Rosh Hashanah 2004 Second Day   What Are You Willing to Sacrifice? I am sure that all of you have heard this joke in one form or another; perhaps even from me. "A pig and a chicken were walking by a church where a gala charity event was taking place. Getting caught up in the spirit, the pig suggested to the chicken that they each make a contribution. 'Great idea!' the chicken cried. 'Let's offer them ham and eggs.' 'Not so fast,' said the pig. 'For you, that's a contribution. For me, it's a total commitment.' This foolish joke raises a very profound question. To what or to whom are we totally committed? My "little" children are now 25, 23 and 21 years old, "military" age – so I have found myself theorizing in the past several years, about what am I, so totally committed, that I would be willing to see any one of my children in a military uniform. I am haunted by the past, typified by both the historical and fictional images of D-Day, June 6, 1944; an event from my parents' generation. I have watched old newsreels on the history channel, but there was some quality that seemed both, more alive and more dead, at the re-enactment that opens the movie, "Saving Private Ryan." Much of the equipment used in the landing scene was authentic. I can picture in my mind the flaps of the landing craft opening, and young men, mere boys really, being gunned down before they even stepped into the water. For those who made it into the water, and then to shore, the slaughter continued, until finally, Allied forces overwhelmed the Nazis and took the high ground above the beach. But at what price? According to The Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, "casualties from three countries during the landing numbered 10,300." Was there an Einstein, a Van Gogh or a Beethoven among them? I have no idea, but I am certain that to the parents of the fallen, that is not significant. My guess is that for the parents of each young man who died at Normandy , or at the Battle of the Bulge, or any other time during World War II, it was their beloved son or daughter, their child, and the pain was great. Do you remember the premise of "Saving Private Ryan"? A small squad of United States soldiers is "sent behind enemy lines to find and retrieve Private James Ryan. The youngest of four brothers, Ryan is the last survivor, the other three having all been killed in action within days of one another." I know the movie is fiction. But how often did one family suffer the death of more than one child in the military during World War II? How much sacrifice does any of us have to endure? And this was a war that had to be fought; a war where the citizens of this country were overwhelming united and committed to the cause. More since the Viet Nam War than during it, I have had similar thoughts. It was the war of my generation of military age. My peers died in Viet Nam. But I, like so many others, chose not to serve. Many of us opposed the war and I had a student deferment, and then a clergy deferment, a 4-D, as close to a 4-F as one could get. I was a college student and had decided to become a rabbi before Viet Nam was on anyone's mind. But we all knew in those days, as we watched and read about the loss of life, that some young Jews developed a sudden, and ultimately temporary, interest in the rabbinate. After all, an admission to rabbinical school meant an automatic 4-D. Many of those not so fortunate, either by career option or draft lottery number, headed for Canada. Viet Nam ended lives and ruined lives and we were not sure why it was necessary to do either. And throughout the United States, parents, especially in the minority communities, mourned young lives, their babies, who had barely experienced life. Now we have crossed the 1,000 threshold in Operation Iraqi Freedom; a war of my children's generation. The title sounds so glorious, but this country remains divided on whether this war was necessary, why it was fought at all and whether democracy will ever come to Iraq. But for the young men and women who have died, these questions are now moot. Some parents doubtless feel that the sacrifice that has been made, by their children and by themselves, is necessary. Others disagree. Did you see "Fahrenheit 9-11," the painful or controversial Michael Moore movie? Among the story lines is that of a mother, living with very limited financial resources, who encourages her son to enter the military for its financial benefits. Tragically, her son is killed in Iraq. One can feel and understand her pain. But wrapped in the pain of loss must also be the pain that she encouraged her child, her baby, to enlist in the military. Clearly, she was not prepared to sacrifice him for this commitment! If we can imagine this kind of parental pain, this overwhelming sense of loss, then we will better understand this morning's Torah reading. Abraham is commanded to take his beloved son, Isaac, and offer him as a sacrifice to God, for a reason or reasons unclear, and yet, from a commitment deeply felt. At the beginning of the Torah reading of Lekh Lekha , Abraham has to sever his ties with the past. He must leave his land, his birthplace and his extended family and go to a strange new land to start a new people. Abraham has an unswerving commitment to God and to the future of a people who will feel a connection to God, and so Abraham obeys. But as life goes on and Abraham contemplates both his personal future and that of an unborn nation, he worries about the absence of an heir, an appropriate child