This week's Omer Study Packet on hunger and poverty highlights teachings from the 2006 JRF Omer Study and from our partners at Mazon: A Jewish Repsonse to Hunger and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (JCPA).

Especially time-sensitive is the action alert on the 2007-2008 Farm Bill, currently making its way through Congress.

We also feature innovative programming from JRF congregations Dorshei Derekh, Mishkan Shalom and Darchei Noam.

In the packet's introduction, Rabbi Shawn Zevit reminds us that Mordecai Kaplan once wrote: “A theology which is not a plan of social action is merely a way of preaching and praying. It is a menu without the dinner.”

Jewish values provide us with recipes for repairing the world. As Jews and fellow travelers, our challenge is to discern how to embody these values in our lives and in our communities.

Often times this task can seem daunting. With so much brokenness in the world, where is one to begin to attempt to return the balance to the world?

To this end, we might view the holy task of tikkun in the area of hunger and poverty as expanding Kaplan's view of Judaism as the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish People. That civilization must be a spiritually, economically, socially, politically and ecologically sustainable religious civilization.

Hopefully, this information and the study texts that represent centuries of Jewish wisdom will inspire each of you to discover ways in which your communities can assist in alleviating the shadow of hunger and poverty that hovers in the light of all the abundance in our society.