Tomorrow's my last free day of Sukkot vacation (Shabbat being, well, Shabbat and Sunday consisting of a trip to a dump turned park with my Social Justice class), so I'm debating how I should spend my morning. I'm a bit torn and could use some help, so here goes:
Option A: Davening at Kedem for Hoshana Raba. It's the last day of waving the lulav and etrog, plus there's going to be music with instruments! I haven't done enough davening in a minyan this week and Sunday's egal minyan was really lovely, so this sounds like a great option. Starts at 8:30am.
Option B: Soup Kitchen. I try to volunteer at the soup kitchen every Friday morning that I'm in town, so obviously I'll still have this opportunity next week, and the following week, but it's not about me - it's about those people who will have more to eat if I'm there peeling and chopping potatoes. Meet at 9:00am.
I could also do both, going to the soup kitchen a bit later than I normally would, which is probably what I'll end up doing. However, this points at a much larger issue that I spend a lot of my time thinking about, and goes back to that post that I wrote a few weeks ago about the speaker we had in the Social Justice class. How do we best serve G-d in this world? If we have to make a choice about how to spend our resources, whether time, energy, or money, which mitzvot do we fulfill first - those bein adam l'chavero (between human beings and their fellows) or bein adam l'makom (between human beings and G-d)? I once heard that in prioritizing mitzvot, you do the ones that only you can do first, and if there are others that could be fulfilled by someone else, you let others fulfill those - but what if no one else shows up for the soup kitchen?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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