Sunday, November 11, 2012

Hurricanes and Hunger

I have not written a post since Hurricane Sandy hit because I have been busy. I was one of the east coast residents who lost power and had a home damaged.

Don't feel sorry for me. I have two homes, and was able to live in one with only the discomfort of power out for four days while the vacation home was flooded. We're finding out now the extent of the structural damage to the foundation of our home in addition to the appliances we lost. But all will be repaired and replaced. We feel lucky.

I use the word, lucky, intentionally, because it's usually luck we think of first when we try to explain who and why disasters, accidents, or illnesses strike. The idea of luck is complicated, though:

  • Hurricane Katrina didn't affect me. Was I lucky then and unlucky during Hurricane Sandy? 
  • Was I luckier that my two bouts of breast cancer in my 40's were treatable, compared to my friend's terminal pancreatic cancer when he reached his late 60's?
  • My parents raised me in a three-bedroom, one bath, house, feeding six people on a total of about $20 a week in the 1960's. Today, I have two houses and plenty of food. Am I luckier than my parents? 

Our rabbis and sages knew there is no way to measure or compare luck based on what happens to us.

From the Babylonian Talmud, Moed Katan, 28A:


תלמוד בבלי מסכת מועד קטן דף כח עמוד א

אמר רבא: חיי, בני ומזוני, לא בזכותא תליא מילתא, אלא במזלא תליא מילתא. דהא רבה ורב חסדא תרוייהו רבנן צדיקי הוו, מר מצלי ואתי מיטרא, ומר מצלי ואתי מיטרא. רב חסדא חיה תשעין ותרתין שנין - רבה חיה ארבעין, בי רב חסדא - שיתין הלולי, בי רבה - שיתין תיכלי. בי רב חסדא - סמידא לכלבי ולא מתבעי, בי רבה - נהמא דשערי לאינשי, ולא משתכח

Rava said: Life, children, and food do not depend on merit; rather, they depend on luck. For Rabbah and Rav Hisda were two righteous rabbis - one would pray and rain would come, and the other would pray and rain would come. [Yet] Rav Hisda lived 92 years and Rabbah lived [only] 40 years. In the house of Rav Hisda there were 60 marriages; in the house of Rabbah, 60 deaths. In the house of Rav Hisda, there was pure wheat bread for dogs, and they did not want. In the house of Rabbah, there was even a lack of [poor quality] barley bread for people. [Translation by Uri L’Tzedek]
(Thanks to On1Foot for the Hebrew and translation above.)

While we can't predict or control luck, we can control how we approach the suffering we see around us. Our communal response to the people affected by Hurricane Sandy has been inspiring, from New York's combined efforts to national support, and, also, United Synagogue's response in cooperation with the Rabbinical Assembly.

There is another initiative beginning today that is less in the headlines, but is equally intended to respond to suffering: the Jewish Community Food Stamp Challenge.

One in six households in America struggle with hunger issues. Hunger isn't like a hurricane; it doesn't have people shouting out warnings and predictions of it. It doesn't fill our news reports or even our Facebook pages. It is up to us to call on each other to be aware of it, and our clergy and Jewish organizations are doing that this month. 

The Food Stamp Challenge has support from across the Jewish communal spectrum, and is sponsored by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, United Synagogue, the Rabbinical Assembly, Cantors Assembly, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and the American Conference of Cantors.  Read about the rabbis, cantors and other leaders who are taking the Food Stamp Challenge. And for an inspirational framing of the challenge, read the Kol Nidre sermon from Rabbi Robyn Fryer Bodzin, of Israel Center of Conservative Judaism in Flushing, NY.

The "challenge" is to live for a week on the food that can be purchased with the same amount of money as a person on food stamps: up to $31.50 per person, or about $1.50 per meal. You can participate in several ways by taking the Challenge yourself and setting up a donations page, or donating the amount of money that you would have spent on food for the week to an organization dealing with hunger issues, or donating to someone who is taking the Challenge. Go to the Conservative Movement's Food Stamp Challenge Facebook page to also find out about how synagogues are supporting these leaders.

Because of the interruption of many of our lives from Hurricane Sandy, the organizers of the Food Stamp Challenge are moving the window of time to take the Challenge by Thanksgiving. There is still time to do it. There is always time to donate.

A hurricane reminds us about luck. The rabbis reminded us that luck affects food as well. We can't stop a hurricane, but we can work together to diminish hunger.