It was 1990, and Becky and I were living in Boston.  I was working at the time as a psychiatric social worker, helping people who had major psychiatric illness - to transition from the state hospital back into the community.  In the early 90s in Massachusetts there were budget battles going on in the state government, similar to what we are watching today in Washington DC at the federal level.  Massachusetts was bringing in what they called “managed care” - and part of what that meant was that many of the services that our clients relied on - for help with housing, or job training, or even food - many of those services were going to be cut.  And we knew that we needed to help our clients have a voice, so we rented two buses, we drove to downtown Boston, we joined other clients and staff members from the mental health system, and hundreds of us spent a cool fall afternoon walking back and forth in front of the Boston statehouse, waving signs and chanting slogans.
     In the end there were cuts, and some of them were hard cuts, but most of the core services that we felt our clients needed had been maintained.  And one of the things we successfully did that afternoon was to remind the politicians that our clients first of all EXISTED, that they actually had a voice, and we also reminded them that they might even vote!  But whatever it was, it was enough to put our clients at least on the radar screen so that these core services that they needed to live the kind of life that we all want to live were continued.  
     One of the reasons the government has to support people like that is that often they don’t have the ability to pay for services themselves.  If they could pay for the counseling they needed, the medication they needed, the training that they needed, then the government wouldn’t have to, but they can’t pay.  Most of those folks hadn’t worked in years - they were scraping to get by day to day, forget about month to month - So the organizations that were there to help and support them all had in place what are called sliding scale fees - that essentially means people pay whatever they can afford, and by setting up that structure you make sure that no one will be denied services because they can’t afford to pay
     Now this might sound like a very modern idea, but in reality the idea of a sliding scale fee is ancient, and it in fact comes from the Torah, and is found in this morning’s Torah portion.  The text describes a type of skin disease, and the Israelites believed that once a person had contracted that disease they fell into a state of ritual impurity.  And what we read from the Torah this morning is a description of the rituals that were enacted to bring that person back into the community, to return them to a state of ritual purity.  
     The ritual the Torah describes is complicated, with multiple steps, but the core of the ritual was the sacrifice of  two male lambs.  So the afflicted person had to bring the lambs to the Temple in Jerusalem, give them to the priest, and then watch the priest sacrifice the animals.  The problem was, in ancient times, those lambs were probably the most valuable things you owned, if you even owned them at all - so the Torah asks a strikingly modern question -  what if the person with the disease couldn’t afford to sacrifice two lambs?  Would they have to stay in their state of ritual impurity, with no chance of being reintegrated into the community?
     And this is where the Torah introduces it’s version of a sliding scale fee. V’im dal hu, says the Torah - if he is poor - v’ain yado maseget - and his means are insufficient - then he could offer just a single male lamb.  And if he couldn’t afford that, he could offer two birds - and if that was too much for him, he could offer just a single bird - and if even that was too much, he was permitted to offer just a handful of flower - and the poor person who offered the handful of flower was considered to be just as ritually clean as the person of means who had offered the two male lambs. 
     And that gives you a sense of the Torah’s understanding of a society’s responsibility to care for its marginalized or underprivileged citizens.  Those citizens must also have full access to the services that are required to live a dignified, meaningful human life. 
     The Torah comes to this viewpoint from two particular perspectives, one from what I would call a God driven agenda, and one from what we could call a human driven agenda.  The God piece comes from the creation story that we read in the first chapters of the book of Genesis.  And you may remember that the Torah tells us that human beings were created “b’tzelem elohim” - in the image of God.  Jews will commonly say that in a Jewish sanctuary there is no representative image of God like you might find in some churches with a crucifix.  But that is not true - in fact, the opposite is true, because this sanctuary is filled with representative images of God - each and every person sitting here this morning.  Judaism teaches us that every human face is a reflection of God’s image - whether that face belongs to a person who is poor, or who in ancient times was ritually impure, or who in today’s world is homeless, or struggles with psychiatric illness - it doesn’t matter!  And if every person is a reflection of God’s image, then surely every person deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.
     And then there is the human side to the Torah’s understanding of this issue.  And that comes from the passover story that we are preparing to sit down and tell to our children and grandchildren one week from Monday night.  The Talmud reminds us that the telling of that story must - matchil b’g’nut u’m’sayeim b’shevach - it must begin at the lowest possible point, and only once we’ve revisited that, can we conclude with good things.  IN other words, we always start the story by remembering that we were slaves!  Avadim hayimu we sing at the seder - we WERE slaves!   And so we should know, better than anyone, what it feels like to be a marginalized group, a group that no one else will help, a group without a voice or a way forward.
     And what concerns me about the current budget debate, unfolding in Washington even as we speak, is that it is precisely those citizens - the marginalized, the underclass, the poor, the citizens who don’t have their own voice - whose needs will be ignored in this conversation, whose services will be cut, and whose dignity and humanity will be diminished.  And I think it is our responsibility to remind our politicians that although those folks don’t often vote, and although they do often live on the margins of our society and culture, there are people who care about them, and who believe that it is the responsibility of our collective society to make sure that all of its citizens are cared for.  
     Passover has become a very expensive holiday - with kosher wine and brisket costing more than gold, and with chocolate covered matzah selling for $3 a piece!  But you know there is an ancient custom, called ma’ot hittin, of giving some extra charity at this time of year.  It began in ancient times, and it was a way of ensuring that even the poorest Jews would have some matzah to eat during Pesah.  So lets continue that tradition by each giving a little bit extra this year - to a person, or an organization, or an institution that needs our help.  It is one of the best ways that I can think of to show God how grateful we are for the freedom that we have and the lives that we live.