(א) אֵיכָ֣ה ׀ יָשְׁבָ֣ה בָדָ֗ד הָעִיר֙ רַבָּ֣תִי עָ֔ם הָיְתָ֖ה כְּאַלְמָנָ֑ה רַבָּ֣תִי בַגּוֹיִ֗ם שָׂרָ֙תִי֙ בַּמְּדִינ֔וֹת הָיְתָ֖ה לָמַֽס׃ {ס} (ב) בָּכ֨וֹ תִבְכֶּ֜ה בַּלַּ֗יְלָה וְדִמְעָתָהּ֙ עַ֣ל לֶֽחֱיָ֔הּ אֵֽין־לָ֥הּ מְנַחֵ֖ם מִכׇּל־אֹהֲבֶ֑יהָ כׇּל־רֵעֶ֙יהָ֙ בָּ֣גְדוּ בָ֔הּ הָ֥יוּ לָ֖הּ לְאֹיְבִֽים׃ {ס} (ג) גָּֽלְתָ֨ה יְהוּדָ֤ה מֵעֹ֙נִי֙ וּמֵרֹ֣ב עֲבֹדָ֔ה הִ֚יא יָשְׁבָ֣ה בַגּוֹיִ֔ם לֹ֥א מָצְאָ֖ה מָנ֑וֹחַ כׇּל־רֹדְפֶ֥יהָ הִשִּׂיג֖וּהָ בֵּ֥ין הַמְּצָרִֽים׃ {ס} (ד) דַּרְכֵ֨י צִיּ֜וֹן אֲבֵל֗וֹת מִבְּלִי֙ בָּאֵ֣י מוֹעֵ֔ד כׇּל־שְׁעָרֶ֙יהָ֙ שֽׁוֹמֵמִ֔ין כֹּהֲנֶ֖יהָ נֶאֱנָחִ֑ים בְּתוּלֹתֶ֥יהָ נּוּג֖וֹת וְהִ֥יא מַר־לָֽהּ׃ {ס} (ה) הָי֨וּ צָרֶ֤יהָ לְרֹאשׁ֙ אֹיְבֶ֣יהָ שָׁל֔וּ כִּֽי־יהוה הוֹגָ֖הּ עַ֣ל רֹב־פְּשָׁעֶ֑יהָ עוֹלָלֶ֛יהָ הָלְכ֥וּ שְׁבִ֖י לִפְנֵי־צָֽר׃ {ס} (ו) וַיֵּצֵ֥א (מן בת) [מִבַּת־]צִיּ֖וֹן כׇּל־הֲדָרָ֑הּ הָי֣וּ שָׂרֶ֗יהָ כְּאַיָּלִים֙ לֹא־מָצְא֣וּ מִרְעֶ֔ה וַיֵּלְכ֥וּ בְלֹא־כֹ֖חַ לִפְנֵ֥י רוֹדֵֽף׃ {ס}
(1) Alas!
Lonely sits the city
Once great with people!
She that was great among nations
Is become like a widow;
The princess among states
Is become a thrall.(2) Bitterly she weeps in the night,
Her cheek wet with tears.
There is none to comfort her
Of all her friends.
All her allies have betrayed her;
They have become her foes.(3) Judah has gone into exile
Because of misery and harsh oppression;
When she settled among the nations,
She found no rest;
All her pursuers overtook her
In the narrow places.(4) Zion’s roads are in mourning,
Empty of festival pilgrims;
All her gates are deserted.
Her priests sigh,
Her maidens are unhappy—
She is utterly disconsolate!(5) Her enemies are now the masters,
Her foes are at ease,
Because the LORD has afflicted her
For her many transgressions;
Her infants have gone into captivity
Before the enemy.(6) Gone from Fair Zion are all
That were her glory;
Her leaders were like stags
That found no pasture;
They could only walk feebly
Before the pursuer.
אֵיכָה אַצְתָּ בְּאַפֶּךָ לְאַבֵּד בְּיַד אֲדוֹמִים אֱמוּנֶיךָ.
וְלֹא זָכַרְתָּ בְּרִית בֵּין הַבְּתָרִים אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַרְתָּ לִבְחוּנֶיךָ. וּבְכֵן בִּטִּינוּ. זְכוֹר יהוה מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ:
אֵיכָה גָּעַרְתָּ בְּגַעֲרָתֶךָ לַגְלוֹת בְּיַד גֵּאִים גְּאוּלֶיךָ.
וְלֹא זָכַרְתָּ דְּלִיגַת דִּלּוּג דֶּרֶךְ אֲשֶׁר דָּלַגְתָּ לִדְגָלֶיךָ. וּבְכֵן דִּבַּרְנוּ. זְכוֹר יהוה מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ:
אֵיכָה הַגְתָּ בְּהֶגְיוֹנֶךָ לַהֲדוֹף בְּיַד הוֹלְלִים הֲמוֹנֶיךָ.
