Letters: Want to feel good? Help someone

On a recent Monday, a lively and personal 6-year-old at Sandel Elementary met me at the door of his classroom full of excitement and wearing a nifty new pair of glasses.

“You got glasses!” I exclaimed. “And they look great on you.”

When I began working with Christopher through the Midlands Reading Consortium in late fall, he would make an attempt to read but stop suddenly and close his eyes. When I asked why he did this, he said his eyes were hurting and he had a headache.

It took a few more weeks before it occurred to me to ask: “Can you see this word I’m pointing to?” A slight hesitation, then a side-to-side nod of his head.

“Have you ever worn glasses?” I asked. Another shake of the head.

So I sent a note to his teacher, and on this visit, with his first pair of glasses, he was all hopped up and reading non-stop.

I did a mitzvah — “a good deed done from religious duty” — and the glow of it still lingers with me days later.

When politics is causing so much hatred these days, we all need to feel that we’re making a mitzvah — solving a problem for another and feeling good about it.

What about you? What will your next mitzva be?