Mitzvahs and Medals at the Maccabi Games

The pre-game warmups at this years Maccabi games, held in Austin, Texas and Orange County, California, began a bit earlier for over 700 athletes. But instead of the usual drills and stretches, the teens exercised their souls by donning tefillin, giving tzedaka, hearing the shofar, and creating artwork toward two important causes, all of which were provided by the CTeen Mitzva booth – which worked alongside shluchim Rabbi Yosef Levertov of Chabad of Austin and Rabbi Eli Andrusier of Chabad of Irvine.

Teens chose to either join the “Tiles for Smiles” project, where they decorated ceramic tiles to adorn the walls of an Israeli bomb shelter with, while other teens opted to design sweatbands for special needs athletes from the Friendship Circle of Newport Beach.

In the spirit of “one Mitzvah leads to another”, the athletes received a special mitzvah pin to display proudly amidst their other Maccabi pins on their ID badges. This year CTeen created two unique Mitzva pins; a tefillin pin for the boys and a Shabbat candlestick for the girls.

Yechiel Kosofsky and Mendy Singer, the two rabbinical students representing the Chabad teen network and manning the booth, were amazed by the enthusiasm of the teens, coaches, parents and JCC employees alike. ״Many teens came back to our booth after the games to happily inform us that they scored because they did a mitZva prior to the game,” sais Kosofsky. “The Los Angeles soccer team were regular Tefilin customers each morning,” explained Singer. “They credited their silver medal to the tefillin they donned and agreed that next year they will try not to miss the last day of strapping tefillin so they can get the gold!”

Dan D., the JCC organizer of the games, came over to the booth to put on tefillin. “A big thank you to CTeen for providing the teens with these opportunities,” he said as he recounted how during last year’s games in Nashville, there was a team that kept winning after they would all come and put on tefillin.

Rabbi Shimon Rivkin, CTeen director, sums up the importance of CTeen’s presence at the games: “Being at Maccabi helps us reach many teens who otherwise wouldn’t have any connection to Chabad. The booth B”H has generated warm feelings in even the ‘unaffiliated’ or ‘Reform’ teens, parents, and coaches who now have a positive association with Chabad.”