No Words
There are really no words.
Any words used to describe last week's great tragedy appear hollow, vain -- even manipulative. We feel shock, horror and awe. The right choice at this time is to focus our energy on doing everything we can, and beyond, to help the five million shattered lives and displaced persons.
How the serene oceans can turn so cruel, not differentiating between soda cans and angelic children!
How beautiful beaches can become grave sites of countless innocents!
In their villages, huts, homes and hotels, on their beaches and in their streets, in a Hiroshima-scale disaster, infants, children, teenagers, mothers, fathers, grandparents and entire families have been destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Where is the pen that can capture the grief of a Swedish mother who pleads for any information on her four-year-old daughter, who was swept from her father's arms by the giant wave in Phi Phi, Thailand? You could repeat this story tens of thousands of times and grieve for 120,000 (as of this writing) divine universes snuffed out in a single instant.
The world became a darker place on Sunday, December 26, 2004. Who can estimate how much light these 120,000 great souls - and which human soul is not great - cast upon our planet with their love, laughter, spirits and indeed, with their very life? Yet, the raging waves did not take notice. Tranquil waters turned into devilish monsters, extinguishing the glow of generations, quenching the flames of eternity.
Why? How?
The Greatest Question
For the atheist, "Why?" does not constitute a serious question. "Why not?" would be the accurate response to the question of why. Do we expect tidal waves to be sensitive to the cries of parents whose children have been swept away by the ferocious sea? Do we expect a tsunami to interrupt its ferocious advance and declare, "Hey, I see a nice man walking there; let me leave him alone?" If nature has evolved and is governed by pure chance and coincidence, it must be amoral. Evil and suffering, in the doctrine of atheism, make perfect sense.
Yet, notwithstanding this justification of human suffering, all of us - believers and nonbelievers alike - never cease to ask "Why?" Why do innocent people suffer? How can 120,000 human beings perish so tragically? When natural disaster strikes and claims the lives of innocents, the very core of our identity senses that something very wrong has occurred, that nature should have behaved differently. Man, by his very nature, cannot make peace with the existence of evil in the world.
For the mystics(1), this is the stamp of the divine in the consciousness of every human being, no matter faith or creed, that makes him or her sense that the world is governed by moral justice. When reality smacks that belief in the face, we cry out "Why?" How can a moral and benevolent Creator tolerate and cause so much anguish to innocent human beings, including thousands of pure and sweet children? How?
In Ivan Karamazov's words:
"Tell me frankly, I appeal to you, answer me: Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but that to do that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her un-avenged tears -- would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me and do not lie!" (from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky)
Never in history did G-d answer this question, the greatest of all questions and the one good argument for atheism. The book of Job, dedicated to the question of why the innocent suffer, concludes with a revelation of G-d to Job, telling him, in essence, that there is no way the human mind can create the logical constructs in which G-d's behavior can fit. The finite and the infinite just don't meet. When it comes to human suffering, there is no humanly fathomable answer. Let us not endeavor to explain and rationalize what can never be explained and rationalized.
The Kaddish
"Yisgadal viyiskadash shemay rabah." These are the words echoed for generations by Jews in response to the death of loved ones.
The meaning of the famous Kaddish prayer is, "May His Great Name be exalted and sanctified."
Yet, one wonders about the connection between the death of an individual and the exaltation and sanctity of the Divine name. Is it really appropriate to put the focus at such a painful moment on the sanctity of G-d's name, rather than on the individual life that has been lost?
I will never forget the moving answer I heard from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to this question, while he was saying Kaddish for his wife in the year 1988.
The answer is that when a human being dies, a piece of G-d dies together with him (figuratively speaking). Man was created in the image of G-d and the human soul is an aspect of G-d, a "fragment" of His being.(2) The fate of man is the fate of G-d Himself. Every human life is a divine piece of art, and has infinite and eternal value. In reciting the Kaddish, we attempt to rebuild not only shattered souls, but also reconstruct a shattered and devastated G-d. We pray that "His Great name" be restored to its innate sanctity and splendor, that humanity musters the courage to refill, as much as humanly possible, the endless divine vacuum created with the death of so many souls.
What Now?
The questions continue to nag us. Each of us witnessed a flood of Biblical proportions, perhaps claiming more lives than Noah's flood recorded in Genesis. Mass media has given five billion of us front-row seats to closely observe the greatest natural disaster of modern times. How ought we to respond? What is our calling at such a time? What is the responsibility upon those lucky to be alive today of witnessing a tragedy of such titanic dimensions?
To extend our hearts, souls and, primarily, our bank accounts to the five million shattered survivors - of course, that is the first and foremost of our human responsibilities. Yet, we dare not send a donation and then retreat to our complacency and smugness, continuing to submerge ourselves in our daily pressures and leisure, satisfying ourselves with the delusion that what happened to "them" is not really connected to "us".
