OPINION

How We Can Help
The Poor For Passover

DANNY SIEGEL

Special to The Jewish News

I

f there is one single holi-
day that remains im-
printed on a Jew's mind —
it is Passover.
No matter how dim a per-
son's Jewish memory has be-
come, no matter how far
astray a Jew may have gone
from his or her Yiddishkeit —
somewhere in the circuits of
the mind are recollections of
a seder, of the taste (pleasant
or unpleasant) of matzah and
maror, of the playfulness of
the afikomen search.
There are poor Jews today,
as there have always been
poor Jews. Now there are
Jews who cannot afford a de-
cent Passover meal. Now it is
time to remember what the
real meaning of the Passover

Danny Siegel writes and
lectures widely on tzedakah
projects and mitzvah work.

mitzvah is: providing Ma'ot
Chittin, or "money for
wheat," i.e., money con-
tributed so that poor Jews
may purchase wheat to make
matzah for Passover. Plain
and simple.
And so, among the many
mitzvot associated with Pass-
over — reciting the Hagga-
dah, eating special foods,
reciting Hanel in synagogue
and other special prayers —
there is the one which in its
most raw form means, "There
are poor Jews in our world,
and without our response to
their needs, they will not have
a decent Passover?'
Some of them are in
shelters.
Some live by food stamps
alone, and food stamps are
never enough.
Some are battered women
with their children seeking
refuge somewhere, anywhere,
having left the violence and
bruises and blows of domestic
violence behind with no

money in their pockets or
purses.
Some of them have lost
their jobs and eaten through
their savings and now need
scholarships for their children
for camp or day school or
afternoon religious school,
and scholarships for them-
selves for synagogue and
Jewish center memberships,
and need deferments on their
own pledges to communal
Tzedakah funds.
Some of them never had
any luck in their lives and
have bounced around, unable
to sustain themselves and
their basic everyday needs.

Some of them couldn't put
enough money away for the
so-called "Golden Years" and
are stuck on a too-small
retirement allowance and are
teetering on the brink not on-
ly of poverty but despair.
And they are enslaved to
the Pharaoh of At Best
Scraping By.

Is Life Really Like This?

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

W

oody Allen's movie,
Annie Hall, contain-
ed one of those
moments we all have experi-
enced.
While the comedian waits
in a movie line with Diane
Keaton, a know-it-all stands
behind him telling a woman
his opinions on everything.
But when the man starts
pontificating about author
and social commentator
Marshall McLuhan, Mr.
Allen is able to produce Mr.
McLuhan from behind a
sign. Mr. McLuhan goes
ahead and refutes what the
so-called expert "knew"
about him.
Woody Allen then turns
toward the camera and asks
the audience, "Don't you
wish life were really like
this?"
I asked myself that ques-
tion in a different form re-
cently while I was standing
in line at a movie theater. As
in Woody Allen's scenario, a
man near me was talking
about Kevin Costner's
movie, Dances With Wolves.
The man was telling his
friends that Dances With
Wolves presented a truly
jaded anti-American, anti-
white point of view. He said

that because early white col-
onists were massacred by
Indians, the Americans had
justification to "annihilate"
all of the Indians on the Nor-
th American continent.
This is where I started
looking for Mr. McLuhan.
He's wasn't there. Everyone
else was pretending to ig-
nore this guy, as his friends
nodded in "maybe he'll
change the subject and get
off of this" agreement.
As an amateur history buff
interested in the Civil War
and the Indian Wars, I
decided to overstep the

The
"anti-American"
viewpoint of
Dances With
Wolves.

boundaries of minding my
own business. To be frank, I
couldn't take it any more. I
threw some questions his
way, some involving treaty
violations by U.S. govern-
ment officials and troops. I
mentioned the massacre of
Indians at Wounded Knee.
The "expert" scoffed, saying
that the recorded history of
Wounded Knee belonged to
the interpretation of Indian
authors.

I mentioned how Indian
mothers would kill their
horses and gut them and
place their children inside in
desperation for warmth as
they tried to survive the
winters and escape brave
bluecoats with names like
Custer.
But then he threw the
word "annihilate" back at
me, and said once again that
19th century America would
have been justified to wipe
out the Indians. I looked at
him and said, "Do you mean
the killing of an entire peo-
ple?" He nodded yes.
Have you ever had one of
those moments in your life
when you are facing a
stranger that you want to
grab by the lapels and
scream at?

Instead of screaming, I told
the man that there was once
a man named Mr. Hitler
with whom he had a great
deal in common. With a
straight, non-expressive
face, he told me I was miss-
ing the point.
If this was a Woody Allen
movie, I would have turned
to the camera and said with
a smile, "Aren't you glad
that life really isn't like
this?"
It is, though. It is. Because,
unfortunately, this "expert"
isn't alone in his thinking.

❑

Artwork by Kevin KrenenA of the Roanoke Times & World-News. Copynghte 1990, Kevin Kreneck. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Synckcate.

What You Can Do

1. Wherever there are
shelters for the Jewish poor,
call ahead of time and see
what you may provide for
their people — our people —
for Pesach.
2. Contact Jewish Family
Service, local B'nai B'rith
chapters, the rabbis, the com-
munity chaplains, the indi-
viduals in your community
who have taken it upon them-
selves to provide for Jewish
poor people on Passover.
3. Contact the community
secular shelters and battered
women's refuges and other
general agencies for the Pass-
over needs of their Jewish
people.
4. Buy extra food when
you do your Passover shop-
ping — an extra box or two of
matzah, cakes, wine (everyone
is entitled to four cups on
Passover), a white tablecloth,
other provisions, and get
them to the appropriate or-
ganizations or individuals.
'Ibll your grocer or butcher
that you will provide a certain
sum of money for those with-
out enough "money for
wheat," that when they see
someone come in who is
skimping, that you will make
good for whatever extra they
put in the basket.
5. Two seders mean two
afikomens — see if the finder
might not be willing to sur-
render the reward for one of
those afikomen - finds to some
worthwhile tzedakah project.
It might be time to educate
the young that, while we want
some of the goodies for our-
selves, we must also set aside
something for others.
6. Speak of the slavery of
being poor today at your
seder. When you describe how
we had nothing in Egypt,

how we were at the mercy of
the Pharaohs for 400 years
and now we- are free, remind
the guests that some — many
— still have their Egypts and
Pharaohs with them every
day. . . And remind them
that, as we are now free, we
will do what we can to make
sure that they, too, will be
free, for They are Us, we are
the same, Jews, entitled. Re-
call your own ancestors'
struggles with poverty, the
sweat shops, the Depression
days, the things your parents
and grandparents didn't have
that you have because they
couldn't afford it.
7. Review for the people
assembled at your table that
our tradition says, "We are
not allowed to put down poor
people, nor shout at them, be-
cause their hearts are broken,
and they are crushed." (Ram-
barn, Mishnah Ibrah, Hilchot
Matnot Ani'im 10:5) Be em-
phatic. Zbll them that, though
it is becoming evermore fash-
ionable in some circles to
blame them for their poverty,
it is not Jewish to think that
way.
In sum, let us remember
that Ma'ot Chittin is very
physical. It is about people
without enough to eat a wor-
thy Passover meal. Before we
go off into metaphors and tell
stories and recollect our
memories, let us make sure at
least one other Jew is going
to do all right for Passover.
It won't spoil the mood of
our seders; it won't cast a pall
and leave a heaviness in the
air. After all, it is only one
part of Pesach, but a critical
one. It will allow us to sit at
our own tables as free people,
free, grateful that we are in a
position to give others their
freedom. ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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