Mitzvah Day invites us to reflect on what it means to act with and for others. Each year, Mitzvah Day reminds us that the Jewish principle of kavod (respect) is more than a value; it is a practice inscribed through dignity and solidarity.  

Earlier this year, René Cassin began mobilising around socio-economic rights and is inspired to join Mitzvah Day this year as an opportunity to consider the long-term impacts of the Cost-of-Living crisis, and the question of what it means to come to terms with its endurance. We are left, then, not with resignation but with a strengthened commitment to securing dignity and justice for all. 

Image credit: Rozalina Burkova for Fine Acts 

Socio-economic Rights

The long-drawn-out Cost-of-Living crisis has developed across decades, becoming the background condition of daily life. Prices remain high: we know that consumer inflation rose by 3.8% in the 12 months to August 2025, and when housing costs are included, inflation stands at 4.1% (Office for National Statistics, 2025).  

Statistics are not an abstraction; of course, they translate into increased pressure on families to make choices between heating and eating, crafting impossibly tight budgets, resulting in mounting pressures on families and individuals across the UK, many of whom already face multiple vulnerabilities.  

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s 2025 tracker found that, as of May: 

• 4.4 million low-income families were behind on at least one bill, often rent, energy or council tax.  

• 5.3 million families had cut back on or skipped meals.  

• 4.1 million families had gone hungry in the past month. 

Housing instability compounds this picture. By late 2024, at least 354,000 people were recorded as homeless in England, a 14% increase year-on-year, with 326,000 people in temporary accommodation (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government 2024). Families spend longer in unsuitable housing, with knock-on effects on health, education, and wellbeing. To “come to terms with” this crisis is to acknowledge its persistence and the toll it takes on dignity. But coming to terms must also mean opening the space for action, care, and imagination. 

Legacy

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sets out that: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services…” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948). This article is clear: dignity is indivisible from material security.

Jewish Tradition

Jewish tradition echoes this imperative. In Deuteronomy, the command to leave the edges of the field unharvested ensures that those in need can gather food with dignity. Rabbinic teaching extends this ethos to housing, health, and communal responsibility. Together, Jewish values and international human rights law reinforce that dignity is not a privilege to be earned but a right to be upheld. 

Hope

Hope, in this moment, is a practice of imagining otherwise, grounded in community action and the insistence that rights are enforceable. Mitzvah Day offers us a chance to think about how we embody this practice organisationally and how we can think about our commitment to human rights as a series of resistant acts and hopeful acts: to support the vulnerable facing political setback. Mitzvah Day is more than a day of service. It is a call to action.  

Join us in making human rights a year-round commitment. 

 
Email rachel.vogler@renecassin.org to sign up! 

Bibliography 

Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (2025, May). Cost of living tracker: Summer 2025.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. (2024, December). Statutory homelessness in England: Annual report 2024. UK Government. 

Office for National Statistics. (2025a, August). Consumer price inflation, UK: August 2025.

Office for National Statistics. (2025b). Inflation and price indices. 

United Nations. (1948/2015). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25.