Here is the d'var Torah that I gave this past Shabbat on my experience:

Taking the Food Stamp Challenge

Shabbat Chayei Sarah

November 19, 2011

Ohr Kodesh Congregation

As many of you are aware, for the past week, I have participated in the Food Stamp Challenge. During this time, I ate on a budget of $31.50 for the week, the average amount that an adult on food stamps receives. The Food Stamp Challenge is a national initiative publicized by the Food Research and Action Center in 2007.  Over the past four years, Members of Congress, governors, state officials, journalists and other community leaders have taken the Challenge to experience firsthand what it takes to make ends meet on the average food stamp benefit.  This year, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs partnered with an organization called Faith in Action to encourage leaders in the Jewish community to take this Challenge.

A quick look at the statistics regarding Food Stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP – as it is formally known.  I am not, nor will I pretend to be, a policy expert – many people here could speak much more eloquently and knowledgably about the policy issues than I can or will.  However, some basic information in understanding the situation of hunger in America will help set the context:

•  In 2010, more than 40 million people received an average of $133.79 per month.  This is the largest number on this program in our country’s history - nearly double the number of people who received this benefit in 2002, and 7 million more than received it in 2009 – the biggest one year jump in the program’s history. 
• The Federal government spent $68 billion dollars on SNAP in 2010, roughly 2% of the Federal budget. Again compare this to 2002, when the total cost of the program was $20 billion.
•  To be eligible for SNAP in FY 2011-12 a family of 4 must earn a total gross income of less than $29,000 a year.

These statistics paint a frightening picture, as the needs and subsequent costs of the program skyrocket.

I'm still not sure why I responded to this call to action, among the dozens of emails I receive asking me to participate in actions for worthy causes. Issues of poverty and hunger in America are important to me, but so are many other issues and I haven't acted upon many of the others. Part of what drew me to this action, ironically, is also one of its limitations – it felt “doable.”  It wasn’t asking me to do this for a month or for a year. I didn’t have to attend evening meetings or out-of-town conventions.  While I knew it wouldn’t be easy, I thought I could do this without disrupting my every-day life.

But, as I mentioned, this “do-ability” is also one of its limitations.  One member of the congregation, who agreed to have me share her comments, offered the follow critique:

This is a stunt…If you were really trying to do it, you would have to make the commitment that you and your family would simply accept poverty level income plus food stamps and other government benefits for a prolonged period of time – without the assurance that Ohr Kodesh would be waiting for you when you are finished.  Then, you would take the income and the food stamp allowance for your family – not the single allocation for you – and figure out what to buy in bulk and how to combine assets.  That what real people in poverty do.  Then, you would have to give up your car and figure out how to find a grocery store on the bus line and schlep everything home.  And you couldn’t use the Supergiant on E-W Highway because that’s too close to your house… And at the end – no, there would be no “end” because people live that way for months and years and entire lifetimes, so there is no relief at the end to say, “Well, I did that and now I know how it feels.”

You won’t.  And even for those for whom poverty ends, they don’t know when it will end, there is no calendar for it.  

The writer is, of course, correct. This is a stunt whose point is to raise awareness. My participation in the Challenge does nothing to change the face of food insecurity in America. I was constantly aware of this deficiency while I was taking the Challenge. During this week, I still slept in a comfortable bed in a warm home, drove in my car, carefully planned my meals with consideration to nutrition and health, had use of the internet, friends (including a nutritionist), and cookbooks to aide me in planning my meals, shopped around for the best deals, filled up my gas tank, etc.  I was not living a life of poverty and I was not experiencing the life of a person who lives on food stamps.  But even with these limitations, taking this Challenge provided me with some important insights that I would not have understood without it.

I became keenly aware of how casual I usually am about what I eat and how much it costs. I grew up in a home that was middle class – by my teens, we were more comfortable, but for most of my childhood, my parents were extremely careful about every dollar spent.  We never lacked for anything significant but there were times when money was tight. My parents instilled within me the need to be careful with money, and I took that message to heart when it comes to what I thought of as the “big ticket items.” Yet with food, I generally did not make that connection.  Typically, I look at prices at the grocery store and try to buy things on sale, but I don’t usually make menu decisions based on the cost of the meal.

