It is hard to imagine that this is already the Shabbat before Pesah—Shabbat HaGadol. There are many reasons why the rabbis say this Shabbat is called Shabbat HaGadol, but one of them is that traditionally the sermon is awfully lengthy leading into Pesah, that it is incredibly important, reviewing, in depth, all of the minutiae of the laws of Passover, ensuring everyone can fulfill the various mitzvot.
But we’re not there yet. I know that’s what the party line is supposed to be, but before we can even focus on the mitzvot of Pesah, we need to focus on the mitzvot leading up to Pesah.
A story is told of the Brisker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik. He was giving one of his weekly lectures in his home, his students all gathered around him and a woman burst into the room lunging toward the great rabbi. The students leapt to their feet, afraid that this woman was about to attack their Rav, but the woman stopped, panted and sighed, and expressed that she had an extremely urgent question. Passover was to begin the following weekend and she simply needed to know whether or not milk could be used to fulfill the mitzvah of the four cups for the Seder.
The students snickered at such a silly question, knowing full well that only wine, or perhaps grape juice, could be used for the four cups, but the great rabbi had a very stoic and solemn face, and he did not answer. He just sat there thinking.
The students could not believe that this question could require anything more complicated than a simple “yes” or “no.”
After sitting for some time in complete silence, watching the woman slowly lower her face, staring at the floor, the great rabbi stood up, again, silently, and walked into the dining room. There he grabbed the pushke off the shelf – the tzedakah box – and he returned to face the woman. The great rabbi stood her up, meeting her eye to eye, and handed her the entire tzedakah box, with a year’s worth of deposits enclosed, wishing her a Hag Kasher V’Sameah—a happy and kosher festival. The woman screamed for joy, hugged the rabbi, and ran out.
The students were dumbfounded. “But Rebbe, why didn’t you answer the woman’s shayla, her question? And why did you give her all that money?”
One of the brighter students chimed in and said, “clearly our great rabbi knew that this woman was asking about milk because she could not afford wine, and so, she needed a little extra assistance.”
Finally, the Brisker Rebbe spoke. “Yes, she clearly could not afford wine. But, if she wanted to drink milk at her Seder, it was obvious to me that she did not have any meat for Pesah either, so I gave her enough to purchase wine and meat for the entire Holiday.”
Kimhah d’pishah. Flour for Passover. Two thousand years ago, every household would donate a certain measure of flour to the impoverished in the community to enable them to bake matzot for Passover. Nowadays, not only do we not bake our own matzot, but, sadly,matzot, along with a lot of other Passover food, has an exorbitant price tag. And instead of donating flour, we allocate some money for charity, to assist needy members of the community in purchasing their supplies for Pesah. Today, this is called maot hittim—wheat money. And we collect this here at Beth El.
As members of the community appoint me as an agent to sell their hametz during Pesah – another incredibly important mitzvah by the way – they also often include a little donation to help others for the festival. And this is a lesson in maintaining integrity.
Our rabbis teach that as we gather together for our sedarim – our Passover seder meals – and we recite “whoever is hungry may come and eat” – kol dikhpin yeteh ve’yekhul – if we have not provided the poor with what they need before Pesah, then clearly this invitation is disingenuous.
But at this time of year, it really is not only about making sure those poor Jews among us can have an enjoyable and bountiful Passover holiday—it is about making sure all human beings around us have something to eat.
My good friend and colleague Rabbi Harold Kravitz over at Adath Jeshurun sits on the Board of Directors for Mazon: a Jewish Response to Hunger, and he has really opened my eyes to how big a problem hunger really is here in Minnesota. And hunger ain’t a game.
Let me share with you some myths about hunger that Mazon and Rabbi Kravitz helped dispel for me. The following are all statements that I’m sure many of us hold as truths, when in fact, they are each mere fallacies:
Hunger exists because there is not enough food; It’s better for local charities to feed people, not the government; Government programs enable lazy people to live well on society’s dime; Hunger is only a big city problem; You can’t be overweight and be food insecure; People on SNAP – the supplemental nutrition assistance program – just need to get a job; SNAP is rife with waste, fraud and abuse; “Hunger can be a positive motivator.”
As Mazon explains it:
“There is no doubt that hungry people would rather not be hungry and may try to do everything they can to avoid it in the future. But that same hunger also hinders their ability to take such action. Being hungry can be all-consuming and distracting, which in turn decreases productivity in working adults, and negatively impacts unemployed people’s ability to get jobs. And for children, chronic hunger has devastating effects, impacting their physical development, and making it nearly impossible to learn. In both the short and long term, having a substantial population of hungry people – be they adults or children – impedes the country’s economic prosperity for everyone.”
We have an obligation as human beings not to let those around us starve to death. But let me help make it a little more local for you. A 2011 study has uncovered a new missing meals gap of 100 million meals for the more than 583,000 Minnesotans in need. This means that one in ten Minnesotans does not always know where he or she will find his or her next meal. One in ten Minnesotans misses an average of ten meals per month—and not because they skipped lunch to get work done at their desk; it’s because they didn’t have food to eat.
And here in Hennepin County: it is 11.3%. 128,770 people. And worse, 48% of those Food Insecure Individuals here in Hennepin County are not eligible for Federal Nutrition Assistance. And if we apply those numbers to this morning, that means there are about forty or fifty of us potentially affected by hunger right here in shul. And you can imagine how much more of an issue this is in the kosher community where food costs skyrocket daily.
We can talk about Hunger Games all we want, but the hungry are starving right here and right now. And hunger ain’t a game.
So what can we do? For one, the quick and easy is to bring food over to STEP in Saint Louis Park if you did not yet contribute through our March Food Drive. You can bring me grocery and/or gas gift cards that I and Rabbi Davis keep on hand and use our discretion to distribute to those in need.
You can give financially to Mazon, to STEP, to Appetite for Change, to Second Harvest. You can work with any of our Hesed volunteers at Loaves and Fishes or Feed My Starving Children or one of the other meal programs.
You can contact our elected officials encouraging them to maintain and strengthen the SNAP program, formerly known as foodstamps, which 46 million Americans each month rely on to keep themselves afloat.
And, of course, you can contact the synagogue staff or the board and let us know that you are interested in combating hunger as part of your service to the Beth El community. And if anyone here this morning is hungry, or someone you love is hungry, please do not be afraid to come find me. We can help.
Maimonides, the great 12th century rabbinic scholar and physician, knew firsthand about the importance of nutrition and eating well. In his section of laws for Yom Tov, he explains that the mitzvah of v’samahtah be’hagekhah – rejoicing on one’s festival – includes a requirement to give charity. Why? We cannot truly experience joy when we know that there are widows, orphans and the indigent who are unable to properly celebrate, who are unable to survive. Rambam writes: in order to fulfill the mitzvah of rejoicing on Yuntiff, we must have provided assistance to the poor before Yuntiff.
Yuntiff is next Shabbas. The Seder begins next Friday night. I’m sure many of us still have plenty of shopping and cooking and cleaning to do. But, especially this week, add giving tzedakah to your to-do list. Add dropping food off at the food shelf to your checklist of preparing for the festival. Make cleaning out your hametz that much easier by donating it.
And pray with me: May this year be the year when we all finally begin to recognize, and see without judgment, those around us who are urgently and deeply in need, especially those who are too proud or too scared to admit it. May we be the trendsetters to do away with price-gouging, avarice and waste. May we open our hearts and our homes, our purses and our pockets. And as we conclude our sedarim, may we be strong-willed to stop at nothing so that when we declare, “Next year in Jerusalem,” we will long not only to be present, but see to it that all those present have a full belly as well.