As Jews whose primary paradigm for interpretation of history is the Torah, I wish to draw your attention to the Biblical episode following the great Flood, the greatest natural disaster of all times, which wiped out almost all of humanity. Let us closely examine which story the Bible chooses to record following the devastating flood.
It is, of course, the ambiguous story of the Tower of Babel. And here is how it reads:(3)
"The whole earth was of one language and of common purpose.... And they said one to another: '...Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the entire earth.'
"And G-d descended to look at the city and tower that the sons of man built, and G-d said, '...Shall it not be withheld from them all they proposed to do?' ...G-d scattered them from there across the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city."
Is Construction Evil?
This is a strange story. Why did G-d interrupt their project? What was their sin? Their motives for building a city with a tower "whose top shall reach the heavens" are quite understandable, even noble. Mankind was only just reconstructing itself after the Flood, which had wiped out the entire human race save for Noah and his family. Noah and his children were, according to tradition, still alive, thus giving the people a first-hand report of the Flood. If fledgling humanity were to survive, they needed to construct a strong city and tower that could possibly avoid the next disaster.
What was wrong with their scheme? Hasn't the Bible made it a moral imperative to "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it"(4)?
Subduing the world never meant obliterating nature or despoiling the environment. It meant responsible stewardship and making ourselves less vulnerable to nature through every possible natural means. Why did G-d disapprove of their seemingly wonderful undertaking?
The answer is this: in stating their objective for creating the city and the tower, the people declared, "Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves." Their motive behind this dramatic construction plan was to immortalize their legacy in concrete structure; the endurance of their names in the annals of history.
But what's the big deal? Who among us does not crave to be remembered? Who among us would mind securing a place in Who's Who? How many of us would crave to read about ourselves in the newspapers? How many of us really loathe seeing our names carved in glory on concrete walls, on the printed page and in the lasting pages of history books? Does G-d really care if people want to make a name for themselves?
Can You Ever Forget Your Ego?
The answer is simple, but powerful. When you have observed a flood in which the entire human race has perished, have you nothing else to think about but securing for yourself a name and a legacy?
Imagine somebody gazing at a home swiftly being consumed by a flood. Instead of running to rescue the people inside the home, this person stands and reflects how he can be sure to make a name for himself in the process. This would be grotesque. Can't you ever forget about your ego? Is there never a moment you are capable of saying to yourself, "The hell with my legacy! Human lives need to be saved!"
When an entire generation has observed the consequences of a Flood that destroyed virtually the entire human race and becomes consumed instead with how to secure its legacy, rather than with how to rebuild civilization and recreate a world founded on moral goodness and kindness, something is profoundly wrong. A worm has crept in to the very foundation of the project and will ultimately prove destructive to the entire edifice. Corruption, manipulation, deceit and abuse of power are likely to flourish in the new city and tower.
This is, incidentally, true of every grand campaign undertaken to help humanity. If the objective is self-aggrandizement rather than service to G-d and His children, its very core is seriously blemished. And the consequences of this blemish will likely be manifest in the future.
To Touch a Heart
Alas! Last week, we, too, have observed a flood that extinguished 120,000 divine candles and inflicted untold suffering on millions of victims, suffering that might last a lifetime. Complete villages have disappeared from the face of the earth. Pain and darkness have descended upon our planet in unprecedented might. At such a moment, we must stop thinking about "making for ourselves a name."
Our questions at such a time must instead be: how do I rebuild a broken heart? How can I ignite a tortured soul? How can I help a survivor? How do I bring more light into a dark world? How do I increase acts of goodness and kindness? What new mitzvah can I undertake to heal the world? How do I extend myself to be there for another person? What can I do to change my corner of the world and make it a more moral and holy place?
Above all, what will I do today and tomorrow to move our aching planet one step closer to redemption?
(This essay is based on an address given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in November 1959(5) to a group of wealthy Jewish leaders on how we ought to respond to the "flood" of the Holocaust that exterminated a third of the Jewish people, including 1 and 1/2 million children.)
Notes:
1) Likkutei Sichos, vol. 33, pp. 252-254.
2) See Ramban to Genesis 2:7. Pardas Remonim, beginning of portal 32. Introduction to Shefa Tal. Nishbas Shabsi Halevi beginning of portal 5. Or Hachayim to Genesis, ibid. Tanya, chapter 2. This idea pervades much of the Kabbalistic and Chassidic literature.
3) Genesis 11:3-9.
4) Genesis 1:28.
5) Published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 3, pp. 750-753.
[My gratitude to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance.]
All contents copyright © 2004 Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson
There are really no words.
