Rabbi's Message

Rabbi Elyse Wechterman
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"Not Hiding From Your Kin in Need"
Yom Kippur 5767 (Oct. 2006)

From today’s Haftarah – the words of Isaiah, we read:

“Do you call that a fast in which God delights?
Is not the fast that I desire the unlocking of the chains of wickedness,
The loosening of the exploitation,
The freeing of those oppressed,
The breaking of the yoke of servitude?
Is it not the sharing of your bread with those who starve,
The bringing of the wretched poor into your house,
Or clothing someone you see is naked
Or not hiding from your kin in their need?”

Clearly, this call to social justice, to activism on the part of those less fortunate, is timed to remind us that the work we do here on Yom Kippur is meaningless if we don’t follow up and take it out into the world with us. Clearly, the message we are to get today is that all our fasting, all our teshuvah are for naught as long as there are hungry, poor, destitute people in the world and we turn a blind eye.

So we take this moment, this opportunity on Yom Kippur morning to talk about the needy of the world. In the past, we have used this opportunity to discuss world hunger, the plight of people stricken with AIDS, domestic violence.

This year, in keeping with the theme of home and house that we have examined over these High Holy Days, I want to look a little closer – not so far away at the problems of the world, but in our own backyards. This year, I find myself concerned with the last line in this quote from Isaiah: “Not hiding from your kin in need.”

This year has been a difficult and challenging one to a small number of our congregants. I want to take the time to tell you about them.

First I want to talk to you about Marc. Many of you know Marc – he is a member of our congregation and he has given me permission – in fact asked me to discuss – his story with your his morning.

Marc has some challenges in his life. He is considered mildly retarded and has a mild form of bi-polar disorder. He also has a chronic skin ailment.

Marc is a good man. He likes to come to synagogue – feels very much a part of this community and is grateful for the people here who have hosted him for holidays and Shabbat and driven him to synagogue over the years.

Marc lives in a rest home. Not a group home or a halfway house, and not a medical facility, but one of those non-descript institutional settings called a “rest home.” He shares a room with someone, eats all his meals in the cafeteria and goes to a day program several days a week just to have something to do. There are no real activities offered in this home, no common spaces or recreational facilities to speak of. It’s kind of dirty and a little smelly, not really ideal. Marc wants something better. Marc would like to live with a family in an adult foster care program, or maybe in a group home with others like himself.

Earlier this year, Marc and I went on a quest to try to identify and locate better housing. First we tried the Department of Mental Retardation – they have numerous group homes and assisted living facilities all over the state. I talked with some local organizations that contract with DMR and it sounded like they might be able to help Marc.

No go – Marc has an IQ of about 71. It turns out that you can only qualify for DMR services if you have an IQ of 69 or lower. And there is apparently no getting around this rule. In fact, in my investigations, I learned that the rules about eligibility for DMR services have gotten stricter and stricter in recent years. One social worker told me that if DMR were to raise its eligibility IQ by one point, the statewide caseload would double overnight. Therefore, Marc – and others like him – are kept at bay. The state just can’t afford to serve that many Mentally Retarded adults.

Next, Marc and I tried the Department of Mental Health. Unfortunately, because Marc is good at taking his own medication and is not considered dangerous or a threat to himself or others, they are not really able to help him either. He isn’t sick enough.

I made a few calls to MassHealth to see where that could get us, but predictably, Marc’s skin ailment is not considered a debilitating enough illness to warrant any kind of home supports through the statewide insurance program.

Marc doesn’t have a lot of resources – he collects Social Security and most of it goes to the rest home. He is left with about $54 a month for spending money. At the moment, he is resigned to staying where he is – he isn’t happy about it, but there doesn’t seem to be any options right now.

Marc is one of our kin in need.

I also want to tell you about Trudy – for privacy purposes, I am not using her real name. Trudy has been a member of this congregation for a very long time. As a single mom, she raised two daughters in this community and continues to bring her grandson when she can. Trudy has worked hard her whole life, struggled to feed herself and her children on her single salary. Until recently, she helped her grown daughter out whenever she could, caring for her grandson and pitching in here and there. Trudy is not, or was not destitute – we might consider her part of the working poor. She managed and was pretty happy and hopeful about her life - until she got sick.

Last year, Trudy suffered an illness that left her unable to care for herself and her own needs, much less work or earn any money. Shortly after becoming ill, she had to give up her apartment and move in with her daughter – into the small three bedroom house with the daughter, her partner, three children, a border for extra money and two dogs. The daughter isn’t really able to work because of her own disabilities. It’s not really clear to me whose income supports this household.

Trudy receives disability from her work and kept her health insurance for a while – but the COBRA payments were expensive and eventually that ran out – so the physical therapy and visiting nurses stopped coming. She has applied for MassHealth but that hasn’t kicked in yet. The worst part for Trudy is that she is stuck in the house – she has been a self-sufficient capable woman for a very long time. It’s been hard to lose her independence, her ability to drive, shop, and cook for herself. She feels like she is adding to her daughter’s troubles and wants to find a better place to live – maybe an assisted living facility somewhere.

I called Bristol County Elder services on Trudy’s behalf one day – but she isn’t old enough to receive services from them. We have gotten her a caseworker from the Department of Disability but they haven’t been able to do much yet other than help her fill out the forms for MassHealth. On her own, Trudy has filled out the forms for subsidized housing and is now on several waiting lists. Since she isn’t technically homeless, she is on the bottom of the lists – but she is waiting.

Trudy is one of our kin in need.

