Congregation Beth Shalom

Yom Kippur 5768

Is this the fast?

Rabbi David Wechsler-Azen

It is considered impolite to talk about food on Yom Kippur when we are all fasting, so I beg your forgiveness at whetting your appetite in any way.   Nevertheless, biblical and prophetic texts call to us today to address the hunger in our midst.    Our Torah calls to us:    Justice, justice shall you pursue.    And in our haftarah, the prophet Isaiah reports that God asks:    Is this the fast I have chosen?    Rather than put on sackcloth and ashes, we are commanded to feed the hungry.    God does not want a show of piety, God wants results in the area of the pursuit of social justice.

In that vein, I ask you to consider what is the common factor among the following items:

The smallest size Jamba Juice.

A medium latte at Starbucks.

A cantaloupe at the supermarket.

A drive-through breakfast sandwich meal.

Each of these costs more than the money given a food-stamp recipient to live on for one day.    Three dollars a day, one dollar per meal.    Worse, as limited as this help is, California has one of the lowest participation rates – 40% of those eligible in California for food stamps and the federal dollars that come with them do not take part in the program.

And perhaps most confounding of all, US farm policy and subsidies over the last 50 years has made corn king, so that sodas laced with corn syrup and corn-fed meat cost far less than fresh fruits and vegetables.    This unfree market contributes mightily to the epidemic of obesity, diabetes and other chronic illnesses, especially among low-income populations.

This past year, I’ve been getting involved with the Sacramento Hunger Coalition, a group of concerned citizens and organizations that created a Hunger Action Day.    In teams of four or five, we went to lobby legislators and their staff members to support various changes to laws regarding applying for food stamps and maintaining eligibility.   

One of my team was a mother who was living temporarily with her family at a homeless shelter.    As it happens, she and her husband and children also were here at Beth Shalom during our Family Promise week.    The reality of life on food stamps became more real as I got to know her in those different settings.   She seemed to be one of the lucky ones, as she was on the verge of getting housing a few weeks after her stay here.

In order to receive food stamps, you must earn 135% of the poverty line or less and you can have very little in savings.    In other words, before you are eligible you must hit rock bottom.    Not being able to accumulate equity has been a huge stumbling block to getting out of poverty.    Recently, Individual Development Accounts have emerged which allow impoverished people to save for home ownership, post secondary education and career training, and to receive matching funds from various institutions.

However, California has made entering and staying on the rolls for food stamps extremely cumbersome, thereby depriving the state economy and the poor of the federal dollars available (over $2 billion each year).     Countless forms need to be filled out, requiring lots of time off from work.    And instead of having to do this every six months as in all but three states, California’s poor have to do it every three months.    And everyone in the household, elderly included, have to get fingerprinted.    The cost of defending against fraud is far greater than any actual fraud would be.    It would also ease matters if someone was eligible for one program such as Medicaid to be automatically eligible for food stamps.

The farm bill passed by the House has added to the amount of money available for food stamps, but still needs to pass the Senate.    Our Senators are undoubtedly on the right side of the equation, but still need to hear from us.    And even more so, our state legislators can pass certain bills in front of them that would make access to food stamp dollars easier.    See the Recipe for America website to get specifics on which bills to support.

Nonetheless, even modest increases in food stamp benefits will still leave many without easy access to high quality, affordable produce, unless some other means is employed.    This is in part because farm policy up until the most recent farm bill has focused on subsidizing commodity crops like corn and wheat and soybeans, and because cows and even salmon have been trained to eat corn rather than what nature intended them to eat.    Prices of triple burgers and super-sized corn-sweetened everything are artificially low, while mostly unsubsidized fresh produce remains too expensive.    Check out the book, the Omnivore’s Dilemma for details.

If you were a single person eating on $3 a day, you’d spend more than half your daily allotment to get one avocado.    You could eat red peppers if you could subsist on a pound of them for 24 hours.    You could get a little bit of chicken, but most of what you would end up spending your money on would be carbs—mac and cheese, pasta, rice and beans.

If you were to try the Food Stamp Diet Challenge and live for a week on this level of consumption, you would find yourself debilitated physically and exhausted emotionally.    As Eric Schockman, President of Mazon, a Jewish Response to Hunger wrote:    “I was lethargic and found that I lacked my usual enthusiasm for getting through the day.    I had difficulty reading, writing, communicating – doing anything other than anticipating (and, in some ways, dreading) my next meal.”