Any words used to describe last week's great tragedy appear hollow, vain -- even manipulative. We feel shock, horror and awe. The right choice at this time is to focus our energy on doing everything we can, and beyond, to help the five million shattered lives and displaced persons.
How the serene oceans can turn so cruel, not differentiating between soda cans and angelic children!
How beautiful beaches can become grave sites of countless innocents!
In their villages, huts, homes and hotels, on their beaches and in their streets, in a Hiroshima-scale disaster, infants, children, teenagers, mothers, fathers, grandparents and entire families have been destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Where is the pen that can capture the grief of a Swedish mother who pleads for any information on her four-year-old daughter, who was swept from her father's arms by the giant wave in Phi Phi, Thailand? You could repeat this story tens of thousands of times and grieve for 120,000 (as of this writing) divine universes snuffed out in a single instant.
The world became a darker place on Sunday, December 26, 2004. Who can estimate how much light these 120,000 great souls - and which human soul is not great - cast upon our planet with their love, laughter, spirits and indeed, with their very life? Yet, the raging waves did not take notice. Tranquil waters turned into devilish monsters, extinguishing the glow of generations, quenching the flames of eternity.
Why? How?
The Greatest Question
For the atheist, "Why?" does not constitute a serious question. "Why not?" would be the accurate response to the question of why. Do we expect tidal waves to be sensitive to the cries of parents whose children have been swept away by the ferocious sea? Do we expect a tsunami to interrupt its ferocious advance and declare, "Hey, I see a nice man walking there; let me leave him alone?" If nature has evolved and is governed by pure chance and coincidence, it must be amoral. Evil and suffering, in the doctrine of atheism, make perfect sense.
Yet, notwithstanding this justification of human suffering, all of us - believers and nonbelievers alike - never cease to ask "Why?" Why do innocent people suffer? How can 120,000 human beings perish so tragically? When natural disaster strikes and claims the lives of innocents, the very core of our identity senses that something very wrong has occurred, that nature should have behaved differently. Man, by his very nature, cannot make peace with the existence of evil in the world.
For the mystics(1), this is the stamp of the divine in the consciousness of every human being, no matter faith or creed, that makes him or her sense that the world is governed by moral justice. When reality smacks that belief in the face, we cry out "Why?" How can a moral and benevolent Creator tolerate and cause so much anguish to innocent human beings, including thousands of pure and sweet children? How?
In Ivan Karamazov's words:
"Tell me frankly, I appeal to you, answer me: Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the aim of making men happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but that to do that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her un-avenged tears -- would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me and do not lie!" (from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky)
Never in history did G-d answer this question, the greatest of all questions and the one good argument for atheism. The book of Job, dedicated to the question of why the innocent suffer, concludes with a revelation of G-d to Job, telling him, in essence, that there is no way the human mind can create the logical constructs in which G-d's behavior can fit. The finite and the infinite just don't meet. When it comes to human suffering, there is no humanly fathomable answer. Let us not endeavor to explain and rationalize what can never be explained and rationalized.
The Kaddish
"Yisgadal viyiskadash shemay rabah." These are the words echoed for generations by Jews in response to the death of loved ones.
The meaning of the famous Kaddish prayer is, "May His Great Name be exalted and sanctified."
Yet, one wonders about the connection between the death of an individual and the exaltation and sanctity of the Divine name. Is it really appropriate to put the focus at such a painful moment on the sanctity of G-d's name, rather than on the individual life that has been lost?
I will never forget the moving answer I heard from the Lubavitcher Rebbe to this question, while he was saying Kaddish for his wife in the year 1988.
The answer is that when a human being dies, a piece of G-d dies together with him (figuratively speaking). Man was created in the image of G-d and the human soul is an aspect of G-d, a "fragment" of His being.(2) The fate of man is the fate of G-d Himself. Every human life is a divine piece of art, and has infinite and eternal value. In reciting the Kaddish, we attempt to rebuild not only shattered souls, but also reconstruct a shattered and devastated G-d. We pray that "His Great name" be restored to its innate sanctity and splendor, that humanity musters the courage to refill, as much as humanly possible, the endless divine vacuum created with the death of so many souls.
What Now?
The questions continue to nag us. Each of us witnessed a flood of Biblical proportions, perhaps claiming more lives than Noah's flood recorded in Genesis. Mass media has given five billion of us front-row seats to closely observe the greatest natural disaster of modern times. How ought we to respond? What is our calling at such a time? What is the responsibility upon those lucky to be alive today of witnessing a tragedy of such titanic dimensions?
To extend our hearts, souls and, primarily, our bank accounts to the five million shattered survivors - of course, that is the first and foremost of our human responsibilities. Yet, we dare not send a donation and then retreat to our complacency and smugness, continuing to submerge ourselves in our daily pressures and leisure, satisfying ourselves with the delusion that what happened to "them" is not really connected to "us".