וְלֹא זָכַרְתָּ וִעוּד וֶתֶק וֶסֶת אֲשֶׁר וִעַדְתָּ לִוְעוּדֶיךָ. וּבְכֵן וְקוֹנֵנוּ. זְכוֹר יהוה מֶה הָיָה לָנוּ:
אֵיכָה זָנַחְתָּ בְּזַעֲמֶךָ לְזַלְזֵל בְּיַד זָרִים זְבוּלֶךָ.
Kinot for Tisha B'Av Day, Chapter 7
Why did You hasten Your anger and thus allow Your faithful disciples to perish at the hands of the Romans?
Yet not remember Your covenant to create a link between You and our forefathers who were tested and not found wanting. Therefore, hear our lament “Remember LORD what has occurred to us”.
Why do You rebuke us, who were once redeemed, with your scolding into the hand of the haughty ones?
Yet not remember the skipping steps of the path of Your banners. Therefore we speak: “Remember LORD what has occurred to us”.
Why do you contemplate such logic thrusting us into the hands of such an immoral mob?
Yet you don’t remember the laws which You set out for Your appointed assembly. Therefore we lament: “Remember LORD what has occurred to us”.
Why do You abandon Your Sanctuary in fury to degradation by the hands of abhorrent strangers?
Rabbi Zoe Klein of Temple Isaiah, Los Angeles, CA in honor of those affected by Hurricane Katrina
And how long does it take to dry them?
As long as there is misery and fear
In the people who continue to cry them.
How much water is inside a flood
And how long does it take to recede?
As long as it takes to restore hope
To the people in desperate need.
How much water is inside a storm
And how long does it take to clear?
As long as it takes to rebuild a home
And restore everything that is dear.
How much water is inside a city
When a levee suddenly breaks?
As many as are the tears that are cried
When so many million hearts break.
BUDDHISM: If bad things happen, it isn't really bad.
HINDUISM: This bad thing happened before.
ISLAM: If bad things happen, it is the will of Allah.
PROTESTANTISM: Let bad things happen to someone else.
CATHOLICISM: If bad things happen, you deserved it.
JUDAISM: Why do bad things always happen to us?
Two classic Talmudic texts make this point very clearly: "Suppose a person stole a measure of wheat and went and sowed it in the ground; it is right that it should not grow, yet the world pursues its natural course, and as for those who transgress, they will have to render an account. Another illustration: Suppose a man had intercourse with his neighbor's wife; it is right that she should not conceive, yet the world pursues its natural course."
"The boy's father said to him: 'Ascend to the loft and bring me the eggs in the nest...' If the boy ascends, dismisses the mother bird and takes the young, and on his return falls and dies, how can it be explained?" (After all, the boy was fulfilling the two commandments that come with the reward of long life -- he was honoring his father and he was shooing away the mother bird.) After offering possible explanations for why this bad thing might have happened, Rabbi Eleazar says: "It was a rickety ladder, so injury was likely. Where injury is likely one cannot rely on a miracle."
The earthquake and tsunami which devastated coastal areas of the Indian Ocean Basin earlier this year, killing tens of thousands, and ripping away any pretense of man’s control over his own fate, left religious people of all stripes groping for meaning on personal, practical and theological levels. The recent hurricane, Katrina, which destroyed New Orleans has raised similar questions, as well. In their wake, we need to consider how to fathom the unfathomable: How should we feel? What should we do? And how does a faithful Jew relate to G-d in the wake of such events? What follows is both a critique of inappropriate approaches, and a statement of a response to natural disaster which I feel best incorporates the requirements and ideals of Jewish law and tradition.
Destructive Approaches
Attempts by leaders of any religion to attribute this cataclysmic event to a specific sin are deplorable. Such attempts are unprovable and insensitive at best, self-serving and dishonest at worst. While using catastrophe as a spur for repentance has a long history in Jewish thought, pointing omnisciently to another’s fatal sin does not. It is one thing to counsel teshuva for ourselves in the aftermath of such a demonstration of G-d’s might; it is quite another to blame the victims for their misfortune.
Theologically Unsound Approaches
We must resist the temptation to disassociate God from terrible acts of nature. Whether overwhelmed by close proximity to the events or driven by a philosophical need to defend God’s goodness, a number of religious figures have denied that the hand of God could be involved in the death of innocents. In effect they sought to salvage Divine benevolence at the expense of Divine omnipotence, and were left with a “senile benevolence” C.S. Lewis would call “Our grandfather in heaven.” A God reduced to the proportions of human comprehension is surely not a worthy object of worship, nor does he correspond to the God of the Written and Oral Law. The vast preponderance of Jewish thought has taken for granted a God who is both loving and immediately involved in His Creation.
