It was Sukkot, and Siegel, the head of the world famous Ziv Tzedakah Fund, was using his natural mix of humor and enthusiasm to inspire the kids.

"And as a result of that, (the youngsters) collected almost 100 tapes which they brought to the pediatric ward at community medical center," Hammerman said. "And others raised their hands at his suggestion for other projects, such as collecting eyeglasses, which were no longer being used, to donate, and USY took that on as a project. He had a way of electrifying an audience and getting them immediately to take on new tasks, and do it with joy."

Hammerman is currently senior vice president of Masorti Olami -- World Council of Conservative Synagogues. He also attended undergraduate and Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary with Siegel, who will be retiring and closing Ziv in the spring, after three decades of tireless tzedakah work.

Siegel is a poet, and plans to go back to writing poetry, as well as lecturing about tzedakah.

"I have to beef up the number of people who know this stuff well," Siegel said.

Siegel's foray into what eventually could be called tzedakah stardom began decades ago, when he was taking a trip to Israel. Since Jewish tradition holds that a messenger of a mitzvah is accorded special divine protection, friends and family of those traveling to Israel often give the traveler tzedakah money to carry with them.

Siegel, taking the initiative, simply asked around for money to be given to charity while he was in Israel, and went to the holy land with $955 of tzedakah money.

"What I did was, I then sent a report to everybody and said ‘Here's where I gave all your money to'," Siegel said, though nobody asked for such a report. "I thought they ought to know."

The next time he went to Israel, friends and acquaintances sent him with more money, after which he provided them all with another report. The tzedakah money gradually grew from $955 to $1,600 to $2,900 to about $6,100, and on it went.

"As soon as I hit a little over $12,000," he said, "some of those friends said ‘Maybe you should make it into a nonprofit'."

So in April of 1981 it became just that; Ziv was born.

"What happened is that it grew and it grew and it grew," Siegel said. "Several years afterwards I could report to everybody we had given away a total, since the beginning, of $1 million, and the last three years we had given away more than a million a year."

Small world that it is, word of mouth spread and Siegel had no trouble finding donors. He makes a living from his speaking engagements, at which audience members request to be put on his mailing list, and though he had about 2,000 donors Siegel had a mailing list of 15,000 people.

Siegel has spoken at more than 500 synagogues, federations, and JCCs. He's worked with 15,000 USYers over the last 32 summers -- some of whom are in their 40s now -- plus the staff he's trained, the 40 summer interns he's had at Ziv, and the list goes on.

"So there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who in some way shape or form know about it," Siegel said.

One of Siegel's major accomplishments is the mainstreaming of mitzvah projects to be conducted by youngsters who are approaching the celebration of their bar or bat mitzvah.

Siegel "continues to make an impact, because he preached the idea that b'nai mitzvah, young people, should take on a mitzvah project before their ceremony, and that's now accepted in Conservative and Reform synagogues as expected throughout the United States," Hammerman said. "And he was the first one to publicize that concept."

The number of "mitzvah heroes" eventually reached triple digits, and Siegel had to stop taking suggestions of charities in Israel because of how many he already raised money for.

As Ziv grew, the company had built up a tremendous network of Jewish philanthropic work. But Siegel said eventually, when Ziv became the powerhouse it still is today, the question became: In what ways does Ziv still resemble Ziv?

It was clear that in some ways -- the creation of "mitzvah heroes," the lifesaving Israeli charity work -- Ziv was just a more successful version of itself. But in other ways, such as the directness and the immediacy Ziv had opened with in 1981, things had changed.

"You don't put $1 million in (one) person's hands," Siegel said, and then joked: "I mean, I think you do, but the outside world doesn't."

Siegel said he wouldn't have minded taking a checkbook to Israel and just signing $1 million worth of checks the way he once did with $955, but a 501(c)(3) charity just doesn't do that.

"So the immediacy and the personal control obviously can't continue," Siegel said. "And the quick turnover -- even as Ziv grew -- still exists, but to a much lesser degree. Growth of this nature and this extent, by its very nature, can't preserve what Ziv did. In other words, you need a bigger staff, you need this and that. Part of what appealed to people was that up until last year we didn't take any money for salaries out of your donation, because there were people that gave us money to cover the salaries. Last year we didn't meet that goal."

Of course there were other options besides shutting Ziv down, even with Siegel retiring. But the best way to preserve the legacy Ziv had created, and the organization's mission, Siegel said, was to close up shop.

There are two main reasons for that. The first is that there are already other organizations that have followed in Ziv's footsteps. The second reason is that Siegel isn't retiring from philanthropy; he will have more time now to give lectures and mini-courses on the type of giving he's dedicated his life to.

"My board had an extremely great concern for two things," Siegel said. "One is the recipient -- are they going to be left abandoned? The answer is no. And the givers -- how will they find which way to go, and so forth and so on?"

All of that is going to be provided for in Ziv's final April report this year. But Siegel is confident in the network of philanthropy still in place.

"I would bet right now that nobody's going to come up short," Siegel said.

For example, Siegel said, he was recently the guest speaker at the 10^th anniversary of a rabbi that he started teaching about tzedakah when the rabbi was a teenager.

"He's got it," Siegel said. "He knows everything. And because of that, I need more and more of those all over the place. And that's why I could do it now; that's why I could close it down."

And that education is important, Siegel said. The Jewish community should know how to give tzedakah properly, but they shouldn't be intimidated if they don't.

"I seem to have a feel that in certain parts of the involved Jewish community, that there is a general feeling that you just know how to do tzedakah automatically, and nothing could be further from the truth," Siegel said. "If you were to take a kid from a Reform or Conservative day school, or a yeshiva, the odds on them having studied the laws of tzedakah as much as they've studies kashrus or Shabbos -- which they should be doing -- are very slim."

Can you put money in a pushka? Can you give to a charitable cause or foundation without knowing its overhead? How many cents on your dollar should be going to tzedakah for you to feel comfortable giving to that organization?

The amount of knowledge necessary to give tzedakah properly, Siegel said, is more than, say, the amount of computer knowledge necessary to use email and a word processing program.

"But it's not enormous," Siegel said. "It's not like going to med school. And so along the way I may have learned advanced tzedakah questions and answers, but I still go to some of my rebbes on certain things. But people should not think it is daunting."

And the good news, Siegel added, is that while the knowledge may not be inherent, the desire to do acts of kindness and charity, in the Jewish soul, comes naturally.

That, according to Hammerman, is certainly the case with Siegel.