Community Corner

On Tuesday, UJA-Federation of New York (UJA) announced more than $23 million in immediate financial aid to help meet the ever-growing needs of vulnerable New Yorkers affected by coronavirus (COVID-19). The grants and loans are intended to offer immediate relief to New Yorkers facing food insecurity and to provide financial relief to UJA partner organizations so they can continue to provide essential health and human services to their communities.

Half of their volunteers are not able to work, the demand for emergency food has nearly doubled, and one in six food pantries around the city have already closed. That’s why Met Council urgently opened their warehouse on a Sunday to have an emergency food distribution from their Brooklyn food warehouse. With food running out in stores and the wholesale cost of food rising, America’s largest free kosher distributor of food, Met Council on Jewish Poverty, is trying their best to ensure that the neediest New Yorkers are receiving food during this crisis.

Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee this week lauded a swiftly collected donation of various Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and other supplies by Queens College’s School of Mathematics and Sciences, including N-95 masks, 30 unopened cases of disposable nitrile gloves, disposable lab coats, and bottles of 70% isopropyl alcohol.

In this week’s parshah, Vayikra, the Torah discusses the various offerings one would bring to the Mishkan (and eventually to the Beis HaMikdash – the Holy Temple). In the opening paragraph (Vayikra 1:2), the Torah states: “When a man among you brings an offering to Gd, you should bring your offering from animals – from cattle or from flocks.” In Parshas Vayikra, Hashem’s closeness is revealed to us and we learn how to maintain our relationship with Hashem and how to show our love towards him.

As COVID-19 spreads throughout the country, Kosher Food Lifeline (KFL), a program of the Orthodox Union – the nation’s oldest and largest umbrella organization for the North American Orthodox Jewish community, launched programs to combat the anticipated significant increase in food insecurity, especially for the Passover holiday. 

(Please recite Psalms 20, 30, 88, 121, and 130.)

Eliezer Yitzchak ben Shifrah