Kol Nidre 5766 (2005):

Hurricane Katrina—Where Was God?

How Much Water Is Inside a Tear? (Rabbi Zoe Klein)
How much water is inside a tear
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.

We gather tonight with images of Hurricane Katrina still seared in our minds. We have absorbed pictures of cataclysmic destruction of Biblical proportions. This seldom seen magnitude of destruction in America was broadcast 24/7 as winds leveled entire cities and water inundated them. Hundreds of thousands of poor people were stranded and homeless. Over a million people were displaced, an entire region was destroyed. There was the horror of looting and roving gangs. Dead bodies floated in the contaminated brine.
The fury of the winds and the flooding of the waters unleashed the destructive power of nature that makes us all seem quite small and terrifyingly vulnerable. The social chaos and failed rescue effort that followed revealed massive flaws in our willingness and ability to meet a major catastrophe. It uncovered arrogance, selfishness, chronic cronyism and a fundamental failure of leadership and commitment at every level of government. A natural disaster collided with and exposed a human disaster, a city that was already sinking in poverty, crime, and the legacy of racial discrimination.
What do we make of these events, spiritually and theologically as we gather together tonight? Are they truly the acts of God that insurance companies claim? Where was God in these events and where are we now? What do they mean to us?

“In the history of human kind, there has rarely been a disaster like the New Orleans flood without a theodicy to along with it. The word “theodicy” coined in the 18th century by the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, derives from Greek root invoking the “justice of the gods.” A theodicy is an attempt by religious people to show that such justice exists… So theodicies have been plentiful after earthquakes, floods and droughts. Explanations are readily offered: disasters are the wages of sin, they herald an apocalyptic age, they cleanse the earth of evil.

The classic theodicies in the West are biblical---from the Hebrew Bible-our Bible. Our ancestors in Judaism believed the flood of Noah’s time for example, was a reflection of the divine will, cleansing the earth of humanity’s evil. A more powerful theodicy later evolved out of our Biblical trials in which destruction and exile were treated not as random accidents of history but as forms of retribution for violating the Laws of the Torah and its ethical consequences. Conquest by other nations was punishment for failing to live up to the covenant with God and grossly violating the Torah. Suffering could be interpreted as proof of divine attention and not it’s opposite. Taking the story of Noah literally today, God sends torrents to wipe out those who practice injustice and immorality. Using this Biblical theology, we heard in the last few weeks some fundamentalist preachers saying that because of all the gambling and Mardi Gras sinning in New Orleans, God had destroyed the city. Yusif Abu Sneina, the Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem preached a sermon that was heard on Palestinian Authority radio. He claimed that the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina was Allah’s punishment to the United States for fighting Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian Authority and for threatening Iran and Syria. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, venerated as one of the great scholars of Jewish law said this in a sermon that was broadcast on Israel Television. “It was God’s retribution.” He (President Bush) perpetrated the expulsion of Jews from Gaza…This is the punishment for what he did to Gush Katif and everyone else who did as he told them.
We have trouble with kind of theology, to see natural catastrophe as divine punishment. The literal level of the story of Noah no longer works for us. But in Judaism, we are not the first to have this connection between nature and divine punishment breakdown. Already 1300 years ago, by the 7th century in the Talmud, theodicy was shifting. The Rabbis asked, ‘if nature was an instrument of morality, then what about the case of the stolen seeds? (Avodah Zara 54b) As punishment of the thief who stole seeds and planted them, no vegetables should grow. But observed the rabbis, they do grow. Nature goes according to the natural laws that God created for it, independent of how good or bad an individual might be. A flood, a tornado, an earthquake was a random event, going according to the vagaries of nature. It was no longer thought of as an instrument of God’s punishment.
In the wider world, something happened between medieval Europe and contemporary America. Something profound changed in the way natural disasters were interpreted and the kinds of theodicies they inspire. They began to fall into line with the kind of rabbinic thinking mentioned in Avodah Zara 54b. One of the turning points (Edward Rothstein Seeking Justice of Gods or the Politicians Sept 8th NYT. Critic’s Notebook) was the 1755 earthquake in Lisbon. It destroyed perhaps a third of the city’s population with death in the tens of thousands.

“ For the growing forces of the 18th Century European Enlightenment, it also seemed to overturn the very idea that traditional divine punishment theodicy could account for the disaster… Voltaire wrote a ‘poem on the Disaster of Lisbon’ in which the quake’s victims are called ‘Tormented atoms on a heap of muck/That death devours and that fate trips on.’ His character Candide watches the earthquake from a distance, seeing it as morally blind, killing the good and preserving the wicked….The response of Portugal’s prime minister to the disaster was practical not religious. ‘We will bury the dead,’ he said ‘and take care of the living.’”

It is not the theology of Noah but of Elijah that I think applies to Hurricane Katrina. Elijah is a Biblical prophet who retreats to the desert. He sees an earthquake but he says God is not in the earthquake. He sees an incredible storm with lightening bolts and says God is not in the storm. Where is God? Not in these acts of nature. God he says is after the storm in the still small voice of conscience. I think this is where we find God in Katrina. Elijah was one of several prophets who found God’s presence in commands to care for the oppressed, the suffering and the vulnerable. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called this prophetic voice of conscience, the pathos of God. We feel the pain that God feels over the suffering and we want to do what is right by its victims.

