Remembering the Hungry on Yom Kippur

Last August, Theodore Mann of Philadelphia and Leonard Fein of Boston sent a letter to 5,000 rabbis all over the United States–Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Orthodox–urging them on this Yom Kippur, to remind their congregants of the one billion people all over the world “whose every day is a day of hunger.”

They hope that the day of fasting, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, will be used as the occasion to launch Mazon, “a Jewish response to hunger,” in synagogues around the country. Mann, who is president of the American Jewish Congress, and Fein, editor of Moment, are the chairman and founding board member, respectively, of Mazon, a Los Angeles-based group less than a year old.

Its sole purpose is to put into concrete action an age-old Jewish tradition of succoring the hungry. Its approach is modern. Mazon asks American Jews to put a voluntary surcharge of 3 percent on celebrations such as weddings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, birthdays and anniversaries and give the money to the hungry, through Mazon, to non-sectarian programs that feed poor people or work toward eliminating hunger.

According to Irving Cramer, executive director of Mazon, this program gives contemporary meaning to Isaiah, 58:10–“If you offer your compassion to the hungry and satisfy the famished creature/Then shall your light shine in darkness/And your gloom shall be like noonday.”

“The whole proposition is about Jewish tradition,” Cramer said. “It’s Jewish tradition that you don’t have a simcha of any king without having the poor. We begin the Passover Seder by saying, ‘Let all who are hungry enter and eat.’ Today we do that behind locked doors.”

TWO FASTS ON YOM KIPPUR

Mann and Fein urged the rabbis to remind their congregants on The Day of Atonement that “There are two fasts happening on this Yom Kippur day. There is our fast of cleansing and repentance, our fast of return. At day’s end, our fast will end and we will resume our daily affairs, our work and our play, our eating and drinking, our loving and laughing.

“And there is another fast, a fast that did not begin last night and will not end with tonight’s setting of the sun. It is the involuntary fast of a billion–I billion people across this God’s earth, a billion men and women, and God help us all, children, whose every day is day of hunger.”

According to Cramer, “The rabbi plays a significant role in Mazon, acting as a middleman, both encouraging the congregation as a whole to participate and then advising and reminding families during the planning of a celebration.”

Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Los Angeles, another founding board member of Mazon, noted, “When you live in a middle and upper-middle class society and don’t see the poor, you begin to think they don’t exist. That’s a sad part of economic segregation. It’s why a synagogue has to have a window. You’re supposed to look outside the sanctuary and see how people are living so you can pray and realize what those prayers signify.”

Mazon made its first grants last June, small ones ranging from $1,250 to $10,000 to secular Jewish and Christian programs all over the country. They were little more than “symbolic”, Cramer said, because there was little time to solicit. He hoped that next time, there will be more money for the purpose.

Fein and Cramer stressed that it is not the intent of Mazon to instill guilt among the fortunate. They say they are speaking of a tradition which sees wealth as a blessing that ought to be shared. And they think 3 percent will be shared.

“Three percent is large enough to be meaningful, but small enough not to intrude,” Fein said. “If you talk of more you’ve got a selling job. Three percent sells itself” and many donors have sent more, he said.

The founders of Mazon have calculated that Jews in North America spend a minimum of $500 million a year on simchas, 3 percent of which is $15 million. But they think their goal of $4-$5 million a year for the hungry is a realistic amount that would “help a lot of people,” Fein said.