Dirshu: Confronting Challenges with Mind and Heart: Hunger: What Can We Do?
An invitation to members of the community to learn more about hunger and food insecurity in the United States, to consider our responsibilities toward those in need, and to find out what we can do to help.
Why Rain Comes from Above: Biblical and Rabbinic Reflections on Sharing Our Blessings – Devora Steinmetz
Biblical and rabbinic texts about rain invite us to join in an exercise of religious imagination and to consider how this mundane—yet critically life-giving—event offers a model for reflecting on our responsibilities toward those who have less that we do. We will study several of these texts as a foundation for the work of learning about hunger and considering how we might respond.
Good Food for All: A Dream Deferred – Mark Winne
Since the discovery of domestic hunger in the 1960s, the Unites States has spent trillions of dollars in an attempt to end it. However, with 15 percent of the population food insecure, 47 million people receiving SNAP benefits, and demand at food banks growing steadily, the results are not encouraging. Mark Winne will review the history, programs, policies, and assumptions behind the long battle to end hunger, and explore why that war has reached a stalemate.
Re-Imagining the Work of Ending Hunger – Lisanne Finston and Pamela Johnson
If we are to engage effectively in the work of ending hunger in our communities, then we must do more than collect cans for our local emergency food center. There are many organizations and programs that are paving the way with a new vision for how to end hunger in the United States. Lisanne and Pam will share the story of what one organization, Elijah’s Promise, is doing in central New Jersey, and offer suggestions for ways to become engaged in the work of building a healthy, just, sustainable food system, where all have access to good food.
