One Hero to Another: Teen Gives $5,000 From Bar Mitzvah to a Sick Friend

Jesse Kaufman was approaching his bar mitzvah this past August at the Chabad Jewish Center of Monroeville, Pa., and while he was prepared in most ways, he was missing one thing: a meaningful project.

“I taught Jesse that a bar mitzvah project shouldn’t end—that it’s just the bar mitzvah, just the beginning, and that you should keep doing mitzvot and learning Torah,” recalls Rabbi Mendy Schapiro, co-director of the Chabad center in western Pennsylvania, about 15 miles east of Pittsburgh.

And that was why, according to Jesse’s mother, Liana Kaufman, her son was in such a quandary. “You want to pick something that you will continue with,” she says. “Rabbi Mendy taught that not just to Jesse, but to me and my husbandAdam as well. That’s why he was having such a hard time picking something to do.”

That is, until the 13-year-old hit on the idea he calls a bar mitzvah “mitzvah.”

He coined the term one night as he explained to his parents that he wasn’t going to do a traditional project; he wasn’t going to volunteer his time with an organization or give a few dollars to a worthy charity. Instead, he told them he was going to give away his bar mitzvah money to a classmate in need.

On a Bigger Scale …

Jasmine McClintock—“Jazzy,” to her friends—is 13 and has a rare form of brain cancer. It is so unusual that the only hospital in the country that currently treats the condition is Massachusetts General in Boston, which isn’t exactly around the corner from the Kaufmans and the McClintocks.

Trips for treatment, coupled with the treatments themselves, are quite prohibitive, and a medical fund that had been established for Jasmine had dwindled down to almost nothing.

“I knew she was going through a hard time, and I really wanted to help her,” says Jesse. “I told her about the mitzvah I was doing, and she was really grateful for it.”

Jesse didn’t just give Jasmine—his “hero,” he states—some of his bar mitzvah money. He gave her all $5,000 of it.

“A mitzvah project, many times, comes down to, in our experience, kids volunteering or saying, ‘I’ll contribute to a cause that’s dear to me.’ And they are all very important causes,” explains Rabbi Schapiro. “But when something is done on this scale, it’s something that’s tremendously commendable.”

Jesse’s bar mitzvah “mitzvah,” however, didn’t stop there.

Heeding the advice of his rabbi and knowing that his friend has real struggles, Jesse is determined to keep on raising money to help Jasmine pay for her travel expenses and her treatments. To that end, he created a gofundme account: www.Gofundme.com/myherojazzy.

‘He’s Been an Inspiration’

But it was only last week—when his story went viral on Yahoo! news, the Internet and local media outlets—that the funds really starting pouring in.

In a little more than 48 hours, Jesse raised another $5,000 for Jasmine’s medical bills, and then increased his goal to $10,000.

“I want to thank them; they are just very helpful,” Jesse says of the many donors to the fund. “G‑d bless them. It’s really nice.”

Many, though, would argue that it’s Jesse who’s the really nice one.

“Jesse and his parents are very kind and generous people, and always there to help someone else,” says Schapiro. Jesse, especially, he continues, decided to “truly focus on giving back and sharing, which is the ultimate way of celebrating your personal life achievements.”

This is actually the second time that Jesse has helped Jasmine. When he was just 10—a year before the two became schoolmates, and only a few months after his own grandfather passed away from brain cancer—Jesse read an article in the paper about Jasmine and her fund, and sent her all the money he had at the time: $20.

“The fact that he came across an article about someone his age and wanted to help, and to be on the giving end of helping out a friend … that speaks to what true Jewish values are,” attests Schapiro.

Adds his mother: “He’s been an inspiration—not just to us, his parents, but to other friends and family who are inspired by what he’s done and feel compelled to do more.”

To that, her son says “good.”

According to Jesse, when someone opts to give to another person, it winds up helping the giver as well. “I think it will make them feel better, and it will give them a boost.”