Running for Chesed

One boy’s journey has just begun

by KR

0 Comments | Wednesday, June 09, 2021 under Food Boxes, Bar Mitzvah Project

Uriel Krasner just turned thirteen recently, but you can tell he’s already heading out on what is sure to become an impressive, long-lasting chesed journey. Following his trip to Yad Eliezer’s warehouse in honor of his hanachat tefillin, where he and his family packed an impressive number of boxes to help feed Israel’s neediest families, he decided that he could still do more to change lives. Take a look, in his own words, at this thoughtful and inspiring boy’s drive to make a difference.

“As part of the celebration of my hanachat tefillin, my family and I went to Yad Eliezer to help package food for people in need. While we were there, we watched a video about all of the different chessed programmes that Yad Eliezer does, and I saw that one of things that they do is make bar mitzvahs special, for kids who may not have the opportunity to celebrate how they would like to.

This made me think. Over the past year I had a lot of time to think about what my bar mitzvah celebrations would look like and what I would be able to do because of Corona. But throughout I was still excited because I knew that my family would try to make it special for me. I thought it would be a really nice idea if I could somehow give back to people who didn’t have that same opportunity and raise money for their simchas, tefillin and anything else that would make them happy.

I didn’t know how I would be able to raise this money, but I had an idea. A few weeks before I had started going on weekly runs and I thought that if I could push myself enough I could try to do a sponsored 10k run, for Yad Eliezer’s bar mitzvah programme.

On the night of the run, I convinced my Dad to join me and we ran 10k together at my local park. It was really fun and a little bit challenging, but at the end, we managed! We raised almost 8000 nis and I was really happy with the result and it was a great experience altogether. I had a lot of fun helping others and not just thinking about how my own bar mitzvah could be better.”

Yad Eliezer is lucky to have incredible friends like Uriel, who start their chesed journey early.
We're sure this is just the start, and we can't wait to see what he will do next!