While the Central Valley is an amazing source of great fresh products, so little of it gets into neighborhoods where it is needed most.    In the most underserved neighborhoods in Sacramento, there are five times as many fast food places as spots where someone can pick up fresh fruits and vegetables.    And in those neighborhoods, many people don’t have cars and public transportation may be limited.    Some have to take three different buses to get to a fresh food store.

Healthy eating is an access issue, not just an education issue.    As I’ve gotten more involved over the past year in ways I will shortly describe, I’ve heard countless stories about how even teenagers in disadvantaged circumstances will head right for a bowl of apples.    People get that fruits and veggies are good, but they have to be easier to obtain and to afford.    And at the same time, children who have been raised on non-nutritious foods need extra motivation to make different choices. And both of these factors, access and motivation, are things that we are now in a position to do something about.

Having grown up with Wonder Bread and a favorite salad that consisted of a couple of pieces of iceberg lettuce, cottage cheese and a slice of canned pineapple, all I can say is that I'm so glad I inherited a decent sense of humor from my mom.    Rabbi Nancy is not only creative in synagogue life but in the kitchen too, and so I have been blessed with a second act in American eating.    As a result of the wonders she performs with vegetables and the commitment to fresh fruit every morning, a year ago I began to feel a passionate commitment to enabling and inspiring young people to eat more healthfully.

In the process of thinking about how to motivate better eating, I had a thought that, as it turns out, hasn’t really been tried before.    I am the son of a salesman, a salesman with one of the toughest products to sell – life insurance.    So how do you sell investment now in something that will only pay benefits later, especially to the young who notoriously do not think beyond the demands of the day, if even that far in advance?    You create incentives.

With the help of a number of congregants, Fresh Producers has become a reality, and offers our congregation a vehicle for the pursuit of social justice and welfare, a means to increase access to fresh food in underserved neighborhoods and to motivate young people to eat more healthfully.

What we have set up is a youth led non-profit corporation in which students ages 7-17 can become sales reps for fresh fruits and vegetables.    Younger ones will receive rewards and prizes for their efforts to keep them engaged.    High school students can make a buck a box as they sell $10 units to family, friends and neighbors.   When you purchase produce at the supermarket, you’re paying a 50-100% markup over the wholesale price. Fresh Producers affiliates are able to order directly from wholesalers by the case and repack the produce for local residents, at affordable prices even with incentives for students built in.

In addition, a percentage of all sales will go into a collective fund, the Fresh Producers Trust, which will enable all participants who graduate high school to head onto the next phase of life with some equity in hand – to be used for further education, career training, or even to start their own business.    Every student who becomes a Fresh Producer will know that it pays to stay in school, literally.

By engaging students through economic and social returns on their involvement in promoting fresh food, they will not only receive nutrition education, but become ambassadors for healthy eating.    Youth will make the connection that every piece of produce they eat and that is consumed by the people to whom they sell, gives something back to them, in terms of increased health and economic potential.    Not only will they receive sales training and financial literacy seminars, they can become managers of the business, gaining skills for success.

Produce comes from the Latin, to bring into being.    Fresh Producers are high school graduates who will have the ability to bring their dreams to life.

Fresh Producers is beginning to make an impact.    Two weeks ago, thirty high school Fresh Producer participants in the Oak Park Youth Works program staffed a produce sales booth in McClatchy Park at the Oak Park Musicfest.    They have begun to take orders for fresh food that will be delivered weekly to the Oak Park Community Center starting in October.

Oak Park, as you may know, is one of the areas in Sacramento with the least access to fresh produce.    Even though there’s a farmers market under the freeway nearby, it doesn’t allow the use of EBT cards – Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, the new form of food stamps that reduces fraud.    In fact, they don’t take cards of any kind.    Fresh Producers is now qualified to receive food stamp benefits.

One of the high school students we’ve been working with told us that this program can make a huge difference, since by mid-month when her family’s benefits are running low, they are living on canned vegetables with huge amounts of sodium, and canned fruits with large amounts of added sugar.    Diabetes and hypertension run in her family.    Her well-being and that of thousands of other children, teens and adults can be improved by our efforts.