A possible exception to this principle would be the view of Maimonides on the extent of God’s personal supervision of the world and its inhabitants, but even that position posits a God who chose to run His world by the rules of nature, not One who was powerless to contravene them.
Toward a Traditional Approach
The beginning of a religious approach, one which is faithful to the souls of the dead and the living, and which refuses to reimagine God to suit our limitations, is a recognition of the tzelem elokim – the image of God – in every human being, Jew or non-Jew. That recognition must properly lead to searing pain at witnessing so many of His creatures obliterated. While not ignoring the stream in Jewish philosophy that sees an essential difference between the souls of Jew and non-Jew, we nonetheless think it proper to focus on those sources which highlight the essential bond of all humanity as God’s handiwork. When a Jew feels himself beleaguered or in pain, he prays, and so this element includes the imperative of prayer.
The second necessary element is context. We must remember that similar occurrences in the past – such as the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755, adduced by Chief Rabbi Sacks of Great Britain – challenged religious faith, but did not vanquish it. In this category, as well, may fall the many Biblical, Talmudic and Midrashic sources which reveal the other side of the coin – how, on a daily basis, G-d sets limits to the destructive forces of nature, not allowing them to vent their full force on humanity. Such context, while not answering the unanswerable, can relieve the panic and aloneness that threaten the religious soul.
The third piece is what Rav Aharon Lichtenstein has termed the “shock of humility,” which teaches that stunned silence is more eloquent than effervescent nonsense. It is not a cop-out to admit that the ways of God remain mysterious to man.
Fourthly comes the need to validate the very real questions of faith in the minds of some. Jews must remember that is permissible to question the ways of God, if one does so in sincere search for truth, and from within the community of faith. His petition for the wicked of Sodom denied, Abraham arose the next morning, beheld the smoke rising from the smoldering ruins of the city God refused to save, and prayed the morning prayer to the G-d whose ways eluded him. Those who have challenged God’s justice through the ages, from Abraham to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev to Rav Klonimus Kalman Shapiro of the Warsaw Ghetto, have innately understood the words of Ibn Gabirol: Mimkha Elekha—I flee from You into Your arms. The God whom we question is also the source of our comfort, and we are the child flailing our fists in tantrum at a parent, while calling to that very parent for an embrace of consolation.
Fifth, some of us may want to inculcate the sensitivity addressed by Sarah Shapiro, who expressed ambivalence at the quasi-voyeuristic nature of imbibing the media glut of photos of victims and their suffering. Surely this relates to the words of Pirkei Avot: “And do not seek to see your friend at the time of his misfortune.”
Sixth, but perhaps first in importance, we Jews must join people of good will of all faiths in providing financial and moral support for survivors of the disaster who are trying to rebuild their lives. Such acts are certainly a sanctification of G-d’s name, but they are more. As Maimonides notes in recommending charity be given even to idolators, they are a form of emulating the ways of G-d himself, regarding Whom Tehillim 145:9 states: “His mercy extends to all his creatures.”
When all is said and done, this approach fails to set one’s mind at ease, but that is how it should be. It is unsatisfying to grieve for the pain of thousands of innocents without being able to either attach it to their responsibility or detach it from God’s. But neither extreme rings true. We are left in pain but resisting facile explanations that impute to us knowledge of God’s motives, or to Him an image pared down to our size. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik once ascribed a similar state of mind to Moses himself. At the burning bush, Moses hid his face, refusing, the Talmud says, God’s offer of a revelation that would put him in possession of all the mysteries of how God runs His world. Understanding why the innocent suffer, Moses feared, would diminish his empathy for their plight. Better a thousand questions than one complacent moment of comprehension at the expense of another.
I might add: Better the nobility of the struggle with unanswered questions than the reinterpretation of God to suit our preferences.
What troubles you? What resonates with you? What is an idea that you have not encountered before?
How might you articulate your own understanding of disasters?
JDC
אֵין מְמַחִין בְּיַד עֲנִיֵּי גוֹיִם בְּלֶקֶט בְּשִׁכְחָה וּבְפֵאָה, מִפְּנֵי דַּרְכֵי שָׁלוֹם: תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: מְפַרְנְסִים עֲנִיֵּי גוֹיִם עִם עֲנִיֵּי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וּמְבַקְּרִין חוֹלֵי גוֹיִם עִם חוֹלֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, וְקוֹבְרִין מֵתֵי גוֹיִם עִם מֵתֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, מִפְּנֵי דַּרְכֵי שָׁלוֹם.
