Being a good citizen and doing the right thing is not the same being an innocent bystander and simply watching as something bad happens. I believe that having good intentions is good thing, but it can’t compare to actually doing a good deed. If you say you are going to help someone across the street, but never actually do it, you are the same as a person who never thought of the idea. However, if you do go over and offer to help someone across the street, often your actions will be rewarded with a ‘thank you’ or a smile.

If people only ever had good intentions, nothing would ever get done, and people would do nothing but daydream all day about what could be done, but wasn’t. Taking action is very important and often saves lives. Throughout history, decisions are made that often result in the winning or loss of a battle. These decisions are not always the right ones, but we cannot alter the past, we can only change the present. If the colonists only had intentions and had not taken action against King George II, they would have still been under King George II’s power and living in Britain. They would never have founded the 13 colonies, nor had the freedom to practice their own religion. As my 5th grade Jewish history teacher said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He taught us that no matter how many mitzvahs (good deeds) we did, we would have to turn to the past and remember the mistakes and hardships our ancestors made in order to move forward and not encounter the same problems they faced.
I always thought that taking action was not something everyone should strive to do. I thought that intentions were what counted because, as a kid, you are told that the adults should handle things and that there was really nothing you could do until you were older; but now, my point of view has changed. I proved to myself and many other people that I could make a difference by taking action.
I studied for my Bat mitzvah with my twin brother Zachary and proved to my family and friends that I could read from the torah, despite their being no vowels in it, making it very hard to read, recite many prayers, and show my other friends that having a Bat mitzvah or a Bar mitzvah was not as difficult as it looked, that even I could do i