We’ve been invited to promote the program to the 4,000 expected at a Land Park event for the Healthy Start Program and an affordable housing center in Natomas wants us to help set up a delivery site there.     We will also be setting up delivery sites at the Boys and Girls Clubs, private and public schools, as well as houses of worship.    A professor of Nutrition affiliated with a synagogue in San Jose wants more information on how to start the program there, and everyone who has heard about the program at various conferences and other venues wants to know how soon the program will be statewide.

Before I go any further, I want to thank some of the members of our community who have helped the program arrive at this moment—as this process has unfolded, it has been astonishing to discover so many resources right in our own synagogue.

Liz Miller, a pediatrician and member of the faculty at UC Davis in the program on Schools and Community Health, first heard the idea at a dinner in the sukkah last year, and invited me to present to a forum on Adolescent Health.    From there we got into the Sac City School district and the Health Professions High School, and she has been instrumental in making institutional connections and writing what we hope will soon be successful grant proposals.    She is fasting in Taiwan at a conference this Yom Kippur, but we are delighted that her husband Josh and children Hannah and JoeJoe and she are members of our congregation.

Rose Mary Swart has given countless hours, and as a retired State employee who administered a number of statewide programs, she has given organizational shape to an idea that could have foundered on the shoals of too many directions and moving parts.    Her husband Dan has helped advise regarding the organizational structure.

Michael Alcalay and Scott Mayer helped focus the aims and actions of the concept and Ed Howard, as a lobbyist for causes involving children has provided great advice and contacts to the Governor’s Senior health advisor.    David Ginsburg, as assistant chief of the Network for a Healthy California has opened many doors in the circles of state agencies helping to promote health.

Richard Hassman made the pitch to the owners of the Eliot Management Group that has resulted in a donated wireless card machine, waived service fees and reduced processing rates.    Penny Clarke, who oversees the County and its programs involving health has also introduced us to key people in the region.

We now invite the entire congregation to become involved in whatever way you can.    As descendants of Abraham and Sarah, we are called to be a blessing to all of the families of the earth.    What more profound way to witness to the beauty and power of Judaism’s commitment to everyone’s well-being than to bring blessings to the meals of countless families in our area, and beyond?

Our aim is for this program to become a signature social action initiative of Congregation Beth Shalom.    It strengthens our synagogue to be engaged in issues of the wider world and to be known in the surrounding area for a commitment to the well-being of everyone.    In our day and age, quite frankly, doing the right thing and being known for it is important as an antidote to some of the other garbage being flung our way.    There is a reason Mazon is subtitled, a Jewish Response to Hunger.    We want everyone out there to know that we are involved and dedicated to social justice.

There are a number of ways in which you can get involved and support Fresh Producers.    First and foremost, don’t give money to the program, give your tzedakah dollars to the synagogue.    However, encourage family and friends outside of the synagogue to support it with their contributions.    Encourage them to visit FreshProducers.org and make a donation.

We’re also happy to have local and larger businesses become sponsors of the program.    Any business that wants to associate itself with youth and community health and empowerment will find this an up and coming vehicle for great association.

Further, if your own youth want to help establish and manage a delivery site, they can earn money for future education as well as community service hours.    Adults can help manage sites or contribute other business and networking skills to the program.    Fresh Producers also is the Health Education Council’s recommended organization for Worksite Wellness Coordinators to contact to bring fresh food snacks and take home parcels to employees.

If you work in a business that is involved with or could benefit from wellness initiatives, you can make the connection to our work.    We also have made contacts with the Women’s/ Infants/Childrens centers that help underprivileged pregnant women and those with young children.    Recent research demonstrates that when pregnant women eat well, the fetus develops the taste for nutritious food.    To avert future generations of impoverished children eating more and more junk food, we need volunteers to help make sure that these women are helped toward eating the best food they can.

Our sages said, Ein kemach, ein Torah, without flour there is no Torah – without food there can be no learning and without fresh food there can be no creative learning.    At Beth Shalom, we have set the stage for being able to make a concrete, committed and considerable difference in the life of our city, and God willing, our state and nation.    Please join in the efforts.    Our Committee for the Pursuit of Justice will meet tomorrow morning at 9 am.    If you’re dropping off your children, plan on staying for a little while; if you aren’t dropping off children, drop by and join us, and let’s talk about how to proceed together.

Let’s make this a year where our fast reminds us of the needs of those who are hungry, hungry for good fresh food and for financial equity that can lead out of poverty.    May we be inspired by Abraham and Sarah, who looked for opportunities to be of service and may we help bring forth on this continent a renewed nation, with health and well-being for all.