It’s four days after Thanksgiving and I am feeling guilty. My family enjoyed a weekend of delicious leftovers from our Thanksgiving feast and there’s plenty more for the rest of this week, plus the stuffing we froze for another day and the pile of leftover homemade cakes and breads that went back to school with my children who are in college. A family of cooks and nutrition fanatics, we spent the weekend talking about the pleasure of the colorful spread of vegetable dishes we prepared.
So why am I feeling guilty about all this joyous abundance? {In my view, guilt is a healthy emotion if it leads one to righteous action.} My unease comes from the realization that many Americans did not enjoy this type of lush eating, even on Thanksgiving – and could not access – the quantity and quality of food that my family is privileged to have. Today I am thinking about the hundreds of thousands of residents of my state alone, NJ, who struggle to buy food. Many can only afford to eat low cost, processed and nutritionally empty foods. Some are going to bed hungry, including far too many children. All suffer the indignity of being poor.
This is just one state. A recent article posted on WNYC website elaborates: “The number of New Jersey residents receiving food stamps has doubled in the last four years despite the state’s standing as No. 2 wealthiest in the nation. One in every 10 people in the state now receive aid – totaling 400,000 households, according to New Jersey Department of Human Resources.”
We know the reasons: unemployment and underemployment top the list. But these are people’s lives. “The Community Food Bank of New Jersey said it has doubled the amount of free food it provides to needy residents. ‘They’re becoming more desperate,’ said Diane Riley, director of advocacy, who noted people tend to be more embarrassed to go on food stamps than to come to a food pantry.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation reported that the average cost of this year’s Thanksgiving meal for 10 people was $49.20, a $5.73 price increase from the average in 2010. In my kosher home, the turkey alone cost that much. Add in lots of fresh vegetables and fruits and, well, it’s embarrassing to notice the gaping discrepancy between what we typically spend on a holiday feast and this much smaller sum that is “average.” I couldn’t help but notice that this is symbolic of the wealth and class divide that has become a scourge in America. And we are not even wealthy!
The inequality in our country is a travesty. The poverty rate in New Jersey is also rising, according to government reports. The Census Bureau recently documented that 13.6 million American households reported receiving food stamps, a 16 percent increase. “One in three Americans — 100 million people — is either poor or perilously close to it.” (NY Times editorial, 11/23/11) As wealth is concentrated at the top of the income scale, poverty spreads and suffering grows.
So I feel guilty. But I can’t stay there for long—I know that I have a job to do: to take even more responsibility to help correct these huge problems; to help share my bounty with those who are not as lucky. I am no more worthy than anyone else, and my neighbors who are hungry deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. The Torah commands us to care for the needy, leaving the corners of our fields that those who are hungry may come and eat. The Torah commands us: “…Do not harden your heart and shut your hand against your needy kinsman. Rather, you must open your hand and lend him sufficient for whatever he needs. For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8, 11). The responsibility to care for the needy and to help them to rise up out of poverty is a central spiritual value of the Jewish people.
The toxic political environment in this country right now is discouraging. But the idea that those who are hungry may not be given basic assistance to obtain food, and the dignity to find their way out of poverty, is a moral outrage. The challenge to government Food Stamp budgets is absolutely not acceptable. So my responsibility does not stop with providing food – real help for those who are struggling with poverty requires activism.
It is very encouraging that there is an interfaith effort to address these challenges. The organization Fighting Poverty with Faith is building a nationwide, interfaith movement to cut domestic poverty in half by 2020. “Working together to end hunger” is a theme of this year’s mobilization. Many are taking the “Food Stamp Challenge,” living on the budget of food stamps for a week.
It would be so easy to shrug our shoulders, quietly eat our bountiful leftovers, and hope someone else would solve these problems. But our ancestors knew that it takes much more. It takes a goal, a vision, that “there shall be no needy among you,” even as we know that poverty is a constant challenge in every society. With this as our vision, we are empowered to work together — to help each other.
After all, at any moment, any one of us could lose our good fortune. Wouldn’t we want our neighbors to be there for us too?
Torah
Pronunced: TORE-uh, Origin: Hebrew, the Five Books of Moses.
