Hunger Sermon Word Versions

8/9/2019 Hunger Sermon Word Versions

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if you could not afford to offer a bull, then you offered a goat or sheep. If not a sheep, then abird. Access to God was not limited by economic background.

In chapter 2 ofVayikra, the person bringing a grain offering to God is described as a nefesh. Inancient Hebrew, a nefesh means simply a person, but starting in the rabbinic period, nefesh couldalso mean a soul. The Rabbis played with this double meaning to suggest that a poor personbringing some of her produce as a sacrifice was literally bringing part of her soul to God,

because to contribute from the sustenance of her household to God was like giving part ofherself.1The rabbis tell the story of a poor woman who brought fine flour to the Temple as asacrifice. The priest sneered at her: See what she offers! Is this really good enough to eat orsacrifice? He felt cheated out of the majestic meal that an offering of a goat or bull would havegiven him. In a dream, he was told: Do not despise her! It is regarded as if she had sacrificedher own life.2

The priest was so caught up in his own expectations, with the abundance usually signified byanimal sacrifices (and perhaps the rich portion that he as the priest would receive), that he couldnot appreciate the sacrifice made by the person in front of him. What if he had been willing tolisten to the woman, to hear about all that had gone into her sacrifice? In the dream, he is

rebuked for ignoring the fact that the simple grain offering cost more to her than an offering ofmeat from a wealthy person.

I think many of us can relate to getting caught up in our own reality like the priest did, even withsomething positive, like tzedakah. We commit ourselves to helping others, but we do not alwaysstop to listen to the perspectives of those we are trying to help.

Today, over 1.1 billion people face chronic hunger in the world. To raise awareness about thisserious crisis, this weekend we are participating in a nationwide effort organized by AmericanJewish World Service called Global Hunger Shabbat. I would like to take the opportunity duringthis sermon to share stories with you about the experiences of communities around the world

who face chronic hunger and are working to overcome it. By listening to their stories, we canlearn about these communities and hear their perspectives. In addressing global hunger, thisprocess is critical. Unless we hear from those who are facing hunger, we cannot know how bestto help them meet their needs.

1 See MidrashLeviticus Rabbah, chapter 3.2Leviticus Rabbah 3:5.


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2. Passover

During the Passoverseder, we recount the story of the Exodus from Egypt. In retelling this story,we are asked to imagine ourselves in the footsteps of our ancestors. We eat matzah to simulatetheir experience of fleeing from Egypt with no time to wait for the bread to rise. We attempt totransport ourselves back in time to experience what it felt like to be slaves, to be freed by Godand to wander in the desert.

Towards the beginning of the Passoverseder, it is traditional to uncover the matzah and say, Halachma anyathis is the bread of poverty that our ancestors ate when they were slaves in Egypt.Let all who are hungry come and eat. I would like to propose that this Passover, we use matzahnot only to remind ourselves of the poverty and slavery our ancestors faced in Egypt, but also toremind us of the over 1.1 billion people who face hunger today.

To raise awareness about this serious crisis, this weekend we are participating in a nationwideeffort organized by American Jewish World Service called Global Hunger Shabbat. I would liketo take the opportunity during this sermon to share stories with you about the experiences ofcommunities around the world who face chronic hunger and are working to overcome it. Welearn from Passover that storytelling is a powerful tool of transportation. By listening to their

stories, we can learn about these communities and hear their perspectives. In addressing globalhunger, this process is critical. Unless we hear from those who are facing hunger, we cannotknow how best to help them meet their needs.

3. An Informal Story

At a Jewish summer camp, a counselor was teaching her campers about the importance ofdonating food to feed those facing hunger. One little girlmaybe she was six or sevengot veryupset. If people were hungry, she argued, wasnt it because they had spent all of their money?Didnt they deserve to be hungry? Her counselor explained that it was more complicated thanthat. Sometimes people didnt have enough to eat because their salaries didnt cover the risingcost of food, or because they had to spend most of their money on rent or medicine. Sometimes

people were hungry because the food they planted did not grow; it rained too much or too little,or it was too cold or too hot. As the counselor talked, she wasnt sure her camper understood.

