Rosh Hashanah Hunger Appeal 2012

I serve a congregation that is very dedicated to the work of Tikkun Olam – Repairing the World, what many people call Social Justice.  One aspect of our Tikkun Olam programming is to place significant emphasis on hunger issues during the High Holy Days.  To that end, I open our Rosh Hashanah evening service with an annual Hunger Appeal.  Below is the text of this year’s Appeal.

Shanah Tovah Tikateivu!  May you all be inscribed for blessings in the Book of Life!  As I extend to you our traditional holy day greeting on this Rosh Hashanah, I ask you to pause and reflect upon it, even if just for a moment.  What does our tradition tell us to seek – to aspire to – on Rosh Hashanah?  Blessings.  We yearn for our lives and for the year ahead to be filled with blessings.  Yet when we think about it, how can we deny that our lives already are extremely blessed?  We cannot.  We have homes that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  We have closets full of clothing and pantries, refrigerators, and freezers filled with food.  Our community is teeming with grocery stores and restaurants, and most, if not all of us, are more than capable of frequenting them when we please and purchasing whatever our hearts desire.

In these, and in so many other ways, we are already abundantly blessed.  Yet as the new year approaches, still our prayers are for increased blessings.  For in everyone’s life, there is always room for an additional blessing or two or three.

It is precisely because we are so blessed already that year after year, I unashamedly open up our High Holy Day services with this hunger appeal, to beseech you who already are so greatly blessed not only to seek blessings for yourselves but also to open up your hearts and extend yourselves so that you will to bestow blessings on others as well; bestowing your blessing upon those people in our community and in our world whose lives are so dramatically different than our own, for theirs are so bereft of blessings.

Living in a land of plenty and possessing the abundance that we so fortunately possess, it can be difficult for us to even begin to imagine how the lives of others, not just on our planet but also in our own community, can be so lacking in what we take for granted.

There is a Hasidic story which speaks directly to that point.  It is the story of a poor man whose family is about to face the winter without being able to afford enough to purchase sufficient firewood to see them through it.  So he swallows his pride and goes to the home of the wealthiest man in town, asking that man for a loan in order to acquire the wood.  Well the wealthy man considers the request but in the end decides to deny it because, quite frankly, he could not envision how the poor man would ever be able to repay the loan.  After this rejection, the poor man goes to the rabbi, sharing with him his problems and how the wealthy man responded to them.  So the rabbi goes to the home of the wealthy man.  When the wealthy man answers the door and sees the rabbi on his doorstep, he immediately invites him in.  But the rabbi refuses, saying that what he has to discuss will not take very long, so let us discuss it right here.  The rabbi then begins to speak, and speak, and speak, and speak.  Standing in the open doorway, in the brisk air of early winter, it is not long before the wealthy man is feeling the chill.  “Come on rabbi!  Come inside.  We can sit by the fire and have a nice cup of warm tea and conduct our business.”  “No,” the rabbi responds, “I am almost done so let’s just continue where we are.”  Finally, after more and more talk on the rabbi’s part, the wealthy man becomes quite insistent.  “Rabbi, I am freezing out here!  Please!  Let’s go inside!”  With this, the rabbi turns to the wealthy man and says, “You have only been standing in this cold for a few brief moments, and already you find it unbearable.  How much the worse it will be for that poor man and his family this winter because you could not find it in your heart to lend him the money to keep his wife and children warm!”

Think of that story on Yom Kippur, especially if you are fasting.  As the day wears on, and you get hungrier and hungrier, remember that the day will end and you will enjoy a wonderful break the fast.  Yet throughout this world there are literally millions of people – according to the most recent statistics, 925 million people; one out of every seven people on this planet – who starve, not just one day year, but 365 days a year.  While they starve, we are like the wealthy man, for it is in our power to help them by opening up our hearts, and our wallets, and sharing some of our blessings with them; by making efforts we are more than capable of making which will help to ease their suffering.

