Jewish
holidays seem to be dominated by food.
Of course we all know the triumvirate that Rabbi Litwak mentioned on
Rosh Hashanah: “They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat!”
Perhaps it
is unfair of me to offer a sermon about food on Yom Kippur, when we have just
begun our fast. You might be wondering
why I would offer a food sermon tonight of all nights. Maybe you are already looking forward to the
breakfast tomorrow night, to the apple that we know awaits us as we exit Neilah service tomorrow evening. As a people who regularly celebrate around
food, we understand the excitement that can surround it. The anticipation of Grandma’s matzah ball
soup, the nose-holding over pickled herring and gefilte fish, the challenge
over cooking on Passover. These are all
joys that characterize the Jewish people, and joys that millions of Americans
cannot experience because they cannot afford food for themselves or their
families.
1 in 7
families in the US receive food stamp benefits.
That’s over 42 million Americans, including 16.2 million children. 15% of Americans currently live below the
poverty line, averaging an income of $693 per month per household. The
average American family of four spends $950 per month on groceries alone! To make up some of the difference, many of
these people rely on the SNAP program to be able to afford to feed
themselves. SNAP is the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, and used to be known simply as “Food
Stamps.” It provides low-income
households with electronic benefits they can use to purchase food at stores
authorized by the US Department of Agriculture. SNAP is the cornerstone of
federal food assistance programs and provides crucial support to needy
households and to those making the transition from welfare to work. And it is in danger of getting huge cuts as a
part of a congressional initiative to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget.
This year I decided to
participate in the Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ Food Stamp
Challenge. This year is the 5th
annual Food Stamp Challenge, which usually takes place in November around
Thanksgiving. This year they added one
to target the Jewish community the week before the High Holy Days began.
So, what is the Food Stamp
Challenge? It is a way for participants
to experience firsthand the challenges of hunger in the United States.
The average weekly SNAP benefit
is $31.50 per person. This is where the
challenge comes in. For one week—from
September 7 to September 13—I spent only $31.50 on food for myself. That averages out to $1.50 per meal. To put this into perspective, when planning a
teen trip, we typically budget $50 per person per day. A SNAP recipient spends $31.50 per week. So I did the same. No sushi, no Yogurtland, not even a Veggie
Burger—I carefully budgeted my $31.50 worth of food.
The program has pretty strict
rules. I wasn’t allowed to accept food
from friends and family. I wasn’t
allowed to take food from work, which includes the Oneg table. I couldn’t even
take leftovers from a friend unless I deduct the cost of their food from my
weekly budget. It is a very stringent
set of rules set for a very challenging week.
My own eating habits—my love of fresh fruits and vegetables, my
vegetarianism, my epicurean tendencies—made this especially challenging on a
personal level.
So why did I submit myself to
such a torturous challenge?
As we fast tomorrow we will be
reminded of the prophet Isaiah’s words.
In Chapter 58, Isaiah asks,
Why do we fast without
recognizing? Why do we afflict our soul without knowing [why]?...Is this the
fast I have chosen? A day for afflicting the soul?...Will you call this a fast
and an acceptable day for Adonai?
Is not this the fast I have
chosen? To loose the chains of wickedness and undo the bands of the yoke, to
let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your home?...If you draw out your soul to the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in the darkness and
your gloom will be as the [bright noonday sun]
(Isa
58:5-10).
We are reminded by Isaiah of the real reasons we
fast. Not to make a show of it, not to
demonstrate what good fasters we are, not to compare who is having a harder
time with their fast. We do this to
cleanse our bodies so we can focus on our souls. We fast to empathize with those who do not
have as much as we do. This is a regular
theme throughout Jewish practice. We are
often reminded to help out those in need and to feel what they are feeling. Consider just a few examples from our
tradition:
The Passover Seder reminds us that
all who are hungry should join us and eat, and all who are in need should come
share in our bounty.
Leviticus teaches us to leave
the corners of our field so that the poor can come and glean.
Deuteronomy contains the
instruction, “If there is a poor person among you, you shall not harden your
heart or shut your hand against your poor brother [or sister]” (Deut.
15:7).
Perhaps the best way to soften
our hearts to the plight of the poor is to walk a mile in their shoes. The Food Stamp Challenge in no way gave me
complete empathy for people who participate regularly in SNAP. There is no way I could claim to fully
understand what they go through on a regular basis. Instead, it only gave me a glimpse into what
they go through each and every week.
Tonight I want to give you a
glimpse into what I experienced during my week on the Food Stamp Challenge.
I went
shopping the night before I began. I
found myself walking through the aisles of Wal-Mart with a calculator, deciding
what I could and could not afford that week.
Not surprising, I could not afford much in the realm of fresh fruits and
vegetables. Bananas are cheap (and
filling), so that was good, but all the vegetables in my cart were frozen or
canned. I am a salad eater. A typical lunch for me is a salad with a can
of tuna on top. This week, however, it
was rice and beans, spaghetti, and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Speaking of
grilled cheese, this is one of the huge decisions I had to make: peanut butter
or cheese. I knew that both one would
give me protein and I could put it on bread all week, but which one would suit
me better for the week? I think about
decisions like this and I marvel at the millions of people who have to think
like that every time they are in the grocery store. Cheese or peanut butter is certainly not as
severe of a decision as food or medicine, which is the very real choice many
SNAP participants have to face regularly.
