Below I cut and pasted my father's weekly email to the community in Portland, Oregon:
Dear Neveh Shalom Community,
“Should we invite someone for Shabbat?” I innocently asked Carol.
“How exactly do you propose we do that on our $3/person/day food allowance this week?” she responded.
“Oh, yeah.” In that moment it had skipped my mind.
“Carol, does the Chair Affair include food?” I wondered about the fund raiser for the Community Warehouse we were planning to attend Thursday evening.
“I’m sure it does,” she opined
“So how do we compute that in the $3 budget?”
And then there was the Jewish Federation’s lunch at Jake’s this week with the German Consul General that I was anxious to attend….and the informal coffee appointment at Starbucks with someone after Minyan one morning.
Well, despite our best efforts, life has made it difficult to completely fulfill our commitment as we intended. Carol and I agreed to join Governor Kulongoski’s much publicized effort to raise public consciousness to the almost inhuman constraints on those entirely dependent on food stamps. This exercise was also meant to protest the impending further reduction in the federal government’s budget for the food stamp program.
Despite the glitches, though, we are doing it and in doing so, we have come to several realizations:
1) When availability of food is an issue, it literally consumes our every thought. Eating is so central to our being that when the budget is so constrained, we can think of nothing else, but what will I do for the next meal.
2) We did a lot of planning. On such a tight budget where every penny counts, it is absolutely necessary to plan meals days in advance and shop with extreme care, watching for sales, coupons and how to cut corners wherever possible. We can’t afford to make a mistake, buying something that might spoil or that our households will be unwilling to eat.
3) No “gourmet” foods or alcohol, and treats must be severely limited. We are daily bombarded with advertising telling us what we “deserve” and basic to all these themes is food, not necessarily for nutrition, but because we are somehow entitled. It’s a challenge.
4) In order to live on such a budget, it is imperative to know how to cook. Prepared foods are much too expensive for a $3/day budget. Unfortunately from much that we know, many dependent on food stamps are products of our fast food generation and either do not know how to cook nutritious meals or live in circumstances where they do not have proper kitchens, making cooking extremely difficult.
5) We had to be creative. Most sources of protein, such as meat and fish, cannot be included. Most fresh fruits and vegetables are also largely unaffordable as are most cheeses. Eggs are cheap, but have the added concern of raising cholesterol to dangerous levels. (One vegetarian Neveh Shalom family suggested that we increase our legume consumption. Another wrote that a bowl of cheerios and milk only costs about $0.35.)
6) Shopping inexpensively can be expensive. Carol’s first stop to plan for the week was at Winco Foods, where she bought some inexpensive staples and canned goods. She talked with our son Misha about how she was going about this project. “And how much did you spend on gas to get to Winco?” he inquired. “Figure that in your limited budget as well,” he suggested. “Poor people have to.” Added to that we know that in the neighborhoods where poor people live there often are no super markets and people only have access to much more expensive 7/11’s or small neighborhood grocery stores.
6) Dropping in to Starbucks for a coffee is clearly not in the cards. You could spend your entire day’s food budget on a simple latte! For that matter going out to eat anywhere at any time is beyond the realm of available options.
7) All this assumes consumers who are not required to be on special diets or eat various kinds of more expensive ethnic foods. The options become fewer and fewer for those who are lactose intolerant or must avoid various grains or suffer with diabetes or are determined to maintain a Kosher diet, etc.
Carol went to book group this week with a couple of slices of bread, her discount peanut butter and jam for her lunch. It prompted conversation among the ladies and they had the opportunity to take a few minutes to think about the issue of food insecurity and what it means not to either have a full refrigerator that one can resort to at any time or the option of going to the local deli to pick up a sandwich.
There are many who disparage our food stamp program, claiming that many recipients do not deserve to receive these benefits, and after all they spend it all on beer and alcohol. That may be true in some instances, but I would argue that it is a tiny minority of cases. In addition the children whose families are beneficiaries are innocent victims of a broken system. They deserve to grow up eating healthy diets and wholesome meals, not to go to school hungry.
Thank you, Governor Kulongoski. I think your challenge is a very Jewish exercise. Many reasons are given as to why we fast on Yom Kippur. Among them is to remind us as we stand before God on this most solemn day in the Jewish calendar of those who have nothing to eat. And then when our stomachs begin to growl just after noon on Yom Kippur we read the words of Isaiah that I quoted two weeks ago calling on us to “Share your bread with the hungry, Take the wretched poor into your home, When you see the naked, clothe him, And not ignore your own kin.” Similarly we sit in the Sukkah in order to remind us of the innumerable people who do not have proper shelter and are exposed to the elements. On Passover we begin the Seder with an invitation to those who are hungry to join us in our celebration.
Governor Kulongoski’s challenge is not about famine and starvation. It is about something virtually as pernicious: food insecurity. The numbers are staggering and almost too overwhelming to comprehend: 35,000,000 Americans, 700,000 here in Oregon . 425,000 Oregonians dependant on food stamps with 80% of the food stamp benefits going nationally to families with children. The governor’s example has caused many of us to pause and appreciate just a bit more how so many struggle just to feed themselves and their loved ones.
In all our blessings in this country of plenty and abundance, how shameful it is that hunger remains an issue for so many!
P.S. In the end we decided not to invite guests to our home for Shabbat this week. (Though we will have hallah, the cost unless we bake it ourselves is more than an entire day’s food allocation, let alone wine for Kiddush.)
...
Parshat Hashavua: Aharei Mot/Kedoshim Leviticus 16:1-20:27
This double portion is one of the most significant of the entire year. The opening chapter is the reading for the morning of Yom Kippur. It describes the ritual of expiation and purification that centered on the rites of the Kohen Gadol, the high priest. No other holiday of the year is described in the Torah in as much detail. The ritual includes offerings, washing the Kohen Gadol and dressing him in the special white garments for the occasion. He prays three times for himself and his family, for himself, his family and all the Kohanim , and for himself, family, the Kohanim and the entire household of Israel . In the midst of this ritual he symbolically places all of the sins of the people on a goat and sends it off into the desert, to Azazel. In observance of Yom Kippur we are told to practice self-denial, cease from all work and purify ourselves of all sins.
What follows from chapter 17 through 26 is known as the Holiness Code, directions for how to seek and achieve a sense of holiness. Central to that code is the sense of family described in chapter 18, warning us not to copy the practices of the Egyptians or Canaanites. Listed then are the prohibited sexual liaisons, namely concerns of incest and adultery, Molech worship and bestiality. The section also includes the increasingly troubling verse on homosexuality, more specifically male-male intercourse.
The second Parashah contains many of the basic ethical prescriptions under the heading of “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, and holy.”
Among the most famous verses are:
10: “You shall leave them (corners of your field, gleanings and remainder of the vineyard) for the poor and the stranger.”
11. “You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.”
13. “You shall not defraud your fellow…The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.”
14. “You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind.”
16 “Do not deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow”.
18” Love your neighbor as yourself.”
32 “You shall rise before the aged and show deference to the old.”
33 “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him.”
35 “You shall not falsify measures of length, weight or capacity.”
