<p>The best organized gift-giving I witnessed was in a small congregation under 200 families over an 8-year period. This was in a poor community. The congregation had prayer books but no Torah commentaries available to congregants during services. In those days, each Torah commentary cost about $40. Every year the Bar/Bat Mitzvah class had 5-8 kids. </p>
<p>Each family put in $40 to a pot, and then on his big day, the kid was “given” a Torah commentary by his peer classmates on the bima (altar), with his nameplate inscribed, to sit upon the shelf of the congregation. After 8 years, the congregation had accumulated 50 Torah commentaries that everyone, young and old, used at weekly services. The post-B’nai MItzvah enjoyed looking for their book nameplate among the books on the shelf to use. It changed that aspect of the Temple culture, to have the translations readily available. The kids and families pulled this off to benefit the rest of the congregation, so it was a good experience. It was concrete, educational, with the sum greater than the parts; a worthy use of $40 per family, IMHO. And YES it was a requirement. The rabbi organized it, because it had to carry through year after year of cohorts.</p>