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Spirituality - Dining with Dignity

 

 

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by Sara Yoheved Rigler A unique Jerusalem enterprise feeds the soul, not

just the body.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had I not been tipped off, I would have thought it was a regular restaurant.

Beautifully decorated, with burgundy and white drapes, matching table covers,

comfortable chairs with upholstered seats, bright watercolors adorning the

walls, and upscale ceramic floor tiles, Carmei Ha'Ir vies with any restaurant

in the market district of Jerusalem for tasty food and tasteful ambience.

Only the omission of a bill presented at the end of the meal and the large

wooden box near the exit, into which patrons may or may not drop their

contribution

(which often is a thank you scribbled on a napkin), hint to the truth: Carmei

Ha'Ir is a soup kitchen.

 

For a decade Yair Harosh dreamed of creating a soup kitchen "where everyone

who enters would receive honor, not just food." The 40-year-old Jerusalemite,

who owns a downtown juice bar, realized his dream six months ago when three

of his friends, also local businessmen, joined him in establishing Carmei

Ha'Ir.

 

Even the name embodies their commitment to preserving the dignity of their

indigent patrons. They wanted a name which would not smack of charity. Ze'ev

Yekutiel, a restaurant consultant and caterer who volunteered the know-how

for establishing the restaurant, came up with "Carmei Ha'Ir." In Hebrew,

it means simply, "the vineyards of the city," but the inner circle of supporters

knows that the word "Carmei" is also an acronym for a line in the prayer

of hospitality: "All the hungry will eat from Him."

 

The establishment of Carmei Ha'Ir could not have come at a more desperate

time for Israeli society. With the onslaught of the Oslo War three and half

years ago, Israel's two main industries, tourism and hi-tech, both crashed,

causing tens of thousands of companies to go out of business and leaving

over 11% of the population unemployed (double the U.S. figure). Government

budget cuts, intended to keep the economy from collapsing, slashed child

allowances, social security benefits, and grants to single mothers. The

result: One-third of Israeli children, or 618,000 children, live below the

poverty line and tens of thousands of Israelis -- children, the elderly,

and new immigrants -- go to bed hungry.

 

RESPECTED PATRONS

 

 

No one knows who are "paying customers" and who aren't.

 

When Carmei Ha'Ir opened its doors in March, between 40 to 80 people availed

themselves of its free lunch service. Now the "open restaurant" serves 500

portions a day. For many of the patrons, it is the only meal they eat in

24 hours. Volunteer waitresses scurry to serve soup and entree choices of

meat, chicken, or fish, accompanied by heaping portions of couscous, rice,

or pasta plus vegetables. The food, prepared by an expert chef, is tasty

enough to draw a smattering of patrons who can -- and do -- afford to pay

for their meal in the big wooden box at the exit. No one knows who are "paying

customers" and who aren't.

 

As in any restaurant, the patrons sometimes complain: They want dark meat,

not light, or the juice served isn't cold enough. While the volunteer staff

scrambles to satisfy everyone's preferences, Yair smiles. That his clientele

feel like respected patrons rather than charity cases is the fulfillment

of his dream.

 

Committed to a high aesthetic standard for the establishment, Yair brought

the drapes, the watercolor prints, the large aquarium, and decorative items

like the antique candelabra from his own home.

 

"I see people changing," he remarks. "In the beginning, they came here

bedraggled

and unkempt. Once they saw that they were eating in a classy restaurant,

they started wearing clean clothes, they got a haircut, or started wearing

make-up. Their sense of their own personal dignity skyrocketed."

 

Yair knows the story of each of the regular patrons. "That's Sulika," he

says, pointing to an elderly Moroccan woman wearing a green snood. "I've

known her for 15 years. All her life she held a regular job, in an office

-- an established, middle-class family. The first time she came in here,

I was surprised to see her. I asked her what brought her here. She replied

that she has five orphans at home and couldn't feed them. She's an old woman,

so I couldn't understand what she was talking about."

 

Then Sulika's story unfolded. Her 27-year-old son-in-law had died of cancer,

leaving five young children. Sulika's daughter became so depressed that

she couldn't function. She moved her family into Sulika's two-room apartment.

Most mornings, she never gets out of bed. Sulika, herself a widow, uses

her meager pension and the children's social security benefits to pay for

the rent, the children's tuition (education in Israel is compulsory but

not free), the children's clothes and schoolbooks, and bus fare. Nothing

is left for food. She had run up a 2,000 shekel (=$485) bill at the local

grocery store, which now refused to give her any further credit. She was

so relieved to find Carmei Ha'Ir. She comes for lunch every day and takes

home packaged hot meals for her daughter, the five children, and her crippled

son, who also lives with her. For their other meal of the day, they eat

the sandwiches that Carmei Ha'Ir packages daily for 400 needy schoolchildren.