Over time, it has been hard for the counselor to shake her feeling that she did not give anadequate answer to the girls question. She sought out a better answer, learning about thecomplexities of global hunger. She learned that hunger today is not a problem stemming from alack of food, but from the absence of an equitable system to ensure that even the worlds poorestcommunities can achieve food securityeither by growing food themselves or having fair access


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long term. But helping people achieve self-sufficiencyfar more than ensuring they have foodon their table just tonightis an essential and distinctive part of the Jewish solution to hunger.We must help those facing hunger to move beyond dependency, reaching a state of self-sufficiency in which they are truly strengthened. Our challenge and our responsibility is togive in a way that provides people with the means to help themselves.

To raise awareness about the crisis of global hunger, this weekend we are participating in a

nationwide effort organized by American Jewish World Service called Global Hunger Shabbat.The first step to helping people become self-sufficient is to come to deeply understand theproblem that they are facing. I would like to take the opportunity during this sermon to sharestories with you about the experiences of communities around the world who face chronichunger and are working to overcome it. By listening to their stories, we can learn about thesecommunities and hear their perspectives. In addressing global hunger, this process is critical.Unless we hear from those who are facing hunger, we cannot know how best to help themachieve self-sufficiency. And the timing could not be more urgent.

Telling the story of hunger today: The stories of grassroots solutions to hunger

(Note to the person giving the sermon: Three different AJWS granteesall community-basedorganizations that were founded by communities which themselves experienced hungerare

highlighted to tell the story of hunger. Please feel free to shorten or adapt them as necessary.

The story of each grantee is told underneath the name of the organization.)

Kilili Self-Help Project (KSHP), KenyaIn Kenya, there is a farmer responsible for feeding her large extended family from the earningsof a small farm. For decades, the crops she grew were enough to pay for food, clothing, medicineand other basic needs. But in recent years, it has been harder and harder to earn a living from thatsmall farm. In some years, like this past one, the problem is worsened by drought, but in general,small farms are failing in Kenya because of an intangible threat: free trade agreements between

Kenya and countries like our own. Free trade has brought an influx of cheap imports intodeveloping countries. Nations like the U.S., whose governments subsidize staples like wheat andcorn, export their crops in bulk and sell them at rock-bottom prices in places like Kenya.

You might think that cheap food would make it easier for this farmer to feed her family, but ithas the opposite effect. The subsidized imports are sold so cheaply at her local marketplace thatshe cant compete with their prices when she attempts to sell her own crops. All around her, shesees many of her fellow small-scale farmers, who used to be able to feed themselves and their


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communities, giving uptheir farms abandoned or incorporated into industrial farms to growcash crops (such as coffee, tea and flowers) for export. Today, Kenyan farmers grow only 50percent of the food necessary to feed the countrys 35 million citizens. This becomes disastrouswhen the imports are suddenly no longer cheap, like what happened in 2008 when the globalprice of food skyrocketed. Without local agriculture to serve as a fallback, people go hungry.

Luckily, this farmer became part of a community effort to reduce dependence on foreign imports.

Members of her community founded Kilili Self-Help Project, or KSHP, to help local farmersreestablish local, organic sustainable farms to fill the gap in food production. Since 1989, Kililihas worked with more than 100,000 local growers. With its help, communities learn to feedthemselves sustainably and more nutritiously by introducing ecologically sound farming methodsthat improve the soil over the long term and enable them to grow more food. These organicfarming techniques actually produce more food than conventional farming and use less water,another scarce resource in Kenya. Using these methods increases yields and decreases the cost offarming, enabling local farmers to compete with imported foods.

More than half of those helped by KSHP are women, like the subject in this story. She now earnsmore than $100 a month from her farm, enough to feed and sustain her family. Likewise, another

KSHP farmer said: We didnt know that farming can be done without spending so much money.We have always thought that without money, we cannot do farming. We have found that we canmake our own fertilizers and grow our own seeds.

