towards tolerance and inclusivity. But the effect of getting one's feet muddy together in an autumn field or one's hands soapy in the washing up creates bonds of friendship and values which surely go deeper.
Mitzvah Day is not an institution as venerable as Moses; it's a newcomer in the Jewish seasonal cycle. It only started in Britain in 2005, where it arrived as a welcome immigrant from the United States. But it is rooted in two ancient Jewish principles.
The first is the concept of mitzvah itself; the word means a commanded act, a deed which, according to Jewish tradition and wisdom, we believe God wants us to do. Mitzvot span the range of ritual and ethical conduct. They aren't just about eating kosher and studying sacred writings; they include caring for strangers and destitute asylum seekers, supporting soup kitchens and preventing animal suffering.
The second, old in its roots but fresh in its nuance, is tikkun olam, perfecting God's world, in secular terms, commitment to social action. The idea is that we are responsible for the welfare of God's world; Jewish tradition understands the human being as a partner with God in creation. We have a sacred responsibility to care for it, including our fellow human beings irrespective of colour or creed, the trees in the woodland and the quality of urban air.
But, considered through the long lens of Judaism's three and a half thousand year history, Mitzvah Day is also a modern concept. In can only happen in a society which welcomes Jews, and all other minorities, into the public square and which allows, and encourages, civic responsibility to become the duty of all. Furthermore, many Jewish activists and organisations have been looking further outwards in recent years, understanding that core prophetic values like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and healing the sick are an imperative to work in Africa or Asia, far beyond the traditional boundaries of the Jewish world, precisely as an expression of the universal Jewish vision.
Mitzvah Day is part of a change in where the Jewish community and wider society meet, not in defensive encounters and worries (often real) about antisemitism, but at the frontiers of our shared needs and responsibilities, to look after one another and the world.