I am sitting in the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre at the Lipa Green building in Toronto, with Ve'ahavta Street Academy (VSA) students. VSA is a school for the homeless and near homeless. It is operated by Ve'ahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief...

In 1994, while in the employ of the United Jewish Appeal and Jewish Federation of Greater Toronto, I was given the task of overseeing former Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Shamir's trip to Toronto.

A day before his arrival to Toronto I learned that Saudi Arabian sheiks were staying at...

My son and I decided we would set up a for-profit Lemonade stand on Canada Day.

We surfed the internet and came upon an instructional YouTube video on the secrets of creating this very thirst quenching summer drink.

My boy's beautiful little hands squeezed and twisted the lemons extracting the juice we would sell for 50 cents a cup. After boiling water and sugar, pouring the lemon concentrate into the pot along with some cold water and ice-cubes, and having Booby do a taste-test (at which time her mouth turned down all sour-like; so we added more sugar) our product was ready.

We created a sign to affix to a tree stating: A Lemonade Stand with a Smile, and prepared a melange of nuts and raisins to give away for free.

One of the key things required for our stand, I told my precious child, was a box of his money for change. I explained that if someone gave us a five dollar bill we would dive into the box and fish out $4.50 and return it to them. It was then the struggle began.

My son asked me why we would give people our money. I tried to understand his perspective and gave another example of giving change, drawing upon our experiences at No Frills with the cashier. As much as I presented the fundamentals of SK Economics (senior kindergarten) my son couldn't adjust to the idea that we would give away pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, loonies and toonies that he loved so much.

A week prior, we had counted all of his change on the floor of his lime green and sky blue room and discovered that he had over $200. One of the coins dated back to 1943. In my son's rationally magic mind the coins were his, and giving them away to a passerby was tantamount to tossing a Backyardigan doll over the balcony. Why would we do that?

I stretched my Daddy-explanation muscles as taut as they would go, in an attempt to convince my son there was no other way to operate a profitable lemonade stand. But then it occurred to me that the idea of entrepreneurialism was exciting me, not him. My son is a collector and like many children, given the chance, he would gather and fill up our entire condo with tennis balls, because they are his favourite balls. He wouldn't sell them.

This refreshing concept became clearer later on in the day when he asked me if we might somehow find a million green, yellow and orange tennis balls by the side of the road, to keep and play with. I tried to temper his dream a tad and added that his idea was fantastic because we could open a tennis stand and sell a bunch of them to other tennis ball lovers. Once again, he looked at me with a puzzled and quizzical face and said, "Daddy, why would we sell the tennis balls. I love them so much?"

So there it was. On Canada Day 2012, something stunning occurred on a quiet street in North York.

My little collector and I gave away the lemonade, for free!

Every time a person walked by our wagon, instead of requesting the vast sum of 50 cents for the once to sour drink, we wished them "Happy Canada Day" and happily handed the individual lemonade we made from scratch. And it worked. Most of the passersby accepted the offer. The anxious woman walking her Shelties smiled widely after sipping our lemon libation and nodded in appreciation.

The young Mexican man, going off to work on our national holiday, said "muchas gracias" and "mmmm," followed by a "Happy Canada Day" acknowledgment. The mid-aged Pilipino woman with artistically painted toenails handed a cup to her elderly Russian, Latin professor friend in a wheelchair, while both of them congratulated us on our spirit and Canadian goodwill.

We received compliments on how "real" the lemonade tasted and how fortunate we are to live in a country like Canada, where free lemonade is still accepted from people we don't know.

Canada Day 2012 was special to my son and me because we offered a creation of our own to our fellow Canadians, with a price tag of joy and unity. By taking the money out of the equation a whole new world opened up to us, one in which sharing and lemons were the main ingredient, and the outcome, a stronger sense of brotherhood and sisterhood between us and our neighbors.

There is something to be said about being a collector of money, rather than a merchant banker. My son taught me that, or perhaps he reminded me of it that on Canada Day 2012, a most memorable and thirst quenching day.

(Please let me know please, if you have a million tennis balls to spare....

I love Canada because I've seen many soldiers walking in major cities in Mexico with M16s at their hips. Seeing a Canadian soldier in Toronto or any other city is an anomaly. We are a safe country.

I love Canada every time I stare at the expanse outside my balcony...

"I am flesh and blood. I'm not just an idea." - Winner, Creative Writing Contest

A creative writing contest for the homeless with a top prize of $2000. Really?

About a decade ago, Veahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee, launched a contest for the homeless. It was a...

On June 18, the Toronto Board of Rabbis (TBR), wrote a powerful letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They asked the federal government to cancel its plans to cut basic medication for refugees. They also spoke out against the idea of designating specific countries as "safe,"...

Buildings will eventually crumble and therefore will never really be an ongoing legacy for humankind. Our true legacy will emanate from our relationships with our children, family, friends and community.

While there are many positive developments over the last few generations having to do with human interaction, such as...

The Vietnam War came into our homes in the 60s and 70s through the nightly news and newspaper headlines.

We learned that of the Americans who served in the war, 58,220 soldiers were killed and 150,000 were wounded. We knew thousands of Americans came here to avoid...

Thursday, April 19th is Yom Ha'Shoah, a day when we remember those who perished during the Holocaust. "A Sunny Day in Auschwitz" is a short story about a woman, a child, who was one of six milllion Jews to die at the hands of the Nazis. On Yom Ha'Shoah, we...

Ron Maclean of Hockey Night in Canada, stood in a classroom at George Brown College (GBC) and told the story of Frank O'Dea, the co-founder of Second Cup, who was at one time a homeless panhandler living on the streets of Toronto. Ten students listened carefully to the account and...

Larry Tanenbaum's apology on behalf of the board of Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment needs to be analyzed to be understood.

He begins by thanking "you" for your "unwavering passion and loyalty" to the Leafs. By doing so, he clearly sets a hierarchical tone for this...

Warren is dead. He is out of misery and no longer has to panhandle, get beat up, or suffer through his horrible epileptic fits. Warren is gone.

My colleagues and I were surprised Warren lasted so long on the streets, and when he passed away last Halloween, we quietly...

"Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?" - Confucius

This year's Leaf season has been very confusing. Sometimes the Leaf family acted like men, and other times, like beasts.

There were good times, as an example in October, 2011, when Leafs were 7-3-1 and...

The Canadian personality is in some ways immature.

Canadians embrace Canadian things we're proud of, such as the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, Banting and Best's discovery of insulin in 1922, and the creation of Trivial Pursuit in 1979 by Chris Haney and Scott...

Three seconds.

Since my father's death, I have often wondered about a very condensed period of time -- the second before one dies, the exact second one does die, and the second immediately following death. If I could slow those ticks on the clock down and watch body and...