In contrast, this week, I needed to plan out every meal: what I would eat, where I would eat it, making sure I always had a water bottle with me so that I wouldn’t have to purchase a beverage.  I couldn’t snack and I had to eat the same things over and over again.  At one point, I developed headaches and grew irritable.  I didn’t eat any meat, cheese, or yogurt for the entire week.  I had one banana a day, but no other fruit.  My vegetables for the entire week consisted of one package of carrots, 4 potatoes and an onion – most of which went into a lentil soup that sustained me throughout the week.  [As a side note, I also began to understand why Esav was willing to sell his birthright for a bowl of lentils!]  My daily menu was a bowl of cheerios or scrambled eggs and a banana for breakfast, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sometimes a bowl of lentil soup for lunch, another bowl of the lentil soup and kasha varnishkes (bowtie pasta with buckwheat) or rice and beans for dinner.

My meals were boring and bland and sometimes when I would see other food, it was hard to remember not to eat it.  And yet, I cannot say that I truly suffered – I had enough food to sustain myself. But, I only did this for one week – I chose the beginning point and the end point.  As the writer of the e-mail that I referred to earlier noted, if I were truly living off of SNAP “there would be no ‘end’ because people live that way for months and years and entire lifetimes, so there is no relief at the end.”

Oh, and did I mention water?  I never drank as much water as I did this week.  Since there was no money for beverages, water was the only thing I drank all week, with the exception of one cup of tea each day.  Whenever I was thirsty, I drank water; whenever I was hungry, I drank water; if I was around other people eating, I drank water. No juice, no coffee, no soda, no wine – not necessarily unhealthy, but definitely unusual for me. I probably drank 12-15 glasses of water a day.

As I identified with Esav regarding the lentils, I also gained new insight about the role of water in this week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah.

As we read this morning, shortly after Sarah’s death, Avraham sent his servant Eliezer to go back to his ancestral homeland in Nachor and find a wife for Yitzchak. After a brief conversation, Eliezer departs on his mission and arrives just outside of the city, near the wells where women would come each morning to draw water for the day. With no instruction from Avraham on how to pick Yitzchak’s wife, Eliezer devises a test: When the women came to draw water from the well, he would ask for a bit of water for himself.  The woman who offered water for him and also for his camel would be the right match for Yitzchak.  No sooner does he devise the test than Rivkah appears and does exactly as he described.

Why this test?  What was it about drawing water for him and also for his camel that was so compelling?  First, of course, we know that water is the essence of life.  Our tradition makes numerous references to mayim chayim – living water or the water of life.  We know from science that our bodies are made mostly of water, our earth is made mostly of water and without water there can be no life.  When the rabbis want to emphasize the importance of Torah, they use the metaphor of water.  Water is a basic element necessary for life. 

The medieval commentator Rashi writes about Eliezer’s test and notes that the act of sharing her water with Eliezer and his camel proves that Rivkah is worthy of Yitzchak and worthy of entering Avraham’s house because it demonstrates her value of g’milut chasadim – acts of loving kindness. 

The commentator Kli Yakar takes this notion of g’milut chasadim and notes 3 aspects of this test:

1. First, he points out that this story is juxtaposed with the story at s’deh Ephron, in which Avraham negotiates the purchase of Sarah’s burial place. He posits that Avraham demanded that Yitzchak’s wife not come from Canaan because his experience with the Canaanites in those negotiations showed him that they value money above all else.  In the case of Eliezer’s test for Yitzchak’s wife, we see that an ayin tovah u’g’milut chasadim – a good eye and acting kindly – were most important.  Giving water to his camel, even though he only asks for water for himself, is proof of her strong sense of g’milut chasadim.
2. He also notes that there is a hint of this idea within the wording itself.  The word gamal (camel), and especially in the form of g’malecha (your camel) – is close in form to the word g’milut chasadim. 
3. Finally, he notes that g’milut chasadim – acts of loving kindness – is a binyan av – a paradigm– for all values. He writes that if you find someone who is strong in this value, you don’t need to check further about that person’s character.

Rivkah, we are taught, is the right match for Yitzchak because she excels in doing acts of lovingkindness – proven by the way she looks out not only for Eliezer’s needs, but also for the needs of his camel.

Prior to taking the challenge, I probably could have drawn the parallel between Rivkah’s exemplary spirit of g’milut chasadim as qualification to be Yitzchak’s wife and our own need to reach beyond ourselves to help the hungry in our own community.  But there is one additional insight from this story that I only learned from my experience this week.

