In our tradition, a soul does not stop rising after 120 years. Every act of tzedakah given in your name opens another gate and carries your neshama higher. This plan sets that giving across the traditional milestones of mourning, so it begins the moment it is needed and it never ends.
This plan waits quietly, then runs in your own name after 120.
Our sages teach that tzedakah given in a soul's merit keeps working for that soul, l'ilui nishmato, long after the shiva candle goes out. The mourning calendar gives this a shape. First a week, then a month, then a year, then every year after. At each milestone, your plan sends tzedakah out in your name, and your neshama rises with it.
Set an amount for each stage. Every figure here is built on 18, chai, the number that spells life.
The opening week of mourning. As it begins, one gift of tzedakah goes out right away in your name. Before the week is over, your ascent has already started.
The first month. Through the shloshim, tzedakah goes out every single day in your name. Thirty days, thirty separate acts, and each one carries the neshama a little higher.
For a parent, Kaddish is traditionally said for eleven months. Through those same months, a steady gift goes out in your name, month after month, so the giving keeps pace with the prayer.
The Hebrew date of the passing, marked every year, always. On each Yahrzeit, tzedakah goes out again in your name, and each year it grows. The soul is higher than it was last year. The giving rises to meet it.
Multiples of 18 carry the word chai, life. A gift of $180 is ten times chai.
Nothing here is an investment and nothing is promised in return. This is merit, pure and simple. Tzedakah given in your name, lifting your neshama higher each time it goes out.
You decide it all now, calmly, in your own lifetime. When the time comes, the giving simply begins, exactly as you wrote it.
Every gift is made to Shefa House Foundation and given, with dignity, as daily tzedakah.
