Not long ago while working in the Polack Food Bank, I noticed an older woman who seemed to be weighing her food before she put it in her basket. Each can, each piece of fruit, every vegetable. Some things she would take and others she would set back in the box on the table. She explained that she has to be careful about what she takes because her bag can get too heavy for her to carry back to her apartment – so, she makes choices.
In a major demographic shift, roughly 68% of the people coming through the Polack Food Bank today are seniors. And in one form or another, they each have a scale they use. For some it is the weight of the food against the distance to their homes; for others, it is the choice to pay rent or buy medications. It is the calculus of the vulnerable.
We are in the season of reflection. It is the season when we each take out our own spiritual scale to weigh our actions against our relationships and our intentions against our actions.
I think of all the dead weight we carry though unresolved conflicts – both with others and within ourselves. And how those unresolved conflicts start to leak like a cracked jar in a grocery bag.
There is a tradition of beating our chests as we name off each of the places where we fell short. Many people have a tendency to focus on the striking of our chests. Once I gave people a rock to hold in their hand as they hit their chest. My goal wasn’t to make it more painful; rather, I wanted them to feel the weight of their hand dropping away and the density of forgiveness.
On more than one occasion a person has shared with me that their parents or their children don’t know they have to use the Food Bank. Their shame and embarrassment are too great for them to let their reality be known.
For many of the seniors we see at JFS, they did save throughout their lives. They lived frugally and followed sound advice. But the financial landscape shifted beneath them or their health faltered, leaving gaps filled with humiliation. We strive to help restore their dignity.
Shame and embarrassment are often the same barriers that keep many of the conflicts in our relationships unresolved. Rather than risk a vulnerable conversation, we drag an unnecessarily large amount of dead emotional weight around with us.
Each of us deserves a life unencumbered by shame, uncompromised by embarrassment. How much taller we can stand, how much farther we can go, how much more we can see when we let those stones fall from our hands. And freed of that heavy weight, how much more we will have to give to those who are on the journey with us.
By Rabbi Will Berkovitz
Will is CEO of JFS. He and his wife Dr. Lelach Rave, live with their three children in North Seattle. Will is a long-distance runner, avid hiker and backpacker. He particularly enjoys volunteering in the Polack Food Bank and helping with refugee resettlement.
Feature photo by Erich Ferdinand.
