The One Thing That Actually Works

The Day of Giving (and a challenge!)

Mar 11, 2026

Today’s the Day of Giving in Toronto’s Jewish community, which means that for one glorious, over-caffeinated day, all the schools that educate our children, shape their Jewish identity, send us way too many emails, and somehow keep the lights on despite everything, are asking us for money.

And honestly? Good!

Because let’s be real about how this usually goes.

Have you ever felt the burning need to call your kid’s teacher and “just flag something”?

Have you drafted a long email beginning with “With all due respect,” which, as everyone knows, is immediately followed by disrespect?

Have you written a letter to the school, signed a petition, forwarded a WhatsApp screed, cornered someone at kiddush, or held a strategic post-shul parking lot summit on what “the school” should really be doing?

Of course you have. You have lists. Several lists. You likely started a WhatsApp group. I’m likely in it.

We are a people who were kvetching before kvetching had a name. Moses complained to God about the Jewish people. God complained right back. This is the tradition. There is nothing wrong with you.

But today is not the day for the email.

Today is the day for the most effective, least poetic, most annoyingly undeniable form of communal influence: giving money.

Money keeps the lights on. Money pays teachers. Money funds bursaries so that Jewish education is not only for families who can afford it. Money keeps classrooms functioning, security staffed, and Jewish day school education in Toronto from becoming a beautiful concept discussed at meetings in rooms with flickering fluorescent lights.

You want better schools? Donate. You want increased security measures because of unprecedented global challenges? Donate. You want stronger Jewish identity for the next generation? Donate. You want more excellence, more access, more Jewish joy, fewer emergencies, and slightly fewer desperate fundraising emails in the future? Donate.

There are many ways to “be involved” in the community. Some are noble. Some are loud. Some are mostly theatrical. But on the Day of Giving, let’s not pretend there’s a mystery here. The fastest way to turn your values into reality is not a thread, not a speech, not a complaint to a friend over shwarma. It’s your credit card.

The cheque is mightier than the feedback form.

And now, a challenge.

Whatever number you have in your head right now - double it.

Yes, double it!

Not because I’m trying to personally ruin your month, but because Jewish tradition has never really been about doing the bare minimum and then congratulating ourselves like we split the sea.

The Talmud teaches that tzedakah is not charity in the passive sense. It comes from the root tzedek, justice. You aren’t doing someone a favour. You are restoring what is owed. And the rabbis understood that our first instinct about what we can give is always, without exception, too conservative. The tradition did not say “give what feels comfortable.” It said give until you feel it. Give until it means something. The number in your head right now is the comfortable number. The number that costs you nothing. Double it and you’ve entered the territory of actual impact.

Make the gift that says you are done merely having opinions about the school, and are ready, for one day at least, to underwrite it.

Kvetch tomorrow.

Today, give.

UPDATE: As of 5:30PM on March 12, our community collectively donated $8,712,759 to the schools listed below. We are truly a remarkable community. Am Yisrael Chai.