Stop looking away; take action

One of my earliest childhood memories is not an exemplary one. I was 12 and on my first trip to New York City. My dad and I left our hotel room and waded into the crowded sidewalks of Manhattan. I remember vividly seeing a man literally lying on the ground. I wanted to stop and “do something,” but my dad grabbed my hand and we walked around him as fast as we could.

I share that story because it bothers me to this day. And it is very real. Anyone who has been to Foremaster Lane on the fringe of downtown Las Vegas knows the feeling of averting our heads and driving a bit faster. Anyone who has driven around town near road tunnels knows the feeling. Go faster. Avert our eyes. Pretend this doesn’t exist. Pretend it is someone else’s problem. And then our eyes look upward to the beautiful hotels and the shiny buildings that greet millions of tourists, and we are hypnotized into thinking things are OK. And they are not.

Years ago, our congregation helped bring about the Inter-Faith Hospitality Network — now Family Promise — to our community. It is a consortium of more than a dozen houses of worship, each committing several weeks a year to house homeless, feed them and through this wonderful organization get them meaningful work. Over the course of a year, a few hundred homeless people are helped.

The effort is just a drop in the bucket — thousands face homelessness in our state — but at least it is something. And, perhaps just as important, it means every volunteer who participates does not step around or aside or avert their eyes. One of the strengths of the program is that it puts a face on homelessness. Many of us are merely one paycheck, one bad decision, one medical emergency from losing our homes.

The last major speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered, four days before his assassination on a motel balcony in Memphis, was about poverty. He spoke March 31, 1968, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In this speech he declared, “It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, ‘That was not enough! But I was hungry and ye fed me not. I was naked and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me.’”

What is the challenge to our Las Vegas community? We can pray to God and ask for his help, but it is through our actions that help is delivered. We need to find creative ways to come together and find meaningful work and housing assistance for those in need so they will have three basic needs met: food, shelter and dignity. We must understand that ignoring this problem does not make it go away. In a community that has such a big heart, in a town that has incredible minds and talent and folks with enormous wealth, surely there is more we can do. If only we would look and not avert our eyes. Rabbi Sanford Akselrad has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Tamid in Henderson for 29 years.

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