As Jews whose primary paradigm for interpretation of history is the Torah, I wish to draw your attention to the Biblical episode following the great Flood, the greatest natural disaster of all times, which wiped out almost all of humanity. Let us closely examine which story the Bible chooses to record following the devastating flood.
It is, of course, the ambiguous story of the Tower of Babel. And here is how it reads:(3)
"The whole earth was of one language and of common purpose.... And they said one to another: '...Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over the face of the entire earth.'
"And G-d descended to look at the city and tower that the sons of man built, and G-d said, '...Shall it not be withheld from them all they proposed to do?' ...G-d scattered them from there across the face of the earth, and they stopped building the city."
Is Construction Evil?
This is a strange story. Why did G-d interrupt their project? What was their sin? Their motives for building a city with a tower "whose top shall reach the heavens" are quite understandable, even noble. Mankind was only just reconstructing itself after the Flood, which had wiped out the entire human race save for Noah and his family. Noah and his children were, according to tradition, still alive, thus giving the people a first-hand report of the Flood. If fledgling humanity were to survive, they needed to construct a strong city and tower that could possibly avoid the next disaster.
What was wrong with their scheme? Hasn't the Bible made it a moral imperative to "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it"(4)?
Subduing the world never meant obliterating nature or despoiling the environment. It meant responsible stewardship and making ourselves less vulnerable to nature through every possible natural means. Why did G-d disapprove of their seemingly wonderful undertaking?
The answer is this: in stating their objective for creating the city and the tower, the people declared, "Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves." Their motive behind this dramatic construction plan was to immortalize their legacy in concrete structure; the endurance of their names in the annals of history.
But what's the big deal? Who among us does not crave to be remembered? Who among us would mind securing a place in Who's Who? How many of us would crave to read about ourselves in the newspapers? How many of us really loathe seeing our names carved in glory on concrete walls, on the printed page and in the lasting pages of history books? Does G-d really care if people want to make a name for themselves?
Can You Ever Forget Your Ego?
The answer is simple, but powerful. When you have observed a flood in which the entire human race has perished, have you nothing else to think about but securing for yourself a name and a legacy?
Imagine somebody gazing at a home swiftly being consumed by a flood. Instead of running to rescue the people inside the home, this person stands and reflects how he can be sure to make a name for himself in the process. This would be grotesque. Can't you ever forget about your ego? Is there never a moment you are capable of saying to yourself, "The hell with my legacy! Human lives need to be saved!"
When an entire generation has observed the consequences of a Flood that destroyed virtually the entire human race and becomes consumed instead with how to secure its legacy, rather than with how to rebuild civilization and recreate a world founded on moral goodness and kindness, something is profoundly wrong. A worm has crept in to the very foundation of the project and will ultimately prove destructive to the entire edifice. Corruption, manipulation, deceit and abuse of power are likely to flourish in the new city and tower.
This is, incidentally, true of every grand campaign undertaken to help humanity. If the objective is self-aggrandizement rather than service to G-d and His children, its very core is seriously blemished. And the consequences of this blemish will likely be manifest in the future.
To Touch a Heart
Alas! Last week, we, too, have observed a flood that extinguished 120,000 divine candles and inflicted untold suffering on millions of victims, suffering that might last a lifetime. Complete villages have disappeared from the face of the earth. Pain and darkness have descended upon our planet in unprecedented might. At such a moment, we must stop thinking about "making for ourselves a name."
Our questions at such a time must instead be: how do I rebuild a broken heart? How can I ignite a tortured soul? How can I help a survivor? How do I bring more light into a dark world? How do I increase acts of goodness and kindness? What new mitzvah can I undertake to heal the world? How do I extend myself to be there for another person? What can I do to change my corner of the world and make it a more moral and holy place?
Above all, what will I do today and tomorrow to move our aching planet one step closer to redemption?
(This essay is based on an address given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in November 1959(5) to a group of wealthy Jewish leaders on how we ought to respond to the "flood" of the Holocaust that exterminated a third of the Jewish people, including 1 and 1/2 million children.)
Notes:
1) Likkutei Sichos, vol. 33, pp. 252-254.
2) See Ramban to Genesis 2:7. Pardas Remonim, beginning of portal 32. Introduction to Shefa Tal. Nishbas Shabsi Halevi beginning of portal 5. Or Hachayim to Genesis, ibid. Tanya, chapter 2. This idea pervades much of the Kabbalistic and Chassidic literature.
3) Genesis 11:3-9.
4) Genesis 1:28.
5) Published in Likkutei Sichos, vol. 3, pp. 750-753.
[My gratitude to Shmuel Levin, a writer and editor in Pittsburgh, for his editorial assistance.]
All contents copyright © 2004 Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson