Fresh Updates from RAC

10 years is a long time, yet for so many of us, September 11, 2001 feels like yesterday. I know exactly where I was when the World Trade Center was hit. We held our regularly scheduled senior staff meeting at the RAC. While sitting around a table in the then-unnamed Sillins library, pagers went off with a breaking news story that smoke was billowing out of the World Trade Center – possibly because of a plane crash. All of a sudden, the office phone started ringing along with each of our cell phones, all with the same message: turn on the TV now! Within minutes, we watched the first tower fall, then the second. Reports of a plane crashing into the Pentagon were relayed and then the crashing of United Airlines flight 93. Images were replayed over and over (and over!) again… And we knew our world would never be the same…

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The earthquake and hurricane that hit the East Coast over the last week have certainly wreaked havoc, although thankfully not as bad as the recent earthquake in Japan or Hurricane Katrina. But all of these natural disasters can remind us of an important issue–making sure our emergency management and response plans adequately meet the needs of people with disabilities–and provide a fitting opportunity to evaluate and improve those plans.

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Let your friend’s property be as dear to you as your own.

(Pirkei Avot 2:12)

I was on my way to New Orleans for the first time, chaperoning 7 of my own teens as we prepared to meet the teens from Greensboro, North Carolina. When we landed and got to the hotel we met up with my friend and colleague Rabbi Andy Koren, the real mastermind of the adventure that was about to unfold.

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Rabbi Allan Tuffs and Sharon Tannehaus of Temple Beth El of Hollywood, Florida co-founders of Hollywood CARES, led a mission to Port au Prince, Haiti June 27-30. The group of seven individuals, including pediatrician Ken Budowsky, spent three days examining the children of Project Pallion, doing maintenance work, and building relationships with the people of Haiti. Hollywood CARES, a non-profit group founded by members of Temple Beth El and the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood has been supporting the work of John DieuBon, director of Project Papillon since 2006. Hollywood CARES has organized eight trips to Haiti during the last five years, including a URJ Mission in July, 2010.

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This past week, Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, released a powerful op-ed in the Washington Post. Titled “A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never!”, the piece looks at the current weather patterns and, in a satirical way, challenges readers to consider the connection between the recent series of extreme weather events and climate change.

“Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

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As I sit on the plane returning from Joplin I am filled with a mix of emotions. I am saddened to leave my community in their time of pain and distress but at the same time I am filled with hope and strength. When I arrived on Wednesday afternoon I had no idea what to expect. I had seen the news, spoken with congregants and listened to the radio but it was not until I arrived and saw the destruction that it all became a reality. The Joplin I once knew was not there anymore. Stores and restaurants I had frequented just two weeks earlier were gone…and not just debris, but gone completely. It was as if they were never there to begin with.

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As we celebrated Passover this year, we also celebrated the 41st anniversary of Earth Day, the global day of environmental advocacy. Talk around my seder table centered on preparing for the 50th anniversary of the Religious Action Center and the upcoming Consultation on Conscience. But then things took a darker turn as we began talking about the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill disaster.

We all agreed that there were many elements to this dialogue that were baffling and frustrating. For example, despite the devastating impact the oil spill had on our ecosystem, our economy and the residents and communities of the Gulf, our fight to end our country’s crippling addiction to oil continues to feel like a losing battle. It also angered us to learn that 11 new deep water and 49 shallow water-drilling permits were recently issued in the Gulf.

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I took a few minutes today and looked through these photos provided by the Washington Post coming from Japan. I looked at the faces of the people as they try to comprehend the immense destruction that has just occurred and the possibility of more in the days to come. I also am so deeply impressed with the aid workers, doctors, and every day volunteers who are risking their lives to help those impacted by this tragedy. Today, I am taking a moment of silence, and I encourage you to do the same, for the thousands of individuals who have lost their lives and for the unfathomable suffering that their families are enduring.

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