As the story is told, Rivkah shows up immediately after Eliezer finished devising his test.  But it also states that he was there at the eit tzet hashoavot – the time when women came to draw water.  I presume there were many women who were there. I wonder how they reacted when they saw this man come riding across the desert.  I imagine that most would have simply turned aside – averted their eyes, ignored his request, too busy with their own needs and the needs of their family to stop and help a stranger. Rivkah, on the other hand, reached beyond herself and not only took care of his request – to give him a bit of water – but exceeded it by giving him as much as he needed and then looking after his camel as well.

The Torah gives no indication that Rivkah knew who Eliezer was or why he was there.  She acted assuming that he was a total stranger, an “other.”  But, in the course of reaching beyond herself and treating him kindly, she discovered he was not a stranger at all, but an important part of her family.

In the end, the most meaningful part of taking the Food Stamp Challenge for me came from unexpected places.  I received e-mails and Facebook messages, comments on my blog, people stopping me in stores and on the streets.  Our internet world allowed me to share my experience with hundreds of other people and, in turn, dozens of people shared their experiences with me. I am especially grateful to those individuals who shared with me their personal experience of life on food stamps. In taking the Food Stamp Challenge, I thought I was learning more about the anonymous “other,” the stranger,  but just like Rivkah, as I tried to reach beyond myself, I discovered that food stamp recipients are not strangers – they are here within our own community.  They are our friends, congregants and members of our family. They are, too often, hidden and embarrassed, but they are here.  

Consider the following e-mail from a member of the congregation, again shared with permission:

I just read about your food stamp challenge.  Bravo for accepting what will be a lesson in what is necessary vs. not, and learning to live without the simple pleasures that we are so used to.

I lived on public assistance with my child when times were excruciatingly tough after my divorce.   

There are a few things that I learned along the way, too.  Members of the Jewish community are completely unaware that there are people within their OWN community who are in need.  We often think of "other" groups as participants in such programs, but not our own.  I can't tell you how many times I went out of my way to shop in a store where people that I might know would not see me pay for groceries.  I always looked around the doctor and dentist's office before taking out my Medicare card at my child’s appointments.  And I personally was without any and all medical insurance for years.  While you are blogging about this experience, some people are going out of the way to not be humiliated.  Sadly, it is still not something that we feel comfortable talking about so as not to be judged.  

I hope that if you can share one thing about this experience with readers it is that this is life for people right in THEIR OWN community, in THEIR OWN neighborhood.  Many thanks for raising awareness.

And, so too, this one:

I saw you were doing the food stamp challenge. I thought I would send you a message on that. Maybe it can help(?) My husband and I are raising 3 kids on $30,000. He works very hard 6 days a week doing construction. I work 3 part time jobs, subbing at the schools, cutting hair and babysitting. Our mortgage is $1600.00 a month. Yes, we are on food stamps. Now here is the catch. Because our oldest son is living under our roof and working at Chipotle, they are taking away our medical, AND our $32.00/per person food stamps is becoming $25.00/per person a week…We work so hard, raise our kids right and can’t get ahead. I don’t see how barely giving us food will help :( I don’t know if this will help your project, you are welcome to use my "story", please just don’t use our real names. Good luck :)

It is important to note that for the congregant who critiqued this program (calling it a “stunt”) also noted that this was a personal issue:

As a child, we had experience with this sort of thing…and you can’t get there from where you are.

 My family ended up some distance from where it started (and my children ended up a very long way from where my parents and grandparents were), but the process was long and incremental.

There is a serious conversation to be had about food insecurity in the United States.

In the end, I feel that taking on this Challenge was a small, but important, attempt to understand this issue better.  I am keenly aware that my participation did not feed anyone who was hungry, nor did it change policy for programs that impact the hungry. But I did come away knowing that the 40 million Americans that I mentioned at the beginning are not some faceless mass. They are people right here in our community – they are our friends and they are our family.  And, too often, we simply avert our eyes.

My hope is that participating in this Challenge has helped permanently opened my eyes in a way that will lead me to better answer when I hear a stranger’s call for help. I hope that this experience will help me, and all of us, to emulate the spirit of Rivkah, reaching beyond ourselves, through acts of loving kindness.  In doing so, may we become worthy, like Rivkah, to be called ba’alei g’milut chasadim – masters of loving kindness.  I believe that there can be no greater title.