Day one was
Friday, September 7. I realized what was
probably going to be the hardest part about this week: coffee. I bought a container of instant coffee called
“Pampa,” which I have never heard of before.
It is appropriately named, however, because it kind of tastes like
licking a diaper. When it is hot, it is
kind of bland with a rotten-nut aftertaste, but when it gets cold—yuck! By 11am on my first day I was seriously
considering spending every penny I had left on better coffee.
There were
plenty of other difficulties for me during the Food Stamp Challenge. Saturday night was S’lichot, the Saturday
before Rosh Hashanah, and as is tradition, we held a study session before
S’lichot services. After services there
was an overnight with teenagers. When we
started the teen portion of the evening, we opened a huge bag of pretzels and
another of pita chips, and I was suddenly confronted by a trio of teens asking,
“Do we have any hummus?” I apologized
and acknowledged that that would have been a good idea, and then the
complaining increased. “No hummus? Who
buys pita chips without hummus? We get the big thing of hummus at my house, and
it’s gone in days. Have you had the
spinach and artichoke one? It’s awesome!”
I told the
teens all about the Food Stamp Challenge.
I explained that some people in our country can’t even afford to eat
pita chips, much less hummus. I told
them that they wouldn’t see me eating anything they were enjoying tonight
because I am eating on $31.50 this week.
My friends, there is nobody in the world quite like a teenager. They got it right away. They were amazed. They admitted they would not be able to do
something like that, and asked if it was ok if they eat in front of me.
And the next
morning, not one person complained about the no-brand breakfast foods I had
bought.
When I was a
kid, we used to go shopping with mom on the weekends. Very often she would intentionally take us
around lunch time and we would have was my mom called “Tasting Lunch.” We would walk around Kroger (our version of
Publix) and take from the samples all over the store. We would eat our fill on crackers and cheese,
mini sausages, and pizza bites. My
sister and I thought it was fun, and a unique way to try things mom would never
buy. We later learned that those were
difficult financial times for my parents.
My dad was trying to start a business, and while we were not
impoverished, saving money was incredibly important to my parents at that time,
so a chance to feed us for free was welcomed.
One of the
rules of this challenge is, “Don’t feed the rabbi.” I was not allowed to accept food as gifts,
nor was I allowed to seek out free food.
I am sure there are food stamp recipients who work in restaurants,
grocery stores, and other areas in the food service industry. I know from my experiences that people in
restaurants take food home. They are
given free meals and they might even nibble off of leftovers.
I vividly
remember a skinny old man named Charles who washed dishes at a place I worked
in Cincinnati called Watson Brothers.
One of the managers found out the Charles was eating food off of the
plates we gave him, so a crack-down began.
All servers had to scrape plates before giving them to the
dishwashers. The service staff knew that
Charles was poor. He had six kids at
home, and his wife wasn’t working so she could take care of them. He was on food stamps and told us he would
often go without so his kids could eat.
We didn’t agree with the manager’s decision to not allow Charles to eat
for free, so we modified the new rule.
Whenever we had to bring back an untouched meal—either because it was returned
or cold or the wrong item was sent out—we would pass the plate to Charles. Over the course of a shift he would probably
eat five or six meals worth of food, and chances are he only really ate when he
was standing in the dish station.
It makes a
difference when it is someone we know verses a statistic. To say, “There are 16.2 million children
living in poverty,” gets a sigh and a mumbled apology to nobody, but to say,
“I’m hungry,” elicits a slew of culinary offerings from my co-workers. That is why the servers at Watson Brother’s
collectively, instinctively bucked the system to make sure Charles got
fed. We knew there was something we
could do, and we did it. It didn’t harm
anyone, didn’t take any money away from the restaurant. All it did was give a plate a pitstop on its
way to the garbage, and help a man to be able to eat so that he could spend his
money feeding his children.
Going back to
the Food Stamp Challenge, by the fourth day I started to notice physical
changes. I was having difficulty at the
gym. My heart rate was low, and I could
not lift my usual amount of weights by 25%.
It was more than a noticeable fact, it was disheartening—depressing,
even. By the time I couldn’t push the
weights up on two of my usual machines, I simply stopped, went to the showers,
and cried.
I felt a need
to get nutrients and protein into my body.
I wasn’t hungry any more, but I was craving certain foods. When I was first shopping for the Food Stamp
Challenge my thoughts were along the lines of, “How much food can I get for
less money?” By the middle of the week
my focus had changed to, “What is the healthiest thing I can buy for $5?”
I had trouble
getting focused. This was the time I was
supposed to be hardcore into my sermon writing, but I couldn’t
concentrate. I was tired, I went to bed
earlier than usual, snapped regularly at Natalie and the kids, and felt
miserable.
The last day
of the challenge was September 13, my birthday.
