Temple Sinai, Worcester -- celebrating 50 years!!!

DIVREI HALEV

“HAITI AND US”

One of the most poignant prophet passages in our Hebrew Scripture is found in I Kings 19. The prophet, Elijah, does not hear God in an earthquake, but only later, b’kol dmamah dakah, in a still, small voice - a soft, murmuring sound.” I thought about that passage many times of late in considering the estimated 200,000 who lost their lives and the 1½ million homeless individuals in Haiti. The devastation is so overwhelming and there seems so little we can do, but do we must. In addition to our prayers for those who have died and survived, we are left in the wake of this devastation, as Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, and his words are quoted in our prayer book, “Act, so that others might live.”

I happened to be speaking about my recent trip to Israel last Friday when all of the details of the earthquake were unfolding in world media. Our prayers for the victims of Haiti, our prayers for Britney Gengel from Rutland, were all fresh. Most recently, I saw three news clips. One video came from a CNN news report concerning the best temporary hospital in that disaster region: an Israeli field hospital set up in a soccer field. The Israeli tented facility was the most advanced, functional hospital of any country’s immediate rescue effort. The second clip was a live “in the field” video clip of the rescue of a 52 year old Haitian man taken out of the rubble from under a collapsed building. And finally, I saw a video segment of a young Haitian woman holding her new baby born in that Israeli field hospital on the outskirts of Port Au Prince. The mother and baby are healthy. The mother decided to name the young boy, “Israel,” due to the miraculous efforts of the Israelis in delivering her child.

Immediately after the earthquake, I asked our Temple to publicize to our members the address of the American Joint Distribution Committee’s Relief Fund (jdc.org). In addition, The Union for Reform Judaism (urj.org), the American Red Cross (redcross.org) and numerous other organizations have ongoing efforts to help the victims. I hope that everyone in the congregation will give something toward this effort. This is another opportunity we are blessed to have to save lives now and into the foreseeable future.

Just after Elijah heard God in the “still, small voice,” he passed on his prophetic teachings to Elisha who carried God’s spirit and acts of loving kindness into the future. So may we do all that we can to keep alive those who need our extended hand.

Rabbi Seth L. Bernstein