DEUT712 A common debate among those involved in antipoverty work concerns the relative value of direct service addressing immediate needs and of advocacy or organizing addressing the need for systematic change. Advocates of direct service argue that the hungry need to be fed today and that the homeless need somewhere to sleep tonight. Those who prefer organizing or advocacy point out that soup kitchens and shelters will never make hunger and homelessness disappear, whereas structural change might wipe out these problems. The Deuteronomic response [15:4-11] to this debate is refusal to take sides, or better, an insistence on both. Rather than advocate exclusively either for long-term systematic change or for short-term response to need, this passage articulates a vision that balances the pursuit of full economic justice with attention to immediate concerns. In this reading, the text in question becomes a charge to work for the structural changes that will eventually bring about the end of poverty while also meeting the pressing needs of those around us. (By Jill Jacobs, "Jewish Political Ethics in America")