Good Shabbos everyone. I’d like to thank Rabbi Friedson-King for giving up the pulpit this morning so that we can honor Children’s Sabbath. Yes, this weekend is Children’s Sabbath which is being celebrated in over 70 houses of worship in the Rochester area – yesterday in mosques, today in synagogues, and tomorrow in churches of all denominations. We also have Buddhist and Hindu participants.
I suspect most, if not all of you are surprised to learn that today is the Children’s Sabbath. This designation of the 3rd Sabbath in October was started 21 years ago by the Children’s Defense Fund, a wonderful national organization dedicated to defending the needs of children – the most defenseless members of our society. It was reintroduced to us in Rochester last year by the Children’s Agenda, a local organization pursuing the same objectives locally – serving as advocates for children, especially those 1 out of 5 children in Monroe County who live in poverty. Note that I said Monroe County, not Rochester. In Rochester, more than half of our children live in poverty, the 7th highest rate in the entire country. Note that I also said “our children”, because if nothing else, I hope that everyone leaves here today understanding that we have a vested interest in all children, not just our own. While children make up only 24% of our population, they are 100% of our future – a reality of which Noah was acutely aware as he was carrying the burden not only of humankind, but that of the entire animal kingdom.
The Children’s Agenda is a remarkable organization that’s about 6 or 7 years old; our own Bobbi Borg sits on its Board. The Agenda is headed by a devoted pediatrician, Dr. Jeff Kaczorowski. If you belong to an organization that brings in speakers, scheduling Dr. Kaczorowski would be one of the best things you could do. Despite the far more attractive opportunities available to a practicing physician, he has devoted the past 8 or so years to serving as President and Executive Director of the Children’s Agenda. If you wonder why, here’s an excerpt from a 3-year old interview:
When Dr. Jeff Kaczorowski suggested tothe mother of one of his patients that shetry using a highchair to improve her baby’sappetite, he was dismayed to learn that thefamily did not even own a table. “I felt like an idiot,” he says. “You learn alot from people.”
Another patient suffered from a bad skincondition. After showing improvement,the baby experienced a serious setback. Thechild’s mother explained that the conditionwas made worse after plaster fell on him. He said, “Plaster from the ceiling is fallingon your baby?’” and shesaid, “Well, when the gunshots came throughthe front window and hit the ceiling, that’swhat happens.’”
The Agenda’s emphasis is on improving the lives of children, especially the most vulnerable, through advocacy for policy change based on evidence-based solutions. On the way in this morning, you may have picked up a copy of their report to the community, “Decade of Decline”. It looks at 21 different measures related to the health and well-being of children and assesses how these have changed in the decade from 1999 to 2009. The good news is that in 3 of these areas, we have gotten better – in the number of children with health insurance, in the number of children in pre-K, and in the reduction of those with elevated lead levels in their blood.
But 3 out of 21 is not something to brag about; that leaves 18 measures with not such good news. In twelve of those measures things are getting seriously worse and the other 6 still need attention, though not as demanding as the 12. Please be sure to pick up a copy of the report before you leave today and see the detail for yourself.
So how does one begin to deal with these needs? While there are many possibilities, this year’s Children’s Sabbath is focused on early childhood day care. Some 75% of brain development takes place in the first 3 years of life, years that need to be spent in safe, stimulating places if they are to arrive at kindergarten ready to learn. But for too many families, such day-care is beyond their means and the public support that was available in the past is disappearing. Though there was some increase in the first years of the stimulus, those funds no longer exist and the state has reduced its commitment by $300-million in the past 3 years greatly shrinking the number of children who can benefit. Yet every dollar invested in high-quality child care returns $7-17 in tax savings in subsequent years due to the need for additional services. What makes more sense, investing $1,000 per year in child care for 10 years or paying over $60,000 per year to keep someone in prison? But just last year, there were only 7,200 eligible children using these subsidies, down from over 12,000 just 9 years earlier. And we’re not talking just inner city facilities; even the JCC’s Wolk Center has families who make use of them.
What we hope to do this Children’s Sabbath is to generate a flood of letters to Governor Cuomo and the two State Legislative Leaders, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. There are copies of this letter on the table outside the sanctuary and I urge each of you to take one home and sign it – after sundown, of course. We do not want you to mail them, however. The Agenda wants to collect them and hand deliver them on a trip to Albany in November. So after they are signed, bring them back and – if the office is open, leave the with Debby or, if you won’t be back until next Shabbos, bring it with you and leave it in a collection box we will have outside for that purpose.
There is one other thing we hope that you will consider as well – be a volunteer to help kids. There are many opportunities in our community and there is another handout on the table to acquaint you with some of them. The first is very easy – just go to the Children’s Agenda web site and sign up to become an advocate. There’s no compulsion or minimum commitment; it just keeps you in the loop on ways you might be able to provide a boost for those efforts you support. There are some day care centers that need volunteers, and there is our own Rochester Jewish Coalition for Literacy, a wonderful program we have had in the City School District for many years. A separate card is on the table to further describe this valuable contribution.
Now that Beth El has participated in a Children’s Sabbath, my last request is that we do make this an annual event and be alert to plans for it. This year, we are limiting our activity to this one exposure of what it means to advocate for children. But we can do more and make it not just a plea for help, but truly a celebration of children and with children’s participation. I’m sure we have the creative energy among our congregants to do just that.
And now, let’s honor and acknowledge those among us who have engaged or are now engaged in this labor of love for our children. Would all of you who are or have been teachers, day-care givers, youth workers, coaches, scout leaders, or participants in any other kind of work dealing with children stand up and be recognized. May you be blessed.
I’d like to close now by reading “A Prayer for Children” written by a columnist for the Knoxville Sentinel-News, Ina J. Hughs. The prayer has touched many and has been circulated around the world.
A Prayer for Children by Ina J. Hughs
We pray for children
Who sneak Popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who never “counted potatoes,”
Who were born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can’t find any bread to steal,
Who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
And whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes under the tub,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
Who got to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for children
Who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those
Who don’t get a second chance,
For those we smother and for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.
And let us say – Amen.
One final lesson from today’s sedrah – if God wanted to destroy the world, He didn’t need to send a flood. All He had to do was ignore the children.
Good Kindershabbos.