What Hubert Humphrey was saying in that commencement address is that the War on Poverty is a milchemet hovah, an obligatory war.

Of course, that was long ago. What happened to that enthusiasm, that energy, that commitment? Within twenty years, it was just about gone. Some believed that those programs were a waste of money and doomed to fail. As President Ronald Reagan famously put it in his 1988 State of the Union Address, “The federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.”

I thought about that expression of resignation during this past month. How accurate those words seem today! What images we’ve seen in the wake of Hurricane Katrina! We saw many disturbing things, but one of them was the abject poverty that came before our eyes—poverty that we might, vaguely, have been conscious of, but barely. Poverty has always been around in this country, of course, but during the horrible days that followed the hurricane, it was there on television for all of us to see—and for the world to see.

We saw people that we don’t ordinarily spend much time with—people so poor that not only don’t they own cars, but they couldn’t afford bus fare out of town. Maybe, had the hurricane struck at the beginning of the month, they could have afforded to catch a bus, but not when it did, just before their monthly welfare checks were due to arrive. Hundreds of thousands of people who, even before they were crowded into places like the New Orleans Convention Center, had little to call their own. People without relatives or friends out of town, without connections, without the things most of us take for granted.

Let’s talk about poverty. The U.S. Census Bureau reported a few weeks ago that the poverty rate rose again last year, with 1.1 million more Americans living in poverty in 2004 than a year earlier. (See Nicholas D. Kristof, “The Larger Shame,” The New York Times, September 6, 2005, p. A31) Let’s think about that for a moment: one point one million more Americans living in poverty in 2004 than in 2003.

Actually, if you go to the U.S. Census Bureau’s website you will discover, as I did, the astounding fact that the poverty rate has risen for four consecutive years. There were 31.6 million Americans living in poverty in 2000—there are now 37 million, an increase of 5.4 million people. 11.3% of Americans were living in poverty in 2000; now it’s up to 12.7%.

I say astounding because, although the facts have always been there for us to see, we just haven’t been paying attention.

We can’t always rely on our memory. I wasn’t sure if that speech by Humphrey was really all that I had remembered it to be. So I telephoned Temple University, connected with the Archives and somewhat sheepishly asked if they could dig up a copy of that speech. A few days later, I got the nicest note from a woman who works there. “I know that people often make fun of commencement speeches,” she wrote. “It’s very interesting to learn that this speech is one that remains vivid in your memory many years later.”

I was thrilled to have a copy of that speech in my hands, and to confirm what I had recalled. Seeing is believing. It was all there.

One thing I hadn’t remembered is that Humphrey quoted the book of Job in his speech. “The poor of the earth hide themselves together.” (“Yachad khub’u aniyeh-aretz,” (Job 24:4) as it reads in the original Hebrew.) In its context, that verse reminds us that poor people are often forced to stick together, to hide together, out of fear of being taken advantage of, of being victimized by crime. But Humphrey read that verse midrashically. Here in America, Humphrey said, poor people are so well hidden away from us in slums, that it is all too easy, “even for men and women of good will, not to see them.”

Our texts and traditions make it very clear that we have an affirmative duty to encounter the poor, to bring them out of their hidden places. “Ashir va-rash nifgashu, oseh kulam adonai”—“Rich and Poor must meet, for God made us all, rich and poor alike.” (Proverbs 22:2) We need “Close Encounter[s] of the Human Kind.” (See Abraham Verghese, New York Times Sunday Magazine, September 18, 2005, p.192.) We have to overcome the natural alienation caused by vast differences in circumstances and recognize our mutual humanity. We have to see ourselves when we look upon them.

We’re taught not to objectify the poor, not to have a sense of “us” versus “them,” for Judaism rejects the notion of a permanent underclass. He who is poor today may be rich tomorrow. She who is wealthy may become destitute tomorrow. About wealth, Proverbs says, “ha-taif einechah bo v’einenu”—“Take one look, and it’s gone.” (23:5) We will shortly ask rhetorically in the Unetaneh Tokef, “mi ye-ani u’mi ya-ashir,”—“Who will be impoverished [in the new year]? And who will become wealthy?” To a certain extent, it’s all up for grabs.

Whose money is it, anyway? In Chapter 8 of Deuteronomy (see vv.11-18), Moses speaks to the Children of Israel as they’re about to enter the Land of Israel. He says to them, “You know, when you get to the Promised Land and your herds and your flocks increase, and your silver and gold increase and everything you own prospers, you might be tempted to say: ‘Kochi v’otzem yadi asah li et ha-hayil ha-zeh,’—‘It was my own strength, my own initiative, that won this wealth for me!’” But if you do that, Moses tells the people, you’d be wrong, “for the power to acquire wealth is a gift from God.”

What Moses is saying in that passage is that wealth is, in essence, just another form of manna. (See Deut. 8:3) Yes, in some limited sense we can say it’s ours, but only because it happened to come our way. Certain obligations follow from that insight.

The poor have financial challenges, but they may suffer other afflictions as well. “It is forbidden,” Maimonides tells us, “to condemn a poor person or to shout at him, because his heart may be broken. He may be depressed.” (Mishneh Torah, “Gifts to the Poor,” 10:5) In fact, the emotional needs of the poor might even deserve more of our attention. “Rabbi Isaac said, ‘One who gives a small coin to a needy person obtains six blessings; one who addresses to him words of comfort obtains eleven blessings.’” (Bava Batra 9b) The proof-text for that proposition is the haftarah that we will read on Yom Kippur, in which Isaiah implores us not only to “share []our bread with the hungry,” but to offer “compassion to the hungry” as well. (Isaiah 58:10) In essence, all we owe the poor is what we want for ourselves. In that powerful, last line of the Avinu Malkeinu, what is it that we ask of God? “Tsedakah va-hesed”—“Righteousness and Lovingkindness.”