Another congregant I want to tell you about is Lani (also not her real name). Lani has always lived on her own, has never married or had children, but has found lots of community and connection through this synagogue and other organizations. Lani is getting old. She worked for many years, has a pension and health insurance and really has been quite fine for a long time. But now she is getting old. It’s harder for Lani to get out and about. She really should stop driving – she has recently had two small accidents –thank God nothing serious. She can’t get to the synagogue any more –she can’t even get to the store. She has PeaPod from Stop and Shop deliver her food and she still has someone come in to clean her apartment once in a while. But the place is really a mess. You see, she is in a lot of pain these days. She has this and that ailment and she can’t really pick up any more – some days it takes all the strength and energy she has to get dressed.

Lani also called Bristol Elder Services to see if she could arrange for some home care visits. And she is old enough for their services. But get this – Lani worked all her life and has a decent pension – not a fortune mind you, but something. Her income level is too high to qualify her for services from Bristol County.

Lani is one of our kin in need.

I could go on and tell you about another four or five individuals in our community who are struggling right now, struggling in substandard housing, with little or no services and who are becoming more and more isolated – but I think you get the picture.

What Marc, Trudy, Lani, and others like them, have in common is that they are falling through the cracks. They are the ones left out of an ever narrowing social service network that seems to be incapable, unable or uninterested in meeting the real needs of real people. And, they are members of our congregation.

In working with these individuals this past year, I have received quite an education in the network of social services provided by the county, state, federal and local governments to help people in need. And I am deeply troubled.

It seems that with shifting priorities, and limited resources, the system that was designed to serve as a safety net for neediest people in our society has been gutted and reduced to the point where social workers spend more time trying to keep people out of the system then helping those who need to be helped. With such strict standards and eligibility requirements, those people who aren’t sick enough, old enough, poor enough or dangerous enough are left out in the cold.

For some folks, like Marc and Trudy and Lani, they can get by for a while. But what happens when someone who is a little bit sick become old? Or someone a little bit retarded gets sick? Or someone a little bit poor loses the ability to drive? We all know that two or more challenges to a person’s wellbeing is greater then the sum of each part. But yet in the decentralized, diagnosis-specific world we live in – a plethora of mild or borderline issues will get you no help at all.

These are our kin in need – and the government supported system of services is turning a blind eye to them.

We must not.

So what can we do about this? On Yom Kippur, how can we make our fast meaningful and just?

I am not suggesting that we can take on the entire social service system single-handedly; nor am I suggesting that we become responsible for solving all the challenges Marc, Trudy, Lani and all the others face. But I am suggesting that we have a role to play and it is one we can not, must not ignore.

There is most definitely a public policy aspect to this challenge and we must be engaged in it. I believe that there is a great division in this country right now and a great debate going on. It is not about gay marriage or prayer in schools – or even about the war in Iraq. I believe those issues are distractions. In the case of Iraq, it’s a bloody and costly distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.

The real issue, the real debate is over what the role of government should and can be in people’s lives. And our tradition, the teachings of Torah, of the Talmud, of the rabbis comes down pretty strongly in favor of societal structures that care for and about the weakest members of the community.

How many times are we exhorted to care for the widow and the orphan? How much discussion is there about tzedekah – giving of aid in a just and life-affirming way? How often are the Israelites warned against turning a blind eye to the needy?

The Sages tell a story about the defeat of the Israelites by the evil king Amalek. Amelek attacked the Israelites shortly after the escape from Egypt and was the only king to actually inflict severe damage on the people. Why? Why was Amelek able to defeat God’s chosen people? The Sages suggest that Amelek was victorious because he attacked the people from the rear – and who was back there at the end of the caravan? The elderly, the weak, the injured, the widows and the orphans. Amelek won because the Israelites did not protect their most vulnerable members – because they turned a blind eye to the needs of their kin.

After that incident, the Israelites changed their marching pattern. They put the needy in the middle – they surrounded the weak with the strong. No other attacking army ever got close again.

We need to take that story and others like it into the public sphere – to carry it with us as we engage in public policy debates and when we enter the ballot box. Yes – we need to vote – whether it be for governor as we will next month or for city and town council – with the echo of Isaiah in our ears. And after Election Day, we need to continue to share Isaiah’s words and remind our elected leaders that we believe we have a responsibility to help and respond to the needs of all members of our society – especially the weakest. It is within our power as a community to advocate for justice. We should raise our voice – according to Isaiah, we must raise our voice – or our work here today remains meaningless.

But public policy is slow to change and won’t really help Marc, Trudy and Lani – at least not in the short term. And we need to address their needs right now and from within our community. We need to do that to.

Here at Agudas Achim, we have something called the Caring Committee. Debbie Ide has been our dedicated and generous chair for several years and I want to thank her for those years of service. The caring committee and our caring functions here are very good at gathering people for shiva minyanim, for providing food in emergencies, for visiting people in acute or sudden illness. We do that well and should continue to do that.

But we are not very good at connecting with or providing for the members of our community faced with chronic struggles. Whether it be someone like Marc who needs rides to synagogue and invitations to people’s homes; or Lani who needs companionship and a few household chores, or Trudy who really just needs someone to sit with her in her despair and be present, we are inconsistent at best.

That is not to say there aren’t some wonderful people who have extended themselves in wonderful ways to these folks. The Heller, Shuman and Fox families have been extraordinarily generous and open hearted toward Marc and I know he and I are both grateful for all that you have done for him.

But it isn’t enough.

I am not sure what the answer is – the problem is actually quite complex and difficult. But we must be prepared as a community to form a caring network – to extend ourselves, to open our hearts and homes to each other and to the members of our community who struggle. Because they are us – we are them. They are our kin and we must not turn a blind eye.

If you would like to join me this year in either advocacy efforts or in creating a caring network, let me know – we can begin this endeavor today. And if we do – our fast will surely be one in which God delights.

Shana Tova and thank you,
Rabbi Elyse

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