God was in the empathy and overwhelming love for the people of New Orleans. God was manifest in the automatic response of millions of people who immediately began to take up collections, sending money, food and supplies. We from Temple Beth El sent over ten thousand dollars to Katrina relief. Half went to a major aid center for victims, which was established at Reform Movement Camp Jacobs in Utica Mississippi. The other half went to Congregation Gates of Prayer in suburban New Orleans. The Temple was heavily damaged and many of the members have had losses of their homes and jobs. The Rabbi there is a classmate of mine from Rabbinical school He is a very honest and responsible leader who will use the money well. We also brought in over 600 pounds of food that was shipped to Katrina area food banks. God’s presence was also in the overwhelming out-pouring of support for the government to provide billions of dollars for temporary care and then rebuilding and resettlement. God was in the people who acted courageously to try to rescue victims when it was clear the government was not. God was in the out-pouring of volunteerism and acceptance of evacuees in the neighboring cities and states and places all across the country. God was in the prayers that gave people courage in their fears and hope in their despair.

God was also in our righteous indignation. We saw the abandonment of the poor, the sick the elderly, the children and we cried out with one voice, “This is wrong!” We realized that even though an evacuation plan was ordered and funded by Congress in 1997, no plan for adequately evacuating the poor was ever developed. We rediscovered the ugly face of poverty and racism in America and we said this has to be solved. My colleague Don Rossof rewrote the words to Blowin in the Wind to express this prophetic outrage. It goes like this:

How many floods must a flood wash out
Before we do what it takes?
How many seas must surge onto dry land
Before we see our mistakes?
How many times can a nation ignore
What we know to be truly at stake?
The answer, my friend, was blowing in the wind,
The answer was blowing in the wind.

How many storms can a levee resist
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes ‘n’ how many warnings can people dismiss
Before we respond seriously?
Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a nation turn its head
Pretending we just do not see?
The answer my friend, was blowin’ in the wind,
The answer was blowin’ in the wind.

How many poor can society ignore;
How many cities decayed?
How many old and inform will it take,
Till serious attention is paid?
Yes and how many vines and figs will it take
Till no one will make them afraid?
The answer, my friends, was blowin’ in the wind,
The answer was blowin’ in the wind.

God was in the demand for teshuvah, for admission of mistakes and neglect and even corruption at all levels of government regarding New Orleans and its preparedness and its levees.

God has been in the enacting of tzedakkah. Not just the help that we have sent but injecting righteousness into the equation. In Congress, in editorials, in agencies there is a search not just for immediate care but for fuller solutions to the culture of poverty that afflicted the city of New Orleans. There was twice the rate of poverty of major American cities, high violence, schools that were taken over by the federal government because of their poor functioning and abandonment of the core city by the middle and upper classes. God is in the prophetic voice to do more than resettle and rebuild. God is in the effort to recreate New Orleans as a city with more social justice.

God is in a new relationship to the environment. There is greater humility, recognizing the massive power that nature possesses and how our selfish rash behavior has impacted nature. That greater humility already led to an earlier evacuation from Hurricane Rita and the saving of more lives. But there is beginning to emerge also greater sense of responsibility toward nature. We are beginning to see nature as God’s creation with limits on how we can treat her. The public is giving greater credence to the reality and impact of global warning.
(Nicholas D. Kirstof The Storm Next Time September 11, 2005 NYT) According to articles published a few weeks ago in Science Magazine, the increased heat of the water surface caused by global warming has caused greater strength hurricanes. According to an article in Nature by MIT hurricane guru Kerry Emanuel, by one measure hurricanes have almost doubled in intensity over the last 30 years. That reflects some natural cycle of change. But Professor Emanuel writes: “The large upswing in the last decade is unprecedented and probably reflects the effect of global warming.” Models appearing in The Journal of Climate last year showed that rising levels of greenhouse gases could triple the number of Category 5 hurricanes. In Midrash Rabbah to Ecclesiastes, the rabbis say God showed Adam around the Garden of Eden and said, “See I give you a beautiful and wonderful world. Do not despoil it as there will be no one to clean it up.” In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I think God is pulling on our collective consciousness to break through the denial of the current administration and admit to and begin to tackle the problem of global warming. It is being talked about now in the wake of Katrina in leadership quarters where it was just being denied before.

These are the places we have found God in this tragedy. But the events of Katrina haunt us in a special way. They create a very powerful spiritual disruption in a very personal way for us who live in earthquake country. The massive earthquakes in Pakistan and Kashmir a few days ago, stir our awareness even more. During this season with the Unetanatokef prayer, we become aware of the uncertainty of the future and our own vulnerability. Who knows who shall live and who shall die. Who shall be secure and who will be afflicted by natural disaster.