Their experiences are not unique. KSHP has empowered farmers to achieve food security forthemselves and their communities. Their families are fed nutritiously and their health hasimproved, raising the standard of living for the communities where they live. Groups like KSHPare helping communities all over the world respond to the changed agricultural economy thatthey now face. This is an important part of the solution to ending global hunger today.

Association for Community Development of the Cienaga Grande (ASPROCIG), ColombiaThe Embera-Katio people have lived along the Sinu River in Northern Colombia for generations.It provided them with a way to travel, a source of irrigation and drinking water, and plentifulfood. They imagined that they would always be able to sustain themselves from this life-givingriver. They lived lives of relative prosperity, built on the values of sustainability andenvironmental stewardship promoted by their care of the river.


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Rural Organization for Social Education (ROSE), IndiaMrs. Chandra is a farmer in the Pudokatti district of Tamil Nadu, India. Like many women in herdistrict and around the world, she faces gender discrimination that impacts her ability to farmeffectively. Local tradition impedes women from handling financial matters or owning landindependently. Gender discrimination creates an unfortunate paradox in India and in manydeveloping countries. Women are often the primary growers of foodin some cases responsiblefor as much as 80 percent of food productionbut are denied access to sustainable, independent

livelihoods because they are marginalized from land ownership, management of food productionand other decision-making processes in their villages and districts.

But in Mrs. Chandras district, a group of activists called the Rural Organization for SocialEducation (ROSE) is working to empower marginalized women farmers. ROSE helps them formfarming collectives, and by working together, they are better able to gain access to land,financing and agricultural inputs such as seeds. ROSE trains women as peer educators. They passskills and knowledge woman-to-woman to create a community of capable, confident farmers.They learn to maximize the land and resources that they have available to them by utilizingorganic farming practices that enhance the nutrients in the soil and by making use of native plantspecies that are best suited to Indias climate and weather conditions. They also learn to control

pests and raise livestock to generate income. By building networks and becoming more effectivefarmers, these women not only build their capacities to provide for their families andcommunities, but also become strong, credible voices for womens rights. ROSE facilitates thisby teaching these women farmers about their legal rights, and empowering them to advocate tothe government to promote and protect these rights.

In Mrs. Chandras community, the benefits of ROSEs approach are obvious. The women areable to feed their families, producing the affordable food and income so critical to fightinghunger at the local level. She says: I feel this project is very important to our community, as ithas lit our hopes again for our farming operations. Now I am one of the role models in ourvillage, because I have practiced the techniques and had good results. As they empower women

farmers and respond to the needs of their communities, groups like ROSE are an important partof the solution to ending global hunger today.

Identifying the Problem

Global hunger is one of the most pressing challenges facing our world today. Every day over onebillion people go hungry. Twenty-five thousand people die each day due to malnutrition. Everysix seconds a child dies from starvation. More than 60 percent of those who are chronically


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hungry are women. As Jews, we simply cannot accept a world so needlessly broken.

As the stories weve heard today illustrate, hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food around theworld. Hunger today is caused by trade policies that favor corporate industry over the poor, bythe disruption of local food systems and by the violation of peoples rights to their land andwater resources.3

Achieving Justice

In Deuteronomy we read: Justice, justice, shall you pursue.4 The language is active: we cannotwait for justice to come; rather, we must pursue it ourselves. Now that we have heard the story ofcommunities working to end hunger, what can we do? We must continue to empower thoseworking on the ground in the fight against hunger, learn what kind of advocacy we can do herein the United States, understand how our consumption choices affect food security around theworld and educate ourselves about the ongoing situation. Ending hunger is not an impossiblegoal.

Taking Action

So how can we help? The stories Ive just shared remind us that communities facing hunger can,themselves, best articulate and advance the solutions that will meet their own needs. The threestories I told show communities taking action to change their realities, and they are just three ofthousands. Communities around the world are organizing to claim their land and water rights,grow food sustainably and protect their local food systems. There is a name for their movementit is called food sovereignty. Food sovereignty means that consumers have the right tohealthy and desirable food, producers have the right to grow what they want to grow, developingcountries have the right to determine their own trade and agricultural policies, and local foodsystems should be prioritized over international interests. The most important part of the foodsovereignty movement is that it empowers local communities to become self-sufficient. It putslocal producerspeasant farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous peopleback at the heart of

decision-making processes on food policy and efforts to alleviate hunger. This is truly thegreatest expression of Maimonides highest level oftzedakah: strengthening a person so that sheno longer relies on aid.

