Author: acs_ubq4oq

From a very young age, my parents taught me to always hold the door for the person behind you. I never really thought of it as something that could teach me a lesson when I became older. One Spring day close to the end of seventh grade, I was walking back from my flute lesson in the Arts Center to the middle school building. Being one of the youngest kids in my school, I tried to keep contact with upper schoolers limited because only a few actually took time from their day to wave to me in the hallways. As I pushed through the doors I saw a few kids on their way in. It was clear from the distance that was between them that they we not walking together.…

Thanks to my friend Jodi who's bat mitzvah is shortly after mine, I am starting my summer of Mitzvot off strong with a morning spent on the Charles River removing invasive plants. The plants we were specifically looking for were water chestnuts. There were two people to each boat. I only knew two people that were from my Hebrew School out of about twenty three, so my options were limited. I decided to go with my friend Rina, and I took the back because since I had grown up on a lake, I had plenty of experience. We paddled out to a small, closed off section of the river that was heavily inhabited with lily pads. The two instructors that led the group looked to be only about sixteen. I…