October 06, 2008

Puzzling Bar Mitzvah Project

Rabbi Neal Gold is an old friend who we have known since his earliest days in Rabbinical School. Now the Rabbi of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, Massachusetts, we can always count on Rabbi Gold to send us leads on some pretty spectacular tzedakah or mitzvah ideas. We were not disappointed yesterday when an email arrived sharing the story of Max Wallack, one of Rabbi Gold’s students who recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. After reading a bit more about Max in Rabbi Gold’s email I knew that I wanted to speak with him and so I sent Max an email asking him when we might have a few minutes to chat. In a very short time he responded and suggested this afternoon "after he returned home from school". (How many times have I had to wait until late in the day after school hours to talk to some amazing mitzvah kid? Many!)

I was not disappointed as Max was a thoroughly charming young man who conveyed his excitement about this project and his wish to help other kids do the same thing in their own community. Here is what Max shared with me:

About a year and a half ago, my great grandmother who lived with my family, died of dementia. I had spent a lot of time those last few weeks visiting her in dementia units after she could no longer be at home. I saw how bored and agitated the patients were. I read a lot about the illness and discovered many research articles that showed that doing jigsaw puzzles could delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, or even slow down their progression in affected patients. I decided, initially for my Bar Mitzvah project, to collect puzzles and donate them for the use of these patients. I wrote many emails to companies all over the world. More than a dozen companies sent puzzles. One company producing art puzzles even sent them at their own expense ($197) from Italy!! Initially, I was hoping to accumulate a hundred puzzles.

As the week went by, I became more and more involved in my project. I decided to make a website, and to place collection buckets around the area I live in. I now collect from about 15 locations over a 20 mile radius from my home. I’ve just reached 500 puzzles collected. I’ve also been talking to some students at a local college. Some of them have been told they can get credit for community service for helping me. We are trying to set up a lollipop sale, where I could make Halloween and Thanksgiving lollipops, and they would sell them on campus. All the money would go to purchase more puzzles. I also hope to eventually be able to form my own non profit agency to continue this work.

I have absolutely no doubt that Max’s wish to start a non-profit will come to fruition. He has not only succeeded in coming up with a fabulous Mitzvah Project, he is also a recognized inventor who, despite being just 12 years old, has already invented the Carpal Cushion (a special cushion to be wrapped around the wrist to help people who do tasks with repetitive motion), the Great Granny Booster Step, a special step to help elderly and handicapped people climb into minivans and SUV’s, and the Walk and Wait Cane– a cane with a sturdy fold out seat attached, suitable for elderly people as well. Max told me that he thinks that he has a responsibility to help other people by using his particular skills…we would have to agree!

For more information on Max’s project, visit http://www.puzzlestoremember.org/ or write directly to Max to learn how you can do this in your community. Max can be reached at inventorkid@gmail.com.

Pretty awesome…