who will lovingly and devotedly carry on his father's mission and vision. And finally, in old age and after other missteps, there is Isaac. Isaac, who is protected from negative influences, who is doubtless being groomed to promote the vision of faith in one God and the development of a yet unknown people – this very Isaac, who meant everything to his father and mother – now is to be offered as a sacrifice on a distant mountain. The fact that this is a test; the fact that Isaac is not sacrificed, does not alter the reality that Abraham was prepared to offer him up. This was Abraham's future, presumably our people's future, and yet Abraham's commitment to God was so strong, so clear, so unshakable, that Abraham was willing to make the sacrifice that most of us do not even want to contemplate. Abraham was ready to give up his child for a cause, for some greater good, that he might not even have understood. God willing, none of us will ever have to offer up our child, or any one else's child, as a sacrifice to a cause or value or commitment that we view as more essential than life itself; but do we know, in our minds, what those causes or values or commitments might be? And on a far lesser scale, what are we willing to sacrifice – for any cause or value or commitment that we view as essential??? Not very long ago, our ancestors lived in small homes. The virtual huts of the shtetl and the crowded tenements of the Lower East Side have long since given way to the larger, free standing, single homes of suburbia. After the passing of little more than a century, any of our homes might once have been considered a palace. Some homes surely are palatial. In and of itself, there is surely nothing wrong with that. But are we prepared to sacrifice some level of personal comfort for the benefit of Jewish public welfare? I ask this morning, specifically in the context of Jews who are starving and malnourished in Israel and in the Lehigh Valley. That's right, fellow Jews who are starving, who do not have enough food to eat and, in some instances, any home in which to live. Dr. Harriet Parmet, one of our members, forcefully brought this issue to my attention with an article that will appear in the Bulletin. In December 2002, Harriet participated in the Lehigh Valley Jewish Federation's mission to Israel. She writes: "While riding the bus in Rehavia, an up-scale Jerusalem neighborhood, I saw a homeless woman living on the pavement with her bag of meager possessions; further along another male in the same condition. I could go on with a comment that the subsistence lifestyle that sustained Ethiopian families for generations prepared then to withstand today's poverty." In an article entitled "Nine Things Worth Remembering," Rabbi Daniel Gordis notes in May 2003: "The papers have now carried a few stories about indigent couples who committed suicide because of their mounting debts, and one about a teenager who took his life because he didn't want to be a financial burden to his parents." Is there still a problem today? Listen to brief snippets from this year's Jerusalem Post . On March 28 th , Isaac Herzog wrote in his article "Bitter herbs," "70,000 businesses, mostly small and medium-sized, folded in Israel in 2003 . A 54 year-old, unemployed father of two tells the reporter: 'I don't know what to live on, what to bring home this holiday. For me this Pesach is a holiday of bitter herbs, ' Sharon and Netanyahu's economic policies have sent him and many, many others like him to the soup kitchens and trash bins . Local volunteers told me that there had been a dramatic rise in appeals for help by ordinary citizens. In the evening they took me to see a sight I never believed I would see in the State of Israel in 2004. A local farmer with a heart places a few crates of vegetables that he pays for from his own pocket in a local warehouse every day. Within minutes dozens of hungry people arrive and swarm over them to satisfy their own and their families' hunger." On June 25 th , Larry Derfner wrote an article entitled, "Food insecurity." Food insecurity is the term used not for those who are technically starving, but for children who receive only empty calories. They eat "bread, pita, rice, potatoes, corn. They eat it because it is cheap . Einat Levy, who oversees [an] after-school program, tells of kids going for days on nothing but cornflakes or pasta and ketchup." 'The rate of food insecurity in the United States, according to yearly studies by the US Department of Agriculture, is half of ours,' says Dr. Roni Kaufman, a social work lecturer at Ben-Gurion University who researched the problem in Israel. [A volunteer from a soup kitchen] tells of a 14-year-old girl [who was] referred by her teacher. 