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JERUSALEM — I learned about Yad Sarah a little more than a decade ago, when my late father was coming to Israel for my nephew's bar mitzvah, following a series of mini-strokes, which affected his mobility.

Yad Sarah provided a special vehicle, which helped him off the airplane, and also provided him with a special wheelchair and special temporary fittings in his hotel room, along with a social work therapist who assisted him so that he could move around while he was in Jerusalem.

My father said that Yad Sarah added a year or two to his life with such a gesture.

One of the most fundamental ideas of a vibrant Jewish community involves the idea of voluntarism on all levels. It is the spirit of the dedicated volunteer that has bound the Jewish community together through the centuries, way before Jews entered into an era or prosperity and way before Jews ever imagined that Jews would have a Jewish state of their own.

In Jerusalem, the Yad Sarah organization, which supplies every level of service to people with special needs, represents one of the shining examples of voluntarism. It receives no government funding and relies almost entirely on the efforts of volunteers, many of whom are retirees. The services provided range from providing canes, wheelchairs, mobile oxygen tents and walkers, to physical therapists who make home visits to people who are not ambulatory.

At the time of my father's last visit to Jerusalem in 1992, Yad Sarah worked out of an old railway car with a few similar makeshift offices around Jerusalem and throughout the country.

Today, Yad Sarah sports a bustling 12-floor building over Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, in the heart of Jerusalem, and operates totally and completely from donations and private foundation grants. This, despite the fact that Jerusalem's interim mayor, Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky, is the founder and spirit behind Yad Sarah.

He started Yad Sarah in the basement of his apartment building in Haifa more than 40 years ago when he realized that there was a need to locate and lend medical equipment to those who could not afford to rent or buy such equipment.

Discussing the volunteers, Lupoliansky said there were many older Israelis who wished to launch a new career that involved community service upon their retirement and there were many practical reasons for that desire. The retiree gets satisfaction out of giving to others and a sense of being productive, as well as social contacts and the joy of contributing to the greater society.

When I walked into the Yad Sarah building, the first thing that struck me was a workshop where men and women from age 65 to 88 were busily repairing wheelchairs and other equipment that Yad Sarah provides, to Jew and Arab alike, in more than 80 municipalities throughout Israel.

As is my style as a journalist and former social worker, I went into the cafeteria to chat with the retirees. Geula Rotzkin spent her professional career as a nursery school teacher in Israel's capital. When she retired at age 65, she began a new life as a professional volunteer in the game center that Yad Sarah pioneered for children with special needs.

Professor Jimmy Pietrokovsky is an expert in the subject of advanced dental health research. When he retired at age 68, he began to provide volunteer services to the dental clinic for retirees at Yad Sarah.

Yehoshua Pauel was a marketing manager for the Tenuva milk cooperative. Today, five years after his retirement, he manages the wholesale purchase of food products for Yad Sarah.

Moshe Korev worked for many years in the office of the Israel state comptroller's office. Today, 10 years after his retirement, Moshe manages the bookkeeping for Yad Sarah.

Irena Postelinik is a veteran immigrant from the former Soviet Union who worked for many years as an editor for the Russian language section of the Voice of Israel Radio network. Today, five years after her retirement from the radio, she translates Yad Sarah literature into Russian.

As I left the cafeteria, I met two senior Israeli diplomats whom I recognized from the many press conferences that I attend. I asked them if they were here with dignitaries from the Diplomatic Corps. No, they said. They were here to begin their new lives — as volunteers for Yad Sarah. Uri Savir, whose final posting was as Israel's former ambassador to Eritrea, says that he hopes to publicize the model of Yad Sarah to the eight nations where he was proud to represent the state of Israel.

I close on a personal note. My late father, Phillip, was intrigued by the voluntarism of Yad Sarah and hoped to one day retire and provide his skills as an engineer and environmentalist, but unfortunately, his strokes prevented that.

During his visit for my nephew's bar mitzvah, my father made his final strolls around Jerusalem in a Yad Sarah wheelchair, and was treated every day by a Yad Sarah physical therapist. After his two-week visit, he asked the people at Yad Sarah at the airport what he owed them. The retiree from Yad Sarah who helped my father on to the plane said that if he would like, he could send a contribution in any amount, but he was under no obligation to send anything.

And this is how Yad Sarah has functioned. Operating a platoon of retirees with medical equipment available for all, with no cost to the people who sorely need that equipment.

The retiree who helped my father off and on that plane got as much nachas as my father got at his grandson's bar mitzvah.