A Thought for The Week ...September 9, 2005

Dear Friends:

Consider the following.  In January 2002, most of us could not have afforded entry into the Louisiana Superdome as tickets to the Super Bowl were scalped on game-day in New Orleans, whereas, for a good while this past week, no amount of money could gain for those trapped inside the Superdome a ticket out.  Until this past week, the Superdome was associated with Super Bowl Weekend, the Sugar Bowl, other sports events and concerts.  From now on and forever more, it will be associated in our minds with the tragedy and horror that has gripped our nation as we've watched a joyous and melodic major city transform over ten days into a lawless graveyard of forgotten souls.

While we might once have thought that nothing like that which we've seen over the past ten days could ever have happened in our country, we have learned otherwise.  On the one hand, such occurrences are beyond our control and we are humbled by the realization that we do not preside over nature; Natural disasters do occur.  On the other hand, the severity of any challenging and even tragic circumstance has everything to do with how we act as human beings in the face of the realities that are dealt to us or to others about us who are complete strangers unto us.

Our reaction as a society to the events of the last ten days is complicated.  On the one hand, incredible sums of money have been raised toward disaster relief.  In Los Angeles alone, the Jewish Federation has raised approximately $500,000.00, every penny of which will go toward actual disaster relief.  In our own CNT community, we have supported Federation's initiative with appropriate generosity.  Donations made payable to my Discretionary Fund alone in support of Federation’s initiative (which do not include donations made directly to Federation by our membership), total approximately $10,000.00 to date, all of which will now help those most adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina.  From this perspective, we are responding with compassion and care, with proper respect for human life, and with concern for its fragility in the face of tragic danger.

On the other hand, however, the disaster response on the ground over the last ten days tells a different story.  As a society, our degree of preparedness for a disaster that was known to us in potential for decades was grossly inadequate; we were negligent.  No, there is no "they" who to blame essentially for their lack of preparation for this predictable disaster.  In a society governed by our elected representatives, we are all ultimately responsible for the decisions of those who administer our affairs - on any level of government – especially when experts’ warnings go unheeded for decades as is the case in this instance.  Our representatives' degrees of preparedness most often reflects our own priorities as a society and it is all too easy for us to externalize blame for our collective blindness and disregard for dangers lurking, but, we will revisit issues of blame and responsibility later on in this discussion.  For now, let us recognize that we failed dismally as a society to care for our most vulnerable; the elderly left behind, those in hospital, the children, the pregnant women, those too poor to evacuate, and those who should have and could have left but chose not to do so.  Yes, you heard correctly, even those who could have left but didn't do so came to be among our most vulnerable once their lives were in peril.  They all needed us.  Where were we?  We failed ourselves - - as a society -- and we failed those who needed us most.

This is not to suggest that, as a society, we are morally repugnant.  Neither is this to suggest that there haven't been incredibly courageous, generous, and loving responses on the part of those closer to or more distant from this disaster.  However, it is to suggest that the blame game that is now transpiring -- the attempt to politicize this tragedy toward determining who really is to blame for it and who should be absolved from blame -- stretches and extends our distance from spiritual and practical responsibility as a society on the whole for emergency-response to this calamity.  Let me explain what I mean by this, from a Jewish perspective.

This week's Torah portion, Parshat Shoftim, concludes with the obscure commandment of Egla Arufa - a calf with broken neck (21:1-9). According to the Torah’s instruction, if the body of a murder-victim was to have been found beyond a city's limits and the murderer could not be determined, the religious leadership of the city nearest to the crime scene was to conduct a unique and irregular ritual. Upon gathering the residents of the town to the crime-scene, the neck of a calf was to be broken and the elders of the city were to declare formally that they disavowed any responsibility.  Strangely, though responsibility was to have been disavowed in the ceremony, the Kohanim - the Jewish Priests – were to have participated in the ceremony and to have prayed for the entire nation's atonement (according to Rashi's commentary on this section). 

Numerous commentaries abound, each attempting to make best sense of this ritual.  Some more pragmatic approaches aim to suggest that the ritual publicizes the murder and that such publicity might lead toward solving the crime.  The more psychologically and spiritually focused interpretations suggest that the ritual is a mechanism whereby everyone in the town takes responsibility collectively for the murder.  While the murder occurred with everyone's absence or blindness, the calf is killed in everyone's presence and in everyone's line of sight.  Where was everyone?  How could this happen?  Where did the town go wrong?  What led the town to the spiritual condition that might have engendered such tragedy?  Note that our ancestors, each and all and regardless of their political party, went to the site of the murder together.  Together, in mourning and in horror, they took collective responsibility for a tragedy that occurred under their watch, because they understood that it could have occurred precisely because no-one was watching!

We might well ask some similar questions.  Where were we?  How could these last ten days have unfolded?  How could we have been so grossly unprepared in our response?  How is it that people drowned while waiting for help with waters rising in their residences as late as last Friday?  That's right, last Friday -- five days after the hurricane made landfall!  To begin, nothing constructive will come from the finger-pointing that has evolved over the last week.  And, we will certainly not expend energy efficiently in necessary relief efforts, if our political parties continue to jockey for the political upper-hand in the spin of this disaster.  Remember, just as in the case of Egla Arufa, we must all walk out to the scene of the disaster together, whether we are Democrats or Republicans or of any other political persuasion.  Yes, responsibility for our inadequate and negligent emergency preparation and response must be determined ... later, and with greater knowledge, and for constructive purposes.  Right now, responsibility is not being assigned, blame is being placed.  Know this:  When blame is assigned, when fingers are pointed, responsibility is almost always avoided.  All of us, each of us and our entire society, are avoiding a deeper and greater truth, which is that we are all to blame for the mistakes that led to the response on the ground, regardless of the specific breakdowns that occurred and under whose supervision they might or might not have occurred.  You see, New Orleans is just beyond the city limits of every city in America, just beyond the curbs of our homes wherever we might live.

Where were we?  Perhaps we were so absorbed over the last many decades in the Superdome’s Super Bowls that we didn’t see the people living just beyond the dome.  Perhaps they died just beyond our own city-limits because we didn’t see them and we were deaf and blind to the potential dangers that awaited them.

May this Shabbat bring comfort to the people of New Orleans and the entire Golf Coast Region of our country.  May we ourselves find comfort this Shabbat with our community, at Services, and may we treasure those whom we love at home.  May the coming week bring to us great resolve to see the unseen,  to take responsibility together for mistakes that need to be corrected, and to do all of that which is within our power and capacity to prevent disasters from occurring in the future just beyond our city-limits.

Shabbat Shalom – I hope to see you at Services,

Rabbi Isaac Jeret

Spiritual Leader