Every few days, I write small notes on pretty stationery for my three-year-old daughter to take to kindergarten. Sometimes the note mentions how she shared a toy with a sibling, other times it praises her for helping without being asked or for saying thank you or please. We call them mitzvah notes.
What is a mitzvah?
The Hebrew word mitzvah is often translated as a good deed, but perhaps the best way to describe it is an intentional act of goodness and kindness. My daughter proudly takes her mitzvah notes to kinder, where her teacher reads them aloud to the class. The notes are pinned to a wall filled with other children’s mitzvah notes, celebrating the good deeds of three-year-olds.
Building a mindset of kindness
As a parent, I want my children to be capable, confident, hardworking and resilient. But more than anything, I want them to grow into people who notice others and care about the world around them. I want them to understand that even the smallest acts of goodness and kindness can have a ripple effect far beyond what we can see.
There is a verse in the Bible, in the Book of Proverbs, that says: “Train a child according to their path, and even when they are old, they will not depart from it.” To me, this means children grow into the identities we help them see in themselves.
The power of small notes
When I want my children to clean up their rooms and they are reluctant, I try to say something like, “I love when you help mummy clean up your room.” By framing the request this way, I am reminding them of who I think they are – someone who helps, cares and tries to do the right thing.
This is what makes mitzvah notes so powerful. They are not just about praising a single action, but about building a mindset where children want to be noticed for good deeds. They encourage children to look outward rather than inward, and teach every human that they are part of something bigger than themselves.
Mitzvot in the wider community
After the Bondi terror attack, many people asked what they could do in the face of such darkness. One response was a renewed focus on acts of kindness, and a national day to perform mitzvot was announced for people of all faiths. Across Australia, people volunteered at soup kitchens, cleaned beaches, visited elderly people in nursing homes, and found small ways to be kind to others. None of those acts could undo the tragedy, but they reflected a belief that darkness spreads when people withdraw from one another, while goodness grows when people choose to do small acts of goodness and kindness.
Mitzvah notes are small, jotted down in a minute or less, yet they carry a much bigger message. They tell a child, “I saw what you did, and I love that you are doing small acts of kindness,” and encourage them to continue. If enough children grow up believing that being kind and thoughtful is part of who they are, perhaps those small notes are helping raise the sort of people our world needs right now.
