On One Foot: Joshua Hammerman's Blog

Author of "Embracing Auschwitz" and "Mensch•Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi - Wisdom for Untethered Times." Winner of the Rockower Award, the highest honor in Jewish journalism and 2019 Religion News Association Award for Excellence in Commentary. Musings of a rabbi, journalist, father, husband, poodle-owner, Red Sox fan and self-proclaimed mensch, taken from essays, columns, sermons and thin air. Writes regularly in the New York Jewish Week and Times of Israel.

Friday, October 31, 2025

A Prayer for Millions Facing the Disgrace of a SNAP Hunger Crisis

In This Moment: A Rabbi's Notebook

A Prayer for Millions Facing the Disgrace of a SNAP Hunger Crisis

Amid hopes that a Rhode Island judge will keep the food supply chain open for the most vulnerable among us. But the stomachs of hungry Americans should never be held hostage.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Oct 31, 2025

As an estimated 41.8 million Americans (1 out of 8) brace themselves for the possibility of a needless and heartless denial of SNAP food benefits, I share below a meaningful prayer written on behalf of “MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger,” by Rabbi Michael Rothbaum. Make it part of your weekend / Sabbath / Halloween commemorations.

While it is encouraging that a federal judge today ordered the government to pay for food stamps during the government shutdown - money that was set aside for just such an emergency1 - just the fact that so many people should be facing such a cruel threat at all is unthinkable and unforgivable. The stomachs of hungry Americans should never be held hostage.

That this has happened, while Congress suns themselves and the president collects trinkets in Asia, is worse than a shame. Worse even than a disgrace.

The Hebrew word for shame is Busha. The Hebrew word to dress is lil-BOSH. In the Garden of Eden, God clothed Adam and Eve after they discovered their nakedness. God recognized that shame paralyzes us. Shame isolates us. Shame convinces us that we are unworthy. Shame goes beyond simple generational guilt.

But our embarrassment prods us into the realization that shame need not be a permanent state – that we can, in fact, change things, as God did for Adam and Eve. The denial of food to the innocent and vulnerable is a Busha. It’s a Busha in Gaza, in Darfur, in Chicago and Appalachia. It is a Busha whenever it happens - but especially when it didn’t have to happen.

Around 750 million people around the world go hungry every day, according to a 2023 study, and 2.33 billion are food insecure. As we begin a month that will culminate in a holiday where we give thanks for our food, there is no better way celebrate than to use our resources to alleviate hunger worldwide. Below the prayer are some links to worthwhile charities that I have supported, here in the US, in Israel and around the world (including Gaza, Africa, and other places where the problem is most acute).

And let us pray that - as this prayer states - enough people have the courage to stare down the Pharaohs who exploit the suffering of our neighbors.