Typically on a staff member’s birthday at Temple Sinai the person is
called in for a “meeting” and presented with a cake, a card, and singing. For the last week people have been saying
things like, “Really? You’re not even going to be allowed to have cake with
us?” So this year, knowing I was not
going to partake in cake, several staffers came in to my office holding a fruit
basket and a candle. They knew I
couldn’t eat the fruit then and there, but expressed their hope that it would
get eaten over the next few days, as soon as I could start eating what I want
again. We took a picture of me holding a
candle stuck into—nothing, and another of me holding the fruit basket.
It was
incredibly thoughtful, fun, and supportive to know that I work at a place where
they would still want to celebrate on my birthday with me and offer as much as
they thought I could handle. I know that
it takes away from their joy as well, because they surely like to have a little
cake whenever it is someone else’s birthday, but had to forgo it because of the
Food Stamp Challenge that they weren’t even participating in.
This was one
of the unanticipated side effects of this challenge. People love to give other people food. Whether it is watching a loved one enjoy a
dish you cooked or celebrating birthdays with co-workers, we use food to
express our joy. It makes me realize how
lucky we are to have such things provided for us and to be able to provide such
things in return.
My last two
hours of the Food Stamp Challenge I realized another lesson. I knew when my time on a tight food budget
was going to end. I could count down and
get excited about the midnight snack of a salad that was waiting for me in the
refrigerator. People on welfare and
using food stamps cannot do that. They
can’t countdown to the point where everything’s going to be ok. They have to work hard, have faith, and hope
that any day might be the moment when they can make enough money to get off of
food stamps. They don’t know when they
will get the job that will get them out of their financial situation. They don’t know when they will get to make
healthful choices in the supermarket because they will have more than $31.50.
Now that I
know I can do this challenge, I will be doing it again. The Food Stamp Challenge is offered both over
the week before Rosh Hashanah and the week before Thanksgiving. So this November I will most likely be doing
the Food Stamp Challenge again. But this
time I hope to not do it alone. I would
ask that you all join me. Whether you do
it as a family or as individuals, can you spend only $31.50 per person on food
for one week? As I mentioned earlier, the
average family of four in America spends around $950 for one month’s worth of
groceries, or about $60 per person per week.
This does not include dining out or snacks bought at vending machines or
morning stops at Starbucks, and it is already twice what the average food
stamps recipient gets per week.
This is why I
am inviting every individual, every couple, and every family from Temple Sinai
to join me in the Food Stamp Challenge this coming November. The week of November 11-17, the week before
Thanksgiving, will be the next national Food Stamp Challenge. If you and your family are willing, join me
in raising awareness about America’s Hungry, and see what a mile feels like in
their shoes. You can sign up to join
this challenge by emailing me at rabbi.young@tsnd.org,
or by signing the petition in the main office.
By signing up for this challenge, you are pledging to do two
things. First, you will spend no more
than $31.50 on food per person for the week.
This is food and beverage. It’s
not easy, and I am here to support you if you want recipe ideas, shopping tips,
or money-saving options. The rules are
pretty simple:
1. Spend
a total of $31.50 on food and beverages during the Challenge week.
2. All
food purchased and eaten, including fast food and dining out, must be included
in the total spending.
3. During
the challenge, eat only the food that you purchase for the project. Do not eat food you already own, with the
exception of spices and condiments.
4.
Avoid accepting free food from friends, family,
or at work, including food at receptions or coffee in the office.
5. Keep track of all receipts on food and try to
note your experiences throughout the week as through journaling.
Second,
donate the remainder of your weekly food bill to help Americans on food stamps
get out of their situation. If you spend
$31.50 on yourself, consider sending the same amount or more to those in
need. You can choose your hunger relief
organization: Mazon, Miami’s own Kosher Food Bank, Jewish Community Services,
or any other organization about which you are passionate. You can also write a check to my
discretionary fund, and on November 18 I will send a check to The Jewish
Council for Public Affairs Confronting Poverty Campaign, the organizers of the
Food Stamp Challenge.
Not everyone
can participate. People with special
food requirements might not be able to handle such a low cost diet. If you cannot take the Food Stamp
Challenge, please consider donating anyways.
If you can, I promise you will feel different by the end of the
week.
If you cannot
give and you cannot participate, then advocate.
Write letters to your government representatives asking them to start
subsidizing fresh vegetables more than they subsidize meat and corn. Ask for tax credits for poor families who
shop at farmers’ markets and buy local produce.
We need to make it easier to be healthier. As families, try to go on a fast food
fast. Can you go a week without eating
at a fast food restaurant? How about a
month? Let’s use November, especially
the week of the 11th, as a way to make a concerted group effort to
make healthful choices with our food.
November 16, the Friday night of the next Food Stamp Challenge, happens
to be a Religious School Shabbat dinner.
So I have an offer for all of you who plan on participating. Let’s make a cheap, under $1.50 per person,
healthy meal that night. I bet if we
pool our resources we can come up with something delicious and good for us.
This is the
fast God asks of us: To share our bread with the hungry and bring the poor into
our homes. The Food Stamp Challenge
gives us the opportunity to share our bread with the hungry, and to bring
understanding of the plight of the poor into our homes. I hope you will join me the week of November
11, and I pray that you will help other Americans end their struggle with
hunger.
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