§ The mishna teaches: One does not protest against poor gentiles who come to take gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and the produce in the corner of the field, which is given to the poor [pe’a], although they are meant exclusively for the Jewish poor, on account of the ways of peace. Similarly, the Sages taught in a baraita (Tosefta 5:4): One sustains poor gentiles along with poor Jews, and one visits sick gentiles along with sick Jews, and one buries dead gentiles along with dead Jews. All this is done on account of the ways of peace, to foster peaceful relations between Jews and gentiles.
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: ״דֵּי מַחְסוֹרוֹ״ — אַתָּה מְצֻוֶּוה עָלָיו לְפַרְנְסוֹ, וְאִי אַתָּה מְצֻוֶּוה עָלָיו לְעַשְּׁרוֹ. ״אֲשֶׁר יֶחְסַר לוֹ״ — אֲפִילּוּ סוּס לִרְכּוֹב עָלָיו וְעֶבֶד לָרוּץ לְפָנָיו. אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל הִלֵּל הַזָּקֵן שֶׁלָּקַח לְעָנִי בֶּן טוֹבִים אֶחָד סוּס לִרְכּוֹב עָלָיו וְעֶבֶד לָרוּץ לְפָנָיו. פַּעַם אַחַת לֹא מָצָא עֶבֶד לָרוּץ לְפָנָיו, וְרָץ לְפָנָיו שְׁלֹשָׁה מִילִין.תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: מַעֲשֶׂה בְּאַנְשֵׁי גָּלִיל הָעֶלְיוֹן שֶׁלָּקְחוּ לְעָנִי בֶּן טוֹבִים אֶחָד מִצִּיפּוֹרִי לִיטְרָא בָּשָׂר בְּכׇל יוֹם.
Concerning this issue, the Sages taught: “Sufficient for his deficiency”; this teaches that you are commanded with respect to the pauper to support him, but you are not commanded with respect to him to make him wealthy, as the obligation encompasses only that which he lacks, as indicated by the word deficient. However, the verse also states: “Which is deficient for him”; this includes even a horse upon which to ride and a servant to run in front of him for the sake of his stature, if necessary. For someone accustomed to these advantages, their absences constitute a true deficiency, not an extravagant indulgence. The Gemara relates: They said about Hillel the Elder that he obtained for a poor person of noble descent a horse upon which to ride and a servant to run in front of him. One time he did not find a servant to run in front of him, and Hillel himself ran in front of him for three mil, to fulfill the dictate “which is deficient for him.”The Sages taught: There was an incident involving the people of the Upper Galilee, who bought for a poor person of noble descent from the city of Tzippori a litra of meat every day.
(ד) בִּקּוּר חוֹלִים מִצְוָה עַל הַכּל. אֲפִלּוּ גָּדוֹל מְבַקֵּר אֶת הַקָּטָן. וּמְבַקְּרִין הַרְבֵּה פְּעָמִים בַּיּוֹם. וְכָל הַמּוֹסִיף מְשֻׁבָּח וּבִלְבַד שֶׁלֹּא יַטְרִיחַ. וְכָל הַמְבַקֵּר אֶת הַחוֹלֶה כְּאִלּוּ נָטַל חֵלֶק מֵחָלְיוֹ וְהֵקֵל מֵעָלָיו. וְכָל שֶׁאֵינוֹ מְבַקֵּר כְּאִלּוּ שׁוֹפֵךְ דָּמִים:
(4) It is a mitzvah incumbent on everyone to visit the sick. Even a person of great spiritual stature should visit one of lesser stature. One may visit many times during the day. Whoever increases the frequency of his visits is praiseworthy provided he does not become burdensome. Whoever visits a sick person removes a portion of his sickness and relieves him. Whoever does not visit the sick is consider as if he shed blood.
(ב) וְכָל הָרוֹאֶה עָנִי מְבַקֵּשׁ וְהֶעֱלִים עֵינָיו מִמֶּנּוּ וְלֹא נָתַן לוֹ צְדָקָה עָבַר בְּלֹא תַּעֲשֶׂה שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (דברים טו ז) "לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת יָדְךָ מֵאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן":
(2) Anyone who sees a poor person asking and turns his eyes away from him and does not give him charity transgresses a negative commandment, states: "Do not harden your heart or close your hand against your brother, the poor person."
(ג) מי שנפלה עליו מפולת ספק חי ספק מת ספק הוא שם ספק אינו שם אפילו אם תמצ' לומר שהו' שם ספק עכו"ם ספק ישראל מפקחין עליו אע"פ שיש בו כמה ספיקות:
(3) 3. Someone who experiences an avalanche, if he may be alive and may be dead, if he may be there or may not be there, even if he is for sure there but he may be Jewish or may be an idolater, we remove the debris, even though there are many degrees of doubt.