Three Lessons from Hurricane Irma©
Rosh Hashanah (First Day) - 5778/2017
Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
Have you ever heard the term Hurricane babies? Hurricane babies are generally born 9 months after a major hurricane. A couple is hunkered down in their home, the power is out, the candles are burning, and well, you get the picture. I wanted to share something you may not know about me: I'm a hurricane baby.
On August 25th 1979, the same day I entered the world, the US National Hurricane Center reported that a tropical depression had developed and the storm was given the name, David. So I'm a hurricane baby, but not in the traditional sense – both Hurricane David and I were born on the same day. 1
My parents often tell me the story of Hurricane David– my parents and grandparents had moved to Florida just five years before from New York, and they knew little about hurricanes. Hurricane David was a category 5 storm before it hit the Dominican Republic, close to Florida. At that point, days before it was supposed to hit Miami, my mother, terrified just days after becoming a mother, told my father: “we are going back to New York with my parents.” My father said, “No we aren't - we are staying here together as a family.”
Should we stay or should we go? Sound familiar? How many of us had to make that same decision just two weeks ago?
They stayed, and Hurricane David was projected to hit us directly in Miami. For those who know history, and especially the 90% of you who lived in New York at the time, you know what happened. David brushed the coast of Florida, went up the eastern seaboard, and eventually, it became the sixth extratropical storm to hit, that's right, New York.
Looks like my dad was right, and my mom was wrong. According to my mother, this was the first time my father was ever right, and she was wrong. It was also the last time.
It has been a rough couple of weeks. We are beginning to discover the full effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma – thousands of homes and businesses destroyed here in the United States. The islands in the Caribbean have been decimated, and many lives lost all over.
With all that we've gone through in the last year, it has been inspirational seeing how people are helping each other in our great country. Strangers helping strangers, neighbors helping neighbors. As one reporter said, “When mother nature is at its worst, human nature tends to be at its best.” David Suissa, a Los Angeles based writer, wrote soon after Hurricane Harvey, “In the middle of rescue missions, no one cares whether you voted for Trump or Clinton, whether you’re antifa or nationalist, whether you’re black or Hispanic or Jewish or Muslim, whether you’re transgender or redneck. When Mother Nature attacks, we’re all created equal. We’re all neighbors.”
When we are confronted with our mortality – things change, and more often than not, we become better people and a more united nation. It is this time of year when we also remember one of the greatest tragedies our country has ever faced – the terror attacks on 9/11. But do you remember September 12th? There was a greater sense in our country of our unifying values that next day. We transcended our differences. We weren't focused on the partisan divide. We hugged our children a little bit tighter.
But what happens months or years later? The question is, how do we bring these feelings and actions to the rest of the year after the hurricane?
This year, it feels like Rosh Hashanah was made for us Floridians. It is during this time when God wants us all to realize something: we are all in the cone of uncertainty, not just before a hurricane, but every day. Every day, we wake up not truly knowing what will come next. But, on Rosh Hashanah, our tradition forces us to have this experience all at the same time, as a holy community, just like a population about to go through a massive hurricane.
Today, I want to talk to you about the three lessons I learned about life from our hurricane experience. And these lessons are not just for an actual hurricane, but the hurricanes of life that we experience every year. Rosh Hashanah teaches us a valuable lesson, there are times when we cannot change the event– if the hurricane is coming, it is coming and we can't change its course, but we can avert the severity of the decree, through our actions – tesuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, in other words, we can:
We can help others return to a secure place in their lives,
We can pray for each other, and
We can give our fellow human being what they desperately need – a much-needed charge
We can learn a lot from our preparations before a hurricane comes. You put your shutters up, you buy propane, you fill up your car with gas...if you can find a gas station with gas, you buy batteries, then you go to Publix and buy junk food like you are in college again, because, of course, potato chips and cookies are essentials for surviving a storm, and I think I read somewhere that Governor Rick Scott officially suspended all diets along with schools.
You think you are ready, but, really, you aren't. Rabbi Alan Lew wrote a wonderful book about the high holiday season that I re-read every year to prepare for these days. In his book, he paints the following scene:
“Maybe you have just walked in cold and are now caught completely by surprise, or maybe you are not completely unprepared. Maybe you began your preparations the Saturday night before at midnight, when the Selichot service was recited. Maybe you have thought a little about this night since then. Or maybe you have even taken this day quite seriously and prepared for it for a long time...but no matter what, you now realize you are utterly unprepared. You choke. You freeze. Whatever it was that you imagined might happen now, this is much stronger, much more powerful. This is no mere metaphor, no mere religious poetry. This is real. This is extremely powerful, and whatever preparation you might have made now seems utterly foolish, utterly inadequate, as the great voice intones your name, and you hear it reverberating in the great room, and the pages of one of the great books begin to rustle, and you don’t know which book it is.”2
There comes a point in life, before a major life event, before the storm hits, when you realize, you just aren't ready. The title of his book sums it all up: This is Real, And You Are Completely Unprepared. And isn't that true with all the hurricanes in our lives? A death in our family, dealing with an aging parent, a cancer diagnosis – an event that you requires you to change your normal routine, and prepare, but no matter how much you prepare, you realize, this is real, and you are completely unprepared.
