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Sending Your Child to Israel…
Tonight I will take my daughter who is going to Israel to the airport. When my grandparents were alive, they gave us dollar bills to take to Israel and give to charity on our safe arrival. This was their prayer, their hope: that the shaliach mitzvah, the one who performs a mitzvah on another’s behalf, is guaranteed Divine protection.
I summon the Matriarchs – Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel—as I give my own daughter dollar bills, and I say to her, "Lekhi lach…Go to the land, for you are a blessing and shall be a blessing to others."
Ritual:
Designate your child as your shaliach mitzvah by giving him or her several dollar bills and this instruction: "When you arrive in Israel, seek out those who need tzedaka, and give them this money for me."
Meditation:
May God protect you: You are a shaliach mitzvah, an emissary of mitzvot, worthy of being showered with endless blessings.
I will miss you.
I am sending a part of myself with you.
May your experience in Israel be intensely wonderful, intensely Jewish.
Teaching:
"Go forth from your native land and from your parents’ house to the Land I
will show you."
(Genesis 12:1)
"A mitzvah protects and rescues while one is engaged in it."
(Sotah 21a)
(CLAL Faculty)
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