During our High Holiday prayers, we declare that “repentance, prayer and tzedakah avert the severity of the decree”—that through acts of righteous charity, of giving to help others, we can draw down blessings for the entire year.
To make the mitzvah of tzedakah ever more accessible, Chabad.org has leveraged Amazon Alexa to allow users to donate directly through the virtual assistant using their voice.
Chabad.org is one of a select group of charities chosen by Amazon to take part in an early launch of this new Alexa feature.
By saying “Alexa, make a donation to Chabad.org,” Alexa Donations, powered by Amazon Pay, will execute the donation. This new feature enables users to give tzedakah at any time, and especially at auspicious times, such as before prayers or before lighting the Shabbat candles at the start of Shabbat (but not on Shabbat and Jewish festivals).
According to Amazon, more than a million people have used Amazon Pay to donate to charities even before Alexa Donations was launched.
This feature is part of a suite of new virtual assistant applications that Chabad.org is in the process of developing for Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