That moment hit me on Friday morning before the storm as I led Shacharit for our morning minyan. Suddenly, the words that I say every day took new meaning:
In Psalm 27, the Psalm we say from the month of Elul until the end of the holiday of Sukkot. Morning and evening, we say: “God will shelter me in His Sukkah on an evil day, grant me the protection of His tent, raise me high upon a rock.” And I thought about the kindness that our neighbors showed us – inviting us to their homes, both locally and up north in Atlanta and other places. When the news came that we were going to be hit with a Category 5 Hurricane, I received a message from my rabbinic colleagues in Atlanta – we are ready for you – come to our homes.
But it wasn't just in Atlanta – but how many people hosted or were hosted by others here – others who had a stronger home?
This where Tesuvah plays in – Tesuvah means to return – to return to a safer place, to a home that is secure. I will forever be grateful for the return to a secure and stable home that our neighbors to the north showed us.
During the Musaf service, in the Malchuyot service, we will acknowledge that God is the sovereign of us all. Ultimately, the whole world is God's home, and we are God's inhabitants. God is our parent, God is our sovereign. God opens the hearts of our fellow human being to let us in, to give us shelter.
It is a message to us – when someone we know is going through a hurricane in their lives– we must help return them to a secure place in their lives. In this way, we can help them see that God is truly the sovereign of the world, giving shelter to those who need it.
I’ll never forget a story I heard from a friend who grew up in Argentina – he was 13 years old, and just lost his father. He didn’t know where to go, but he knew he was a Jew, and so he went to shul, because that’s where you go to say Kaddish. It was there he saw Rabbi Marshall Meyer, the famous Conservative rabbi who was one of the founders of the Conservative/Masorti movement in South America. After the service, Rabbi Meyer approached the young man – he said, “you look upset, are you ok?” He told him that he just lost his father, and Rabbi Meyer asked: “You’re alone aren’t you? Come to Shabbat dinner with my family.” My friend went, and this began a journey for the young boy, that young boy is now a prominent rabbi in South Florida. This rabbi never forgot the shelter he received on in the form of a Shabbat meal of comfort in a stranger's home.
When a hurricane in our lives hits, we realize that all of us live in temporary structures – there are times when even the strongest of structures are at the risk of being destroyed. But we can invite others in and give them shelter. You can invite them to your home for a holiday meal, or to a cup of coffee, or you can take care of their children to give them some time to cope. We can offer shelter for the hurricane someone's life.
You can prepare for a storm, you can find a safe place, but what happens when you lose power?
I thought about one thing that we do to prepare that my parents didn't have to do during Hurricane David in 1979: Charging. Now, before a Hurricane, we all charge of our electronics, our phones, our laptops, anything with a battery is plugged in.
But after a couple of hours, or if you are lucky, a day, your precious electronics that you charged will be out of power. And even if you have a generator, you cannot turn it on during the storm - there you are, alone, in the dark.
How many of us hid in closets in the dark at 3 am because of tornado warnings just two weeks ago?
It is in these moments when we feel most alone and empty. But, it's at those moments, when we are at the depths, when we realize we aren't alone, we can pray for each other.
Tefillah, prayer, is an essential part of what it means to be a Jew. We pray not just for ourselves, but for each other. When we are going through tough times, when we are empty, we realize that we are being charged up by the prayers of our family and friends, and the Jewish people. And if we realize that, we realize that we are not alone.
I'll never forget one of the hurricanes in our lives – it was our first major Friday night dinner at Shaarei Kodesh. We were supposed to be welcoming our new members, but earlier that week, we had to rush our son to the hospital. We ended up spending a week there, and a Shabbat in a hospital. But our congregants told us – we are going to pray for you and your family. And that Friday night, the entire congregation came together to pray for us. We knew we were not alone.
In the book of Genesis, God tells Adam, it's not good for man to be alone, and God created Eve.3 Eve wasn't only a person he could share his life with, but she was a person who would be with him during the darkest of times.
There is a beautiful midrash that talks about the first evening that Adam experiences. The light turns to darkness, and he doesn't know what is happening, he's scared, alone, completely unprepared. This is when God teaches Adam how to kindle flames, and it becomes the origins of the Havdallah service.4 During this service, we bless the fire – the candle we light is unlike the Shabbat and holiday candle – there have to be at least two wicks because one light combines with another to make a larger light.
