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My history with the Soup Kitchen
I always knew I would volunteer at the soup kitchen once a week. When I was on the Jerusalem campus, I was already planning on not working on Monday nights so I could volunteer. I had never done this type of thing before and I do not know where I got it in my head that this is what I would be doing, but from day one, it was always my plan. It was also always my plan to be just a volunteer and NOT involved in leadership in anyway.
But then I got to New York and there was a gap in leadership. So all of a sudden, I was in charge of education for the year and teaching students about the soup kitchen when I, myself, had no idea what was going on.
Week after week, it was my job to talk with the visiting young congregants from all over New York and to teach them about three terms:
Mitzvah, Tzedek and Chesed. At first, I would quiz the kids and see what they knew of these terms. I would then define them and then ask them what they were worried about in facing volunteering for the soup kitchen. They would describe their fears which encapsulated facing the typical "bum:" dirty, ill-tempered, mean, high and or drunk. Bad, bad people. This is what they, and I, feared.
At the end of the night, I would debrief with the kids and ask them what surprised them. Inevitably, they said the same things. I was surprised that people were so nice and clean and kind and tat they actually were just good people in a bad place. Week after week thirteen year olds, for one moment, came to understand this. Finally, I did too.
Over time, I came to know our guests better and I refined my talk. I slowly reformed what I taught and came to understand and to teach the connections between these three terms and the very fears the students came into the building with. A mitzvah is something we are commanded to do and do justice work is a mitzvah. This is not an option. I do not mean to say, I would tell them, that serving at a soup kitchen is required, but serving others is. Tzedek is righteousness but it shares the root and concept of right-ness or balance. We do mitzvot to create balance between the haves and the have nots. How do we do this? Through chesed. Loving kindness. We may not have money, we may not want to give the money we have, but we all have a smile to share. We all have the ability to endless give human dignity to another human being and we can do that through something as simple as a smile. When someone walks through these doors, we call them our guests because here, they are. Here, it is our pleasure to say YES to whatever they ask for whenever it is possible. Here, for one hour a week, we get to be truly generous and giving with our selves to work hard to set in to balance that which is off-kilter.
Over time, I came to know this lesson better and I refined my talk even further. I slowly came to learn an invaluable lesson about righteousness. In setting right the balance between the haves and the have nots, I thought all I needed to do was make those with give to those without. But it turns out, this is reciprocal giving. One day, as on many other days, we ran out of fruit. Fruit is a favorite item amongst the soup kitchen guests. Someone asked me for an orange and I said, I am so sorry, I am all out. He had come in late and was disappointed to not have this sweet treat. And then, someone at his table said, Oh, take mine! And then someone else said, here, I have an extra, take mine...the more I listened, the more I heard this message repeated over and over again. Here, take mine. Whatever I have is yours. More and more, I saw endless sharing, generosity and giving amongst our guests. Slowly, I learned the lesson. Giving is about getting in the most surprising ways. Eventually I added this lesson to my teaching. I would say to the kids, what do they have to give us that we lack? And they would look at me blankly. They would stare at me and say, nothing, they have nothing to give us! They were both worried about taking anything from those with so little and offended that people such as these might have something that they did not. And I would tell them. They understand chesed in a way that we do not. If those who have took care of each other in the same way that those who have not do...well, we would have fewer of them and more of us.
Over time, I came to know the issue of hunger, homelessness, and the working poor more and more and I refined my talk even further. I became more and more involved with things like the farm bill, food stamp reform, health care coverage, public access, funding and governmental change. And this is where I am now. I long to understand, to master the mystery of the pandemic of poverty in our nation. I do not understand why people are hungry, why there are not enough homes for people to live in, not enough jobs to keep people employed, not enough-just not enough to go around. It is not an issue of resources, it seems to be an issue of distribution. How can I make that change? I want to understand the problem so I can help find and usher in the solution.
From leading the soup kitchen for two years, I have learned many of the negatives of volunteerism and apathy. Ultimately, being ethical in our actions requires giving something of ourselves. It means facing and taking on discomfort. And people, in general, do not like discomfort. I believe that justice comes from staring into the face of that which is unjust. I truly believe that most people, most Jews, if we stare at it, if we see it, we will be unable to look away. Injustice is our constant refusal to look. If I never volunteer in the soup kitchen, I no longer have to cry at night when it is so cold because people I know are living outside and they are freezing. If I never entered the soup kitchen then I would not have to look in to the face of the man on the subway who asked me yesterday for change and when I said no I am sorry I do not have anything he looked at me and said bullshit. If I never volunteered in the soup kitchen, I could get home on Thursday twenty minutes earlier because then I would not have to take the left overs from dinner at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and go find hungry people on the streets of Brooklyn who will take them, eat them, be nourished by them, share them. I would not have to hear their stories and shake with embarrassment that I cannot do more when they say God Bless you and I say no God Bless you because God's blessing is all I feel I can offer and I feel like I have not yet learned how to do more.
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