We can support the efforts of those working to achieve food sovereignty in a variety of ways.

3 For more information on the root causes of hunger, please visitwww.ajws.org/hunger.4 Deuteronomy 16:20.
http://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.ajws.org/hunger


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(Note to the sermon giver: The Global Hunger Shabbat materials include a five-part action plan

for your community. These actions are summarized here, but we encourage you to distribute the

Taking Action handout at services.)

Learn & Teach: AJWS has created several resources to make it easy for you to learn and teachothers about global hunger. Visit www.ajws.org/hungerto download these resources, whichinclude: a solidarity plate kit to create an easy-to-use learning tool for the Shabbat table; a text

study to lead a discussion about hunger, tzedakah andglobal justice; and information about thecauses of and solutions to global hunger.

Advocate: Speak out on behalf of those experiencing hunger to those who develop U.S. policy.Food is a human right, necessary for life. American Jewish World Service calls on policymakersto make U.S. food aid, trade and agribusiness policies reflect that imperative, and the success ofthese initiatives depends on the participation of individuals. To receive policy updates and tolearn ways that you can take action, sign up online at www.ajws.org/hungeror send back anadvocacy postcard.Note to sermon-giver: feel free to distribute the advocacy postcards to yourcongregants and encourage them to complete them and mail them back to AJWS).

Give: Support the efforts of communities who are working to achieve food sovereignty. Byempowering those working on the ground to end hunger, we enable communities to helpthemselves. Support organizations like American Jewish World Service that fund the efforts ofgrassroots organizations around the world, like those that we heard about today, to end hunger intheir communities.

Spend Responsibly: Choose to buy ethically produced products. Small-scale farmers indeveloping countries often struggle to compete in a global production and distribution systemthat favors larger growers and multinational corporations. Products labeled Fair TradeCertified are produced using sustainable techniques and equitable business practices that helpsmall-scale farmers get a leg up. The Better Beans Project, a partnership between American

Jewish World Service and Equal Exchange, is one example of a fair trade initiative that creates aglobal market for these farmers and provides them with access to the financial resources theyneed to operate. Use Fair Trade Certified products, such as those from the Better Beans Project,in your home and community by visiting www.equalexchange.coop/ajws.

Serve: Volunteer locally through your own community initiatives or participate in a serviceprogram globally with AJWS. There is no better way to learn about the complex challengescommunities face in fighting poverty and hunger than to volunteer. We can be better advocates
http://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.equalexchange.coop/ajwshttp://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.ajws.org/hungerhttp://www.equalexchange.coop/ajws


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for policies to end hunger when we understand the root causes. Learn more about programs thatAJWS offers for teens and adults to make a difference in peoples lives and become true voicesfor change.

Conclusion

The Rabbis tell the story5 that Rabbi Joshua son of Levi met the prophet Elijah and asked him,

What day will the Messiah come? Go and ask him, replied Elijah, he is sitting at the gate ofthe city among the poor lepers. Rabbi Joshua went to greet him, saying, Peace upon you,Master and Teacher. Peace upon you, O son of Levi, he replied. When will you come,Master? asked Rabbi Joshua. Today, was the Messiahs answer. When Rabbi Joshua returnedto Elijah, he complained, He spoke falsely to me, stating he would come today, but he has not.Said Elijah, He was quoting the verse from Psalms: Today, if only you would hear myvoice.6

Like Elijahs response to Rabbi Joshua, the solutions to global hunger are in front of us, if onlywe are willing to listen closely. We know the actions we must take to show that we have heard.As we observe Global Hunger Shabbat, may we be among those capable of saying that we heard

those voices and took up their struggle.

5 Sanhedrin 98.6 Psalms 95: 7.

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