'The teacher told me the girl came up to her crying one day after class, and said she hadn't tasted cooked food in three months, and had been going on bread and white cheese every day.'" If all this comes as a surprise to you, you may wonder why more hasn't been said about these problems, many of them exacerbated by the Intifada that began in 2000. Perhaps Herb Keinon's article, published a little over a month ago in the August 2 nd Jerusalem Post , will give you an inkling about the answer. Its title is: "Hunger hurts Israel's image abroad." "Jewish Agency chairman Sallai Meridor called on the government not to use funds raised abroad to sponsor the hot meals project, saying that portraying Israel as a country that suffers from poverty and hunger hurts its image and will hurt aliya." "Presenting Israel around the world as a state with its hand out that cannot feed its citizens will be embarrassing and damaging." The program, Meridor said needs to be funded by Israelis. That may also prove to be a bit tricky, because in the same article, Mr. Keinon reminds us. "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the cabinet during a meeting in June 2003 that there is no hunger in Israel and that charities raising money abroad 'should not say there is.'" Mr. Sharon should check with other Israeli officials. From the Jerusalem Post of September 7 th , a little over one week ago, I share with you from an article by Greer Fay Cashman, entitled: "Katsav hosts conference on bridging social gaps." "The third annual Socio-Economic seminar, held jointly by President Moshe Katsav and the Taub Center, took place at Beit Hanassi in Jerusalem on Monday, [September 6 th ], bringing together experts and government officials to discuss ways of combating Israelis' increasing poverty. The Taub researchers were united in their condemnation of what they perceive to be the government's retreat from the public sector, According to Taub Center speakers Arnon Gafni and Zvi Zusman, the latter a former Bank of Israel deputy governor, instead of narrowing the chasm between the haves and have-nots, the Israeli economy creates more poverty and gaps. Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Ehud Olmert concurred. Deeply worried by the number of people living in a state of economic distress, President Katsav voiced expectations that the 2005 budget will reflect a genuine concern for social welfare, and that the government will formulate a proper plan to diminish poverty." Israel is not the only place where Jews are without food and living at the poverty level. I have no doubt there are many old Jews in the former Soviet Union who are living in dire circumstances. I have no doubt there are Jews of all ages in many countries who are suffering financially. I have no doubt that there are Jews of all ages in the United States who are living below the poverty line with limited or no resources, and limited or no help. But I am absolutely positive that there are Jews of all ages who are homeless and dependent on soup kitchen food in the Lehigh Valley. I have had a discussion with officials from Jewish Family Service and their best estimate is that there are 10 to 12 homeless Jews in the Lehigh Valley and 50 to 60 Jews who are dependent on the kosher food pantry. There may be others in equally dire circumstances who are too proud to come to Jewish Family Service. What are we willing to sacrifice, so that other Jews may at least be able to have the assurance of decent meals and adequate, permanent protection from the elements? This is not an appeal for you to send me a few dollars. Unfortunately, I see that as a short term and limited answer to an ongoing and perhaps expanding problem. I want to suggest that we as a unified Lehigh Valley Jewish community, need to establish a foundation or endowment fund, whichever is technically correct, to deal specifically with hunger and homelessness in Israel and in our community. This needs to be a multi-million dollar fund so that the interest on an annual basis will mean something. We need to send a clear message to our brothers and sisters in Israel, that after prioritizing the rescue of any Jew whose life is in danger in any country, the next priority must be the feeding and then the housing of every Jew in Israel. And I mean three, well balanced meals a day, not just the school lunch program that was cut by the government of Israel and may soon be reinstituted in some form. Before we worry about playgrounds or computers, before we spend money to attract Jews who are safe with any incentives for making aliyah, we need to feed every Jewish child and adult who already is in Israel. If Israel is still the Promised Land, then this is a promise we need to make and fulfill. Israelis do need to make their own commitment to this cause, but we Jews also have a basic responsibility to help feed and house Jews, as we do others. The Lehigh Valley alone will not solve all of Israel's problems. No one would expect us to do so. BUT, we certainly must find a way to solve the Lehigh Valley's Jewish poverty problem. That is realistic. What will you sacrifice to ensure that every Jew in the Lehigh Valley has food and shelter if they need it? How can we leave here today and go back to our beautiful homes and large meals and not struggle to make some provision for those who have neither; not today nor any day? We are not discussing huge numbers in the Lehigh Valley, but to help them I am positive something will have to be sacrificed, at least in the short term. You all need to know that there is real poverty in the local Jewish community. There is personal bankruptcy. There is need for substantial amounts of money for interest free loans. There is even need to arrange for funerals, because there are Jews who have nothing. Abraham's message is really quite simple. Sometimes, when you believe in God, or say you do, you have to sacrifice something meaningful in order to fulfill His Torah. In this new year, let us show our commitment to a vision that all Jews will sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed in order to provide a little something to all those Jews who have nothing. If we succeed, even in just the Lehigh Valley, we will have passed God's test and made it a truly new year.   << Back to Rabbi Juda's Sermons