We all know this. Many of us are generous and compassionate, and we demonstrate that. Many of us strive, in real, personal ways, to live out our values. We support Family Table, we support the Salvation Army Miracle Kitchen in Framingham; many of us contribute to Mazon, the Jewish organization combating hunger; many of us will bring food to the synagogue in paper bags on Yom Kippur.

But what about on a policy level? Is tsedakah more than an individual obligation? Are individual donations sufficient? Or is it necessary to insist upon and to support a communal effort?

In Talmudic and medieval times, when Jews governed their own affairs, we established community chests and soup kitchens, and provided sums for the local indigent as well as the itinerant poor. “Me-olam lo ra-inu v’lo shamanu…,” Maimonides tells us, “We have never seen, nor have we heard of a Jewish community that did not establish funds for the poor.” And where did those funds come from? From the residents of the community, of course. Traditional Jewish communities always had the power to tax their members and they did just that. Every week, collectors known as gabbaim would go around and collect the funds necessary to keep the poor fed, clothed and sheltered. And, incidentally, they didn’t just take care of Jewish poor people. They took care of gentiles as well as Jews, “mipnei darchei shalom,”—“to follow the paths of peace.” (Gittin 61a).

Today, of course, we live in a broader society. Historically, as we’ve seen, Jewish governments developed elaborate safety nets. Is it then our duty to promote local, regional or national secular authorities doing what Jewish authorities once did, assessing and collecting tsedakah and distributing it to the poor—or is our obligation fulfilled through the support of private, non-profit organizations? Is it a Jewish duty to support the modern secular welfare state—or not? Is it our duty to join with our gentile neighbors and wage a war on poverty?

There are different Jewish perspectives on this question, but one of them is not to avert our eyes. That is, there are those who would argue that the modern secular welfare state takes the place of the kehillah, the Jewish community that once took care of the poor. Others will argue that faith based initiatives should be empowered, and should take responsibility for the poor. What’s not a principled Jewish position is to say that we can remain oblivious to the problem.

What Katrina has taught us is that we must keep paying attention. So many of us do so many caring things, but nonetheless, in this respect at least, Hubert Humphrey was right. When we live in different neighborhoods, in different cities, it’s easy not to see. But we have to make that effort. We have to look, and we have to see.

Both today and tomorrow, the Torah readings teach us how vital it is to open our eyes and see at critical moments. Today we read about how Hagar was sitting and weeping, despairing of being able to care for her son, until God “opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water” (Gen. 21:19) from which she drew water for her son. A medieval commentator known as S’forno tells us that Hagar had not been physically blind before that. God didn’t literally open her eyes; rather, he gave her the understanding to perceive that water was in that place. Tomorrow, we’ll read about how when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, he raised his eyes and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Hadn’t that ram already been there, even before Abraham bound his son to the altar? Why then hadn’t he seen it? What had blinded him?

At the end of tomorrow’s reading, we’re told the moral of the story: “On the Mount of the Lord, there is vision.” (Gen. 22:14) Without vision, Hagar couldn’t have saved her son. Without vision, Abraham would not have been able to save his son. Without vision, we too can’t do the right thing.

We’re not stupid. We have known all along that there is serious economic and social stratification in this country. In other words, there is a lot of wealth in this country, and there are lots and lots of poor people in this country.

“Whatever else our High Holy Days might be,” Rabbi Ismar Schorsch has written, “they are surely about helping us sharpen our vision.” These days are designed to help us to look around us and to see the world as it really is, and to realize what role we are called upon to play.

Every morning, we give thanks to God for restoring to us the gift of sight. When we say “Adonai pokeach ivrim,” “God opens the eyes of the blind,” (Psalm 146) we’re not just referring to physical sight, but to “depth vision,” the ability “to see the nature of our lives and of the world as truly constituted” (Schorsch); to see not only beauty but also the pain and suffering, the deprivation in the world around us, and to respond to it.

As the Talmud teaches us, seeing leads to recollection, and recollection leads to doing. Our eyes have been opened. We’ve been reminded of our obligations. We now know enough to act. Let us not abandon those whose suffering we have witnessed.

Hubert Humphrey concluded his speech on that June day almost 40 years ago as follows:

By pressing the good fight against poverty [had he been speaking in shul, he would certainly have called it a milchemet hovah] … we identify ourselves with the deepest aspirations of the whole family of man. And we show in deeds, as well as words, the warm humanity and the spirit of brotherhood which have always characterized America at its best—an America which is “…a giver of life and of hope to the dispossessed of the earth.”

Let me conclude my own remarks with the words of our liturgy: u’Teshuvah, u’Tefillah, u’Tsedakah ma’avirin et roa ha-g’zerah: Teshuvah (Repentance), Tefillah (Prayer) and Tsedakah (Righteousness) avert the severity of the decree.

Let us open our eyes and see the millions and millions of Americans whose suffering has been brought to our attention—those whom we might rarely otherwise see and rarely encounter. Let us see them, let us see their needs and let us see to their needs. Let us do our part to help them avert “the severity of the decree” which circumstances have bestowed upon them.