When her father passed away in 2006, Lin­da Cohen’s busy life as a moth­er, wife, and entre­pre­neur came to a screech­ing halt. She took a spir­i­tu­al sab­bat­i­cal to work through her grief, and she came out of it resolved to embark upon a project: per­form one thou­sand acts of kind­ness—mitz­vahs—to hon­or her father’s mem­o­ry.

1,000 Mitz­vahs shares Cohen’s two-and-a-half-year jour­ney from sor­row to inspi­ra­tion through sim­ple dai­ly acts of kind­ness. She presents each mitz­vah as a short vignette, and the myr­i­ad forms they take — from help­ing the elder­ly to donat­ing to good caus­es to bak­ing and col­lect­ing food for oth­ers — high­light the many ways in which one per­son can touch the lives of oth­ers. As she pur­sues her quest, Cohen finds that her life is improved by these small acts — that every time she goes out of her way to do some­thing good for some­one else, she enhances her own well-being.

More than a touch­ing sto­ry of a daughter’s love for her father, 1,000 Mitz­vahs is a tes­ta­ment to the trans­for­ma­tion­al pow­er of kind­ness, and a call to arms for those who would like to fol­low in Cohen’s foot­steps with their own mitz­vahs — no mat­ter how large or how small.