Today, I’m bursting with pride for my kids. Matan and Yehuda (click on the middle of the pictures above and below to see the videos) are in a karate class, and the teacher put together a karate-a-thon. The goal was to get sponsors and to raise money for the people of Sderot, who have endured eight years of constant rocket attacks from Gaza. My boys took the task very seriously and ran around the entire neighorhood collecting sponsors. They also called and emailed relatives and friends in the States.

So, last night was the karate-a-thon. They had to do a certain collection of karate moves, called a Kata, as many times as they could. They were sponsored a shekel or so for each time that they did the move. Yehuda ended up coming in first place, doing his move 60 times in one hour! And Matan came in third place with 50 moves. (You can see video clips of them on Josh’s facebook page.) This meant that someone who sponsored them both for 1 shekel a move would now owe them 110 shekel. When they got home, we tallied up their totals, and they’ve raised close to 3000 shekels for Sderot!

Whether or not my kids learn a single thing more in karate the entire year, they’ve completed their task. They have learned so much from this activity about the power of a single person. Here they are – at the ages of 8 and 6 – hearing about a war and about the bombardment that the people of Sderot are experiencing on a daily basis. What can they possibly do? What can any of us do?

A lot. That’s what they’ve learned here, and what they’ve taught me. With their feet and their hearts they’ve raised 3000 shekels for people who have less. What an amazing lesson to teach them. No matter what life offers to us – and how powerless or insignificant we feel – there is always something that we can do.

Thank you for teaching me Matan and Yehuda. You are an inspiration.