A Hasidic Tale for Day 6

Michael Getty

Day 5:

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and toast

Lunch: For me, the last of the *%$!! lentil soup; for Brian: leftover macaroni and black beans

Dinner: Pasta with marinara sauce, baked acorn squash

After a week of very survival-level food strategy, as opposed to all the contorted and hoity-toity things I did before this week, I'm remembering a Hasidic story.

A man goes to his rabbi and complains that all his friends are more prosperous than he is -- bigger houses, more beautiful wives, and more thriving businesses. He tells the rabbi that every day he looks around his cramped, dingy house and feels like a failure. “Rabbi," he sobs, "My house is much to small for my wife, my two children, myself and all my dreams to fit.

“Everything will be fine,” the rabbi assures him, “but first you have to go back home, buy a cow and bring her into your house as well.” Now the man is sure the rabbi has lost his mind, but being brought up to always listen to the rabbi, he goes home, buys a cow and brings her into his house as well.

By the third week, he is going out of his mind, so he runs back to the rabbi and explains, “First I complained that my house was too small, so you had me bring in my two dogs and cat and the family goat. Then you had me buy a cow and bring her into my house as well. Now I can’t sleep, can’t eat, can barely think at all from all the noise, and thrashing about, and chaos and clutter that is everywhere I turn. Rabbi you have to help me – it’s driving me crazy!”

So the rabbi takes the man by the hand and says, “Everything will be fine. Go home immediately and take the two dogs, the cat, the family goat and the cow out from your house."

The man runs home as fast as he can, empties the house of all but his wife and two daughters and himself, and then sighs a giant sigh of relief, looks around his empty home and says, “Thank God for this beautiful home with all this luxurious space in which my family can live. What a lucky man I am!”

I Think We're Actually Doing Really Well

Michael Getty

Day 4

Breakfast: Toast with peanut butter and jam, one banana each and a half glass of orange juice each
Lunch: For me, round 5 (no kidding) of lentil soup, plus some unexpected office food; for Brian, leftover ramen noodles and steamed vegetables
Dinner: Macaroni and cheese and black beans, bananas and peanut butter for dessert

I think we're actually doing really well, especially for not having planned things out. It helps that we don't eat meat.  I'm having the last of the lentil soup for Day 5 lunch. It is not in the least bit appetizing, but it is filling and protein-rich. And it's part of why we have about $10 left in our budget, enough to restock on fresh fruit, peanut butter and, who knows, maybe even a bottle of wine for kiddush.

The Real Bargain

Michael Getty

Breakfast: Oatmeal with diced apples, half a glass each of orange juice
Lunch: Round 4 of lentil soup for me - for Brian: Round 3 of leftover pasta, a cheese sandwich
Dinner: Ramen noodles with steamed broccoli and grated carrots, bananas and peanut butter for dessert

Thoughts for the day? I cannot imagine facing unemployment or disability while also worrying about going hungry. For now, it seems like $63 for both of us is enough to get by on for a week -- no frills, no margin for error, but keeping 45 million people out of the direct threat of hunger -- all for about $75 billion per year? That seems like the real bargain, and I can't comprehend the moral direction of politicians who would hold it hostage for the sake of  ideological purity. And in my eyes, who thinks voluntary, spontaneous, and uncoordinated efforts by faith communities could ever be a good substitute for this program is -- pardon the pun -- out to lunch.

Day 1

Michael Getty

Breakfast: 2 eggs each, two pieces of toast, and coffee

Lunch: Lentil soup and grilled cheese

Dinner: Elbow macaroni in marinara sauce, 3 carrots each

We bought two loaves of bread, and we're already halfway through the first one. Plenty of leftover lentil soup and pasta for lunch on Day 2. We figured out we left our one jar of peanut butter at Aldi's, and it will take about a third of our remaining budget to replace it. 

Approaching Day 1

Michael Getty

The circle gathered outside the entrance to an Aldi store in University City. It was time to go shopping -- on a budget of $31.50 per person for a week. Our guide on this excursion, a staff member from a nonprofit serving the food-insecure, couldn't make it, so it was just a dozen or so of us with Rabbi Susan. 

I haven't shopped at an Aldi since the early nineties when I was studying in Germany, where the chain originated. It has the same reputation over there -- dirt cheap, low quality. It was where homeless people would go after a decent haul from panhandling. 

I could be wrong, but I think there was a widespread sense of awkwardness. I think most of us haven't had to live on a food budget since college. I'd even wager that a lot of us spend $31.50 a week just on high-end coffee and artisan bread. It's uncomfortable to admit this, but most of my thoughts in the days leading up to today have focused on how much I'm going to miss my favorite, way-out-of-budget condiments and spices.

In the meantime, tips have been coming in from friends who have lived or are living on a budget close to that of the Food Stamp Challenge.

One night's menu: pinto beans, cornbread, fried potatoes, spinach (either in a can or a frozen block). I'm pretty sure that will come in at under $3. Breakfast menus are easier ... eggs and toast, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles .. all those are going to be well under $1.50 per person

I feel like such a clod, even more when I remember that to this day, my father won't touch beans or peanut butter, because when he was growing up, that's all his family could afford. 

In the circle, Rabbi Susan tells us about the film, Food Stamped, we'll be watching together at the end of our weeklong exploration. After a while, a middle-aged security guard approaches and asks us to disperse. If he lets us gather in a big group, he says to Jen, then he'd have to let everyone gather in a big group. The racial overtone is hard to miss. We disperse and go in.

It's a small store, but the products don't look half bad. Some of us have lists and menus, but Brian and I are doing it all on the fly, with just a calculator and some scrap paper. I'm thinking low-budget vegetarian staples -- rice, dried beans, root vegetables, peanut butter. You can get a lot of prepared, boxed foods -- Including macaroni and cheese for 45 cents a box, a 20-pack of ramen noodles for $2.19. Hard to pass up a bargain like that. 

The produce selection is pretty good -- broccoli crowns and a nice acorn squash for 99 cents each. Altogether, we ended up spending $31.40 at Aldi. Later, we hit an international market in our neighborhood, a food hub for many immigrant communities, and pick up a mess of dried beans, lentils, brown rice, and a big bag of carrots. I splurge on some nicer low-budget coffee. 

As we unpacked the groceries, I felt like we did pretty well, but there's no telling how soon we'll start running out of things. 

Why I'm Taking the Challenge

Michael Getty

I am taking the Food Stamp Challenge in the hope of plugging in to the radical core of tzedek, tzedek, tirdof. We're not supposed to just work for social justice, we're supposed to chase after it with everything we've got. But the great irony is that most of the time, I'm too anesthetized by food and drink to engage at that level. Just in preparing for this experience, I've learned of friends and family members are now or have recently been reliant on public assistance. If that's how close food insecurity has gotten to me without my learning first-hand what it feels like, day in and day out, what kind of justice-chaser can I really be?

I am also taking the Food Stamp Challenge as a spiritual practice. Over and over, Jewish liturgy reminds us of truths I am usually too comfortable -- and too satisfied with wholesome food -- to take in. 

We are not in control. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or even an hour from now. We don't really have any of the things we might think we have at any given moment -- security, comfort, prosperity. It can all be taken away from us in an instant.

Na'aseh v'nishma, as Exodus tells us. We will do, then we will understand.