After all we live in earthquake country. A category four our five hurricane was one of three major Feema catastrophes predicted most likely to occur. Another one of the three is a major earthquake in California anytime.

The first thing we realize with Katrina is that we need to be physically as prepared as possible. Each of us needs to have our own food and water well stored and supplied. It is a matter of pikuach nefesh, of being prepared to save a life. We must know our evacuation plan for the occurrence of an earthquake. We need to be asking about the dykes and levees that cover over a thousand miles of California, many over earthquake faults.
Secondly, we must live each day more fully. Many of you are fans like I am of the late Erma Bombeck. During the seven years she lived with cancer she wrote this essay.

“My goal is to die with empty pockets.” In it she said, “Someone interviewed me recently. He wanted to know if I saved ideas so that I could be assured of at least one column a week. I don’t save anything. My pockets are empty at the end of a week; so is my refrigerator…So is my band of ideas. I trot out the best I have each week. Come the next week, I bargain, make promises and throw myself on the mercy of the Almighty for one more column idea in exchange for promising to be good forever and clean my oven regularly.”
“
I didn’t get to this point overnight. I come from a family of savers, who were raised in the depression. I have a number of relatives who have…wine that is still being saved for the right occasion…and sofas that are still wrapped in cellophane. It gets to be a habit. After a while, you have dreams that you hideaway for one of these days when you will have time for them. You have compliments that you have to give to people that you squirrel away till the right time. You have grudges that you are going to settle when you get around to it. I have a relative who, for years, has entertained in her basement…We sit on glider swings and drink out of plastic as we survey…the workbench and garden tools. Upstairs is a perfectly beautiful living room misnamed.”
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I learned that perfumes never smell the same when they are bottled up. Plastic that is kept on the lampshades to prevent them from getting dusty cause them to wrinkle. And ideas that are saved for a dry week often become dated. I have a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting by the Court on High, it will go this way: Empty your pockets please…What have you not done in your life? Are there any dreams that you did not fulfill? Any unused talent that you were born with that you never made use of? Any unsaid compliments till in your pockets that you meant to distribute one of these days? If they ask me that, I will answer: I’ve nothing in my pockets, Sir. I spent everything that you gave me. And I die as naked as I was born.”

Some of you know that one of the things that makes Jewish burial garments kosher, is that they are not to have any pockets. I cannot think of a better description of the significance of that ritual requirement than this essay. The liturgy of the High Holidays repeats many times this prayer, “Hayom. This day give us blessing.” Katrina makes us think of our own vulnerability here in earthquake country. Brining life’s uncertainty to mind can be a benefit, as well as painful if it spurs us to live fully each day because we do not know what disaster the next day may bring.

Thirdly, this awareness of our vulnerability calls on us to invest in that which is least destructible, our relationships and our goodness. One day Hillel asked his students, “If a man had three thousand dinars and he gave a tithe, 10% to tzedakkah, how many would he still have? His students thought and calculated and one answered, “Rabbi, he would have 2,700 left.” “No, he wouldn’t,” said Rabbi Hillel. His students in respectful tones answered, Rabbi, maybe you in your age did not calculate right. The man would have given three hundred dinars to tzedakkah and he would have 2,700 left.” “No,” said Hillel, “It is you who figured wrong. He would have spent the 2,700 dinars and they would be gone. Only the three hundred he gave to tzedakkah would remain forever his.” We spend a lot of our energy on the ephemeral and superficial. An awareness of our mortality and the uncertain nature of fate, what Rabbi Hillel taught can be a motivation to spend each day investing ourselves in that which is of lasting eternal value. When illness, misfortune, disaster strikes it is that which we have given in friendship and generosity that comes back to us. Also, truly, it is the goodness the kindness, the loving deeds we have done in our families, among our friends, in our community that also lives and blesses our name when our earthly time is spent. Life’s vulnerability reminds us not only to live more fully but also to spend our days more and more on that which is of lasting values that cannot be destroyed… To do more of that which is of the eternal and indestructible with each day.
We don’t believe that God sent Hurricane Katrina or Rita. But God was present in its wake in the incredible generosity and caring of so many, in the courage of those who jumped into to rescue others, in the courage and solace many found in prayer, and in the righteous indignation when the true poverty, corruption, discrimination, neglect and incompetence were revealed in the midst of the crises of Hurricane and floods. God is in the ongoing pressure, the spirit of Elijah to make rebuilding and resettlement overcome not just evacuation but deep-seated patterns of poverty and prejudice.
We ourselves must find God amidst the anxiety and vulnerability we feel, facing the danger of earthquakes that have been almost as predicted as New Orleans level 4 and 5 Hurricanes. We must honor the spark of life in ourselves by having our homes properly prepared for an earthquake. We must live life more fully because of the sense of vulnerability. God wants us to use this awareness so that we get the most out of each day. We must invest ourselves in that which is of eternal value and indestructible, so that we are always close to God, whether in life or in death.
On this Yom Kippur night as we contemplate Katrina and our own vulnerability, let us also remember that we can always turn to God in prayer and find comfort, courage, solace and strength. Amen

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