41:45
And Pharaoh called Joseph's name “Tzafenat-pa'neach” and he gave him, Asenat,
daughter of Poti-fera, Chief of On, for a wife. Thus, Joseph became in charge
of the land of Egypt!
41:46
Now Jospeh was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt;
Jospeh left Pharaoh's presence and he passed through the entire land of Egypt.
41:47
The earth produced during the seven years of abundance by the handfuls.
41:48
He gathered all food of the seven years that came to pass in Egypt, and he
placed food in the cities; the food of the field around each city he placed
within it.
Now
let’s skip ahead just a little…………..
41:53
The seven years of abundance that came to pass in the land of Egypt ended!
41:54
And the seven years of famine began approaching just as Joseph had Promised.
There was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread…………………………………………….
Such
a contrast of opposites from year 1 thru 7, than that of 8 thru 14!
Feast
versus Famine!
“I’m
Starved-ah”, Or so says my children or yours!
“One more bite and I’ll burst!”, famous movie line from Monty
Python! But, are my children ‘really’
starved? And if you just happen to eat too much, will you burst like the Monty
python character? Probably not!
In
the usa, over eating is a huge problem (millions of dollars are spent on this
or that diet plan or worse, pills/drinks/etc..); and starvation, malnutrition,
unable to feed your family is of major issue, as we can’t feed our own! It is
of great concern!
Just
this week, in the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, or “The J”, was an
outstanding 2 full page article titled, a lesson in Hunger, Rabbi’s
Challenge: 1 week on a food-stamp budget. This article was surrounded by
articles of How to make Latkes, What is your Hanukkah meal going to be?,
Advertising from Restaurants for the New Year Kosher Style!
The
article, authored by Dan Pine, outlines a Northern Californian Rabbi taking the
following challenge and others across the Area and USA: and I quote ,
Quoted
from the article:
“Abby Leibman, president and CEO of
Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, has examined the stats and knows what they
mean in real life.
“Fifty million people are food
insecure in America,” she said. “That’s a wonky way of saying there are people
in this country who do not know where their next meal is coming from. They
can’t reliably know if they will have three meals a day.”
To drive home the point, she notes
that 50 million is more than the population of Canada.
Mazon has been a co-sponsor of the
Food Stamp Challenge since JCPA first launched it. Leibman has done the
challenge before, and knows it gets harder as the week progresses.
“I was obsessed with food the whole
week,” she recalled. “I was really sick of what I was eating by the end. The
food was boring. It also constrained a lot of what I could do socially because
a lot of our social lives are built around meals, and I couldn’t go out to eat.
Sometimes the only thing that made it tolerable was knowing it was only [for] a
week.”
From the web
page:
”The food stamp challenge is one of
the best ways to learn about the nutrition hurdles that low-income Americans
face every day. The Challenge usually entails eating on a budget of roughly $1
to $1.25 per meal (per person), an amount that approximates the average
allocation of food stamp benefits.
Since restaurants do not accept food
stamps, dollar value-meals and the like are off limits. Most supermarkets as
well as many farmers’ markets accept food stamp dollars – if you’re not sure,
just ask!
Many people who have taken the
challenge, such as members of U.S. Congress, have done so for a period of one
week. However, the longer your challenge, the more you will learn!
You may also want to download the
Food Stamp Challenge Toolkit at www.frac.org.
As you take the Challenge, you may
want to keep a journal, write a blog, or invite your friends and family to take
the Challenge as well. You can blog
about your experiences on our SHARE YOUR STORY forum. Just click on the link below! To assess your nutrition intake you can
review what you ate with a nutritionist or enter the information into a free
online nutrition assessment website such as www.nutritiondata.com. You may
never look at your grocery list the same way again.”
One week! One single week!
Just 7 days! Just 164 hours in total. The people that the article followed, hit
a wall, but they also knew it was just a matter of precious time until they
could excuse the expression, “PIG OUT!!”!
So, while we all had our Thanksgiving feast, did we give thought,
a sincere thought about the hungry, the truly hungry in our country? As we
partake in eating and enjoying our Latkes doused with organic apple sauce, and
chowing down on mom’s brisket, did or will we think and feel for our hungry
brothers and sisters? Will this affect you enough, and you take the challenge,
although just a week of inconvenience? Or will you, the next time you’re at
your local diner, and walking out and walking semi-uncomfortably and pretending
not to see the hungry man or woman sitting outside; will you offer to buy them
a cup of coffee or a some kind of
meal?......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
I ask, I beg of you…..
What will YOU do, what will you personally do to have a proactive
impact on our hungry?
-Amen-
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