by Rabbi Jeffrey Kurtz-Lendner
Rabbi Kurtz-Lendner is the rabbi of Temple Solel of Hollywood, FL. During Hurricane Katrina he was the rabbi of Northshore Jewish Congregation in Mandeville, LA, just outside of New Orleans. In the following reflection, Rabbi Kurtz-Lendner beautifully weaves together his experience during Hurricane Katrina, the Torah reading from last week ("Bo") and the crisis in Haiti, capturing what so many are feeling in the wake of the devastation.

There are always natural disasters in the world.  But sometimes there is such a disaster so devastating that it touches our souls.  Our information laden world with instantaneous transmission of human events has immunized us so often to the tragedies that are part of the human condition.  But there are events that are so devastating that our desensitization is penetrated and we feel the impact of these events.

And at these times we ask ourselves, Where is God?

The Asian Tsunami was one such event.

Hurricane Katrina affected us because of the devastation of one of our own American cities and so many of us knew people or knew of people who experienced it. And there were those of us who DID experience it.

And now, the devastation in Haiti is another one of those events that forces us to ask,

"Where is God?"

Pat Robertson had an answer to this question.  Pat Robertson stated,

"The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.' True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' "

This is just a horrendous and terrible response to any kind of suffering, a kind of theology we have rejected a long time ago, the kind of theology that blames the gay parades in New Orleans for Katrina, that blames the stroke Ariel Sharon suffered for his negotiations with the Palestinians, the kind of theology that blames the Jews of the Holocaust because they didn't have proper mezuzas on their doors.

There's a better answer to the question, "Where is God?"

In this week's Torah reading we read about the plague of darkness.  The Torah states,

"The Lord said to Moses - 'hold out your arm toward the sky that there may be darkness upon the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be touched.'  Moses held out his arm toward the sky and thick darkness descended upon the land of Egypt for three days."

There is a Hasidic quote on this comment from the Torah.  The Torah described a darkness that could be touched, and continued describing the darkness as "thick."

The Hasidic quote about the exaggeration of this description of darkness is as follows:

That is the worst of all darknesses:  when people are unable to 'see' their neighbors, that is, not be able to see their distress and help them."  (Hasidic rabbi, "Gerer Rav")

Pat Robertson since retracted his comments, but they reflect the darkness of how some people feel.  Instead of seeing the human tragedy of the crisis, they respond with darkness, and are not able to see their distress, and instead justify the suffering of the victims by somehow declaring that they deserved it.  The logic of the ideology continue: it won't happen to us because we're better than them.

And in this complete and utter darkness, the darkness of turning a blind eye to human tragedy, the darkness of saying that God is somehow punishing the people who are suffering, we still must ask, in that darkness, how can we even see God?

Where is God?

I'll tell you where I think God is.

All over the headlines of the major news stations showed Israel establishing a mobile hospital before any other agency or government in the entire world had any rescue operations set up.  Israel.  First.   The first workers the world saw rescuing Haitians were Israelis.  And on that very first day Israeli doctors delivered a new baby.  The parents were so elated over this miracle during a disaster that they named the child Israel.

That's where God is.

I was at a meeting of the Jewish Federation the other night and one of the board members was sharing that he received an email from a cousin who is a doctor.  And this doctor is taking a leave from his practice to go down to Haiti.

God is going with him.

Do you know our maintenance staff person, Francois?  You should - he is here almost every Friday night.  Last Friday I asked him how his family was and he said he was able to locate only one of six siblings and had no idea about the rest of his family.

Well, earlier this week I asked him and he shared that he finally found out that his family home was completely destroyed, but every single one of his family members --EVERY SINGLE FAMILY MEMBER, is alive and not injured.

How do I know that God is in that place?

Let me tell you, for me personally hearing about the devastation has brought up my own memories, about sitting in my in-laws' home and watching the city of New Orleans flood and be destroyed.  I watched the levees fail, I watched the water rush into the city.  And I didn't know where God was.

And I returned home to find a tree on my roof, my synagogue heavily damaged but most importantly I found so many of my Temple members whose houses were destroyed and whose businesses had literally washed away.

And the Union for Reform Judaism was there to help.  Within two weeks I received a check for $10,000 to help my Temple members in crisis.  And the URJ linked us up with other Temples who helped feed and clothe our Temple members.  And the URJ paid four months of bills to keep our Temples open.  And Jews from around the country offered their homes to house people without houses.

And I realized that God was right there with us.

In his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People Rabbi Harold Kushner describes a world in which God is only 99% omnipotent.  It may not be the traditional view of God but it's a view that helps us see God in a world in which we might otherwise declare that God is absent.  It is a world in which God has created the best possible world but "best possible" is still imperfect and when tragedy happens God is there for us to help us through it.  When the people of Haiti cry God is crying with them.  When the Israeli rescue team set up the hospital to deliver the baby, God was there helping the Israelis erect the hospital.  When the five year old boy was pulled out alive on Wednesday from the rubble after having been buried for eight days God was with the rescue workers helping to find that boy.

God becomes the source of our strength and our comfort for our cries of distress and we become partners with God in becoming God's agents to help and save those who are in distress.

God IS in Haiti.  We need to look for God and we need to help bring God's assistance to those people.

Where is God?

The other day I read one of the internet briefs on CNN.  That brief read as follows:

A man in Haiti refused to believe that his wife lay dead underneath the rubble of her workplace. He placed his ear to the debris every time heavy equipment scraped away a layer. Finally, he heard a voice. It was his wife.

That's where God is.

That's where God is.

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