Our tradition teaches us that each one of us has a piece of God’s first creation within us, light, each one of us has an Or HaGanuz - a hidden light.5 When we place our hope in God, we place our hope in each other. The world was created through words, and when we say words out loud, they change us, they help us realize that we can be a light to others, that we can make a difference. Be a light for someone in their times of need this year. Pray for them and let them know it.
In those darkest of moments, when we realize that is there is even a sliver of light, there is still hope.
The light we have is stronger than any battery ever made – when we pray for each other, we charge each other up.
I went on a rabbis mission in May with the Jewish National Fund. I was the only Conservative rabbi on the trip with twelve Orthodox rabbis, but I quickly became really popular. Want to know why? I had portable charges for my cell phone, but more than that, I shared my charge without my colleagues even asking for it.It got me thinking of the third lesson I learned during the hurricane:
When someone is going through a hurricane in their lives, we can give them what they desperately need – a much-needed charge through our actions.
I like to call these little Hineni moments. We read about a Hineni moment in our reading today – God calls out to Abraham, and he answers with one word – Hineni – I am here. It was easy for Abraham – he heard God's literal call, but it's harder for us at times to hear when God is calling out to us. There's a famous line in the Ashrei – God is close to all who call out to Him in truth. There are times when people call out to us – when God is calling out to us – and the question is, are we ready to respond: Hineni – I am here?
The day before the storm, I went to a local coffee shop with my three children – I had a baseball cap on – I was incognito. Of course, they were bouncing off the walls of the store while I was trying my best to put in my order, and suddenly, I heard one of my sons talking to a woman standing right behind us. She asked me about my children and I could tell that there was something wrong. We sat down together and ate our bagel and coffee. She shared with me how scared she was – she was alone – with no family, no place to go, and all she had was her dog. She had never lived through a hurricane before, and that day, we feared the worst. At that moment, this woman needed to talk, she needed to be with someone – and those who know our children know that they are anything but shy! It was a great match. At that moment, I realized her hurricane wasn't the hurricane at all – it was her feeling of loneliness. She was going through the hurricane before it even hit! Suddenly, my son broke my cover: 'did you know that my dad is a rabbi? You should come to our shul!' It was then that we found out she was Jewish. We sat together for as long as she wanted and I told her about our beautiful holy community, and gave her our number - I told her, when you are scared, call us. When you feel alone – call us. If you want a place to pray, if you need anything – we are here – come to Shaarei Kodesh.
Our tradition teaches us that giving is a two-way street – when we give, we also receive. I don't know who got more out of my Hineni moment, the woman, or us?
The famous 19th-century Scottish author, Ian Maclaren famously said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” When God is calling out to us, we need to be able to recognize God's call and answer, Hineni – I am here; I am here for those fighting secret battles, going through their own hurricanes.
After a storm, there is a silence that I cannot explain – in the Unetaneh Tokef, there is a similar silence, but it is interrupted by the sound of the shofar. The shofar is our all clear sign – it's the sign that gives us hope for the future. It tells us – wake up, do something with your life, be there for someone in need, and we answer the call – Hineni – I am here.
After Hurricane Harvey, a Houston news station tweeted a photo of a human chain which was formed to rescued an elderly man stuck in his car with the quote:
#Harvey has taken a lot, but it will NEVER take our humanity. We have seen so many neighbors helping each other. THANK YOU #HopeForHouston pic.twitter.com/M8aTACwHhc
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) August 30, 2017
People helping people, strangers helping strangers – a long chain of humanity. We must help our neighbors after the storm – and we are always after the storm. This is why tzedakah helps avert the evil decree. Every time we give tzedakah, our kindness muscle stretches just a little more. When we stop giving, when we stop caring, we can atrophy.
It is after the storm, but there will be another storm, and many are going through their own hurricanes in this very room, and we may not even know it. Let's commit ourselves to today, HaYom to taking these steps for the rest of the year.
HaYom - On this day, let us commit to helping others return to a home, to a sukkah of peace. Give someone shelter this year.
HaYom - On this day, let us open our hearts to others, let's pray for each other and show them our light in their times of darkness. If you only pray with us once or twice a year, pray with us again during the year. We need you, and we need your prayers.
HaYom - On this day, let us charge each other up through acts of tzedakah, acts of righteousness. If you don't give during the year, consider giving, be a builder of love and light through your acts of tzedakah, through your acts of righteousness.
HaYom – God - Strengthen us today and for the year ahead.
And let us say – Amen.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_David ; http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hurricane-david-is-born
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2 Lew, Alan. This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation (p. 101). Little, Brown and Company.
3 Genesis 2:18
4 BT Pesachim 54a
5 Rashi on Genesis 1:4 - https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.4?lang=bi&with=Rashi&lang2=en
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