While when it comes to hunger issues, we tend to think of the starving populations of foreign lands, particularly in Asia and Africa, the harsh reality is that hunger is no stranger to our own community as well.  It may shock you to learn that 1 in every 6 Quad Citians is a victim of hunger, with children under 18 years of age representing 39% of that population.  For those who receive and depend upon food stamps for their nutrition, the typical food stamp allotment is a mere $1.50 per meal.  How many of us are capable, nevertheless willing, to maintain that type of diet?

All this is why year after year I come to you and I beg you to support our various hunger programs.  And I most certainly do that again this year, but this year with a difference.  In past years, I have regaled you with our own congregational statistics; how many walkers we fielded for the CROP Walk, how much money we raised, how many pounds of food we collected, and how all of that compared to years past.  I know that I find those statistics very meaningful, but I am not quite sure that you do.  Sometimes I wonder whether or not I am boring you with them, and by boring you, hurting the cause rather than helping it.  So this year, I will refrain from presenting those numbers.  Suffice it to say that our congregation has a proud history of stepping up and supporting these hunger programs and I pray that once again, we will prove ourselves up to the challenge.

So I call upon you once again to support our efforts on behalf of the annual CROP WALK Against World Hunger.  We need as many walkers as we can field and we need people to pledge as much as they can.  If you walk, you also can pledge, and if you pledge you also can walk.  This year’s Walk will take place on Sunday, October 7, beginning at 2:00 p.m., starting at Modern Woodman Park – which some of us still stubbornly call John O’Donnell Stadium.  About the Walk, people sometimes wonder whether they have to complete the course in order to qualify for their pledges.  The answer is “No.”  All we ask is that you walk as much as you can.  For well over 20 years, I have walked in every one of these walks.  These days, my health being what it is, walking is not one of my strong suits.  However, with the help of this handy-dandy inhaler, I plan on making at least part of this walk.  I hope you will join me.

I call upon you to once again support our collection of non-perishable food items.  For years, we have taken this time between Rosh Hashanah and Simhat Torah to collect food on behalf of our local Riverbend Foodbank.  As we do so this year, I want you to remember two things: First, that what we collect will help to feed the 1 in 6 Quad Citians who are so desperately in need.  Secondly, I want you to think about all the reports you have heard about how during the coming year, food prices are going to soar as a result of this summer’s drought.  As you consider how that will effect your own pocket books, think about what that means for those who already are having trouble putting food on their family’s tables.

I call upon you once again to make a contribution to that very important Jewish organization, MAZON.  MAZON was the first exclusively Jewish organization created to address the issue of hunger.  Their approach is a holistic one, as expressed in the words of their mission statement: “To provide for people who are hungry while at the same time advocating for other ways to end hunger and its causes.”  In your prayer books, you will find a self-addressed donation envelop for MAZON.  I encourage you to take it home and seriously consider making a donation equal to what it would cost you to take the members of your household out to dinner at a restaurant.

And finally, I call upon you to support the efforts of our Tikkun Olam Committee throughout the year, as they periodically prepare and serve meals for Café on Vine, one of our community’s meal sites for the homeless.

In PIRKE AVOT, we are taught, “Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, v’lo ata ben horin lehibateil mimena! – While you are not obligated to complete the task, neither are you free to desist from it!”  While we at Temple Emanuel, by ourselves, cannot hope to solve the challenge of hunger in our own community, nevertheless in the world, still we should feel it incumbent upon us to do everything we possibly can to contribute our part to that solution.  Ken yehi ratzon! – May it be God’s will!  May it be our will!

Explore posts in the same categories: Cafe on Vine, CROP Walk Against World Hunger, Fasting, hunger, Iowa, Jewish Holidays, MAZON, Quad Cities, Quad Cities Hunger Issues, Riverbend Foodbank, Rosh Hashanah, Social Action, Social Justice, Temple Emanuel of Davenport, Yom Kippur

Tags: Cafe on Vine, CROP Walk Against World Hunger, Fasting, hunger, Iowa, Jewish Holidays, MAZON, Quad Cities, Quad Cities Hunger Issues, Riverbend Foodbank, Rosh Hashanah, Social Action, Social Justice, Temple Emanuel of Davenport, Yom Kippur

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