Elu V'Elu for January 2006

Rabbi Gary A. Glickstein

In 1945, my father-in-law, Sam Schwarz, was first liberated from the Nazi Death Camp of Auschwitz by the Nazis themselves and then from the Nazi Model Death Camp of Terezin by the Russians. After his liberation, he was "invited" by the Allies to spend sometime in a Displaced Persons Camp. There, behind the "friendly" barbed wire and guards, he was at least given the basic necessities for living that he had been denied during his years in Nazi Camps.

One morning he went out to the water trough to wash himself before eating break-fast and he noticed another man next to him who looked familiar. He vaguely knew the face from somewhere. He spoke to the man and soon discovered that this was, in fact, his wife's brother. He was looking at his brother-in-law and they both had been so changed by their treatment in the concentration camps that they failed to recognize a member of their own family.

Sam weighed 150 pounds in 1938. He was 5'8" tall. At that moment at the trough he weighed less than 80 pounds. He had endured countless days of humiliation, torture and starvation. He was a living skeleton with flesh hanging off his bones.

I have been hungry for a meal. I have experienced the hunger of a fast day. I have even felt the hunger pangs of dieting. But I have never truly felt the agony of forced hunger due to lack of available food.

Throughout the centuries, our people have experienced hunger. The Holocaust was not our only period of mass starvation. Today, our Jewish community monitors the poor among our people and supplements their resources. We have Meals on Wheels and packages of staples delivered in the U.S. and in Eastern Europe. We support soup kitchens and hot lunch programs in Israel and among our elderly in America.

Yet, it is an undeniable fact, that in the time it took you to read the four previous para-graphs, 15 children around the world literally starved to death.

We can help save children by our acts of loving kindness. We can save adults as well.

This year our Mitzvah Weekend is devoted to the issue of hunger. We need to become aware of this issue and act to alleviate the problem.

The world has the resources to eliminate hunger. The people of the world, including you and me, lack the will.

This year we will try to have a small impact on this enormous issue.852 million people in the world are classified as hungry, including millions in the U.S.A.

Lend your time, resources and heart to making a difference. Join us for Mitzvah Weekend. Give others the gift we experience every day: the gift of not knowing hunger.