 

On Shabbat, Carmei Ha'Ir serves a special Shabbat luncheon to approximately

120 patrons. "We make it really nice for them," Yair enthuses, "with white

table cloths, and flowers on the table, and Shabbat food with ten different

salads."

 

Sulika lives too far away to walk to Carmei Ha'Ir on Shabbat, so one Friday

Yair offered to give her raw Shabbat food -- fish and chicken -- for her

to cook at home. Sulika declined. She explained that the gas company had

turned off her gas because of failure to pay her 300 shekel (=$75) bill.

 

 

Carmei Ha'Ir is to self-esteem what sunshine is to flowers.

 

Carmei Ha'Ir is to self-esteem what sunshine is to flowers. One of the paid

workers is a 24-year-old deaf mute. Before starting at Carmei Ha'Ir, he

was indrawn and depressed. Now, he rushes proudly around performing various

managerial functions assigned to him by Yair. "Here he's alive," Yair comments,

beaming.

 

IN HIS IMAGE

 

Valuing other people's dignity is a core value in Judaism. Ethics of the

Fathers proclaims: "One who humiliates his fellow in public has no share

in the World to Come" (3:11). In fact, the sages asserted that someone who

embarrasses another person in public is akin to a murderer.

 

The Biblical heroine Tamar was ready to face execution rather than embarrass

her father-in-law Yehudah. Based on this incident, the Talmud declares:

"Better that one let himself be thrown into a fiery furnace than put his

neighbor to shame." (Sotah 10b) The sages of the Middle Ages debated whether,

based on this dictum, a Jew is obligated to forfeit his life rather than

transgress the prohibition against embarrassing someone -- just as a Jew

is obligated to forfeit his life rather than transgress the cardinal sins

of murder, adultery, and idolatry. The halachic conclusion is that a Jew

is not thus obligated, but, whereas preserving life takes precedence over

almost all other commandments, a Jew who submits to death rather than embarrass

someone is praiseworthy.

 

Even a wanton criminal must be treated with a minimum degree of honor, because

every human being is "created in the image of God." Thus, the Torah mandates

that when a person is convicted and executed for a capital crime and his

body is hung on a tree, the corpse must be cut down and properly buried

before sunset of the same day. To allow the body to be displayed longer

is to insult the King in whose image this person was created.

 

TAPPING INTO THE BOUNTY

 

Customers line up outside Carmei Ha'Ir well before the doors are thrown

open at noon. Then a rush of people fill the four-person tables. Most of

the patrons eat quickly and leave, making room for shift after shift. By

2:30 the crowd has thinned out. Two men who enter and sit down at that late

hour are told that the food has run out. Yair signals to a volunteer to

tell them to wait, and he absconds through the front entrance. A few minutes

later, he is back, carrying several portions of stuffed peppers and stuffed

zucchini.

 

Where did this food materialize from? Yair smiles and replies, "We have

good neighbors." He means the nearby restaurants, who are happy to contribute

whenever Carmei Ha'Ir runs out of food. Then he relates a story about the

restaurant next door which amazes even him.

 

This large restaurant, Shipudei HaGefen, was empty from the beginning of

the Oslo War. With terror attacks keeping people out of downtown Jerusalem,

tourist groups virtually extinct, and rising unemployment rendering lunch

out a dispensable luxury, the 120 seats at Shipudei HaGefen were vacant

for most of three and a half years.

 

When construction began on Carmei Ha'Ir, Tzion Anavim, HaGefen's owner,

became a generous supporter of the novel enterprise. He liberally advised

them on how to set up a restaurant, provided the wine for the opening day

Purim feast, and supplied food from HaGefen whenever the soup kitchen ran

short.

 

Now, six months later, Shipudei HaGefen is experiencing such abundant blessing

that Mr. Anavim can hardly handle his burgeoning volume of business. His

tables are always full. Mr. Anavim attributes the sudden change in his fortunes

to the help he proffers Carmei Ha'Ir. His inference is that because God

loves Carmei Ha'Ir, He blesses anyone who helps it.

 

I agree. I arrived at noon on an empty stomach, spent three hours, with

no time to eat a morsel, serving hungry people, and left feeling full.

 

Donations to Carmei Ha'Ir can be sent to P.O.B. 6084, Jerusalem 91060, Israel.

 

 

 

Published: Sunday, August 01, 2004

 

 

See more articles by Sara Yoheved Rigler

 

Sara Yoheved Rigler is a graduate of Brandeis University. Her spiritual

journey took her to India and through fifteen years of teaching Vedanta

philosophy and meditation. Since 1987, she has been practicing Torah Judaism.

A writer, she resides in the Old City of Jerusalem with her husband and

children. Her articles have appeared in: Jewish Women Speak about Jewish

Matters, Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul, and Heaven on Earth.

 

Sara Rigler is one of the feature authors in Aish.com's latest book, "Israel:

Life in the Shadow of Terror.".

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