Religious Response to Catastrophe

A message for the Month of Adar

By: Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Sunday, February 2, Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union, spoke at a conference, “Times of Terror, Times of Resilience: A Jewish Response to Catastrophe and Trauma.” The conference was organized by Ohel, a children’s home and family service agency, and its Project Liberty, created to deal with the effects of September 11; Yeshivat Chovevei Torah was co-sponsor.

The day prior to the conference, the Space Shuttle Columbia was lost, killing all of its astronauts, including Col. Ilan Ramon of Israel.

Rabbi Weinreb, who is both a communal rabbi and a clinical psychologist of wide experience, spoke on the topic of  “Religious Response to Catastrophe.”

There are no easy answers to the religious response to catastrophe, whether it is a seemingly isolated event, such as the terrible end of the shuttle Columbia, or the ongoing terror in Israel. The response involves questioning, it requires great patience, it is complex, it has many ingredients, it involves soul searching, questioning and prayer.

To seek some answers, I would like to look at this week’s Torah portion, Terumah, in which God commands Moses and the Children of Israel to begin construction of the Mishkan – the Tabernacle.  Moses in a sense conducts the first UJA campaign, soliciting materials with which to build the Mishkan – gold, silver and copper; turquoise, purple and scarlet wool; linen and goat hair; red-dyed ram skins, and so on. He also requests orot t’chashim – the hides of a certain desert animal called the tachash. There has been much speculation as to what that animal is.

The Zohar says that the ingredients of the Mishkan, of the world, and of the human being are all reflected in each other. For example, gold in a person is compared with love, silver in a person is compared with fear. The Mishkan is a microcosm of the person.

What, then, is the counterpart of the tachash?

Rashi describes the tachash as a beautiful, multi-colored creature that is happy and proud of its many colors.. What is the counterpart in the human psyche to this?  It is the capacity within a human being to be sameach b’chelko – to be happy with one’s lot, no matter what that lot is, even if this means being in a concentration camp or experiencing terror in Israel – or for that matter, sitting on top of the world.

The tachash is happy whatever its colors are at a particular time. Likewise, it is possible for a person to be sameach – not in the concept of a smiling face – but rather to be well-adjusted within any situation.

Where does one begin to look in Jewish literature for responses to today’s terror? One major example is the vast literature coming out of the Holocaust. Viktor Frankl, for example, wrote works on his Auschwitz experience, as did Primo Levi. Frankl was very much the kind of person who said, “I’m alive, how am I going to stay alive?” He lived, in fact, to a ripe old age. Levi, however, wrote “I’m in the world’s greatest hell and I’m sinking into hell.” It is believed that he committed suicide.

Now let us consider a second response to our question. Sunday and Monday were Rosh Chodesh Adar Rishon, the beginning of the first month of Adar. The Talmud says that when Adar starts, we should begin to rejoice, in other words, that there is an increase in simcha – happiness. This holds true for both Adars, even though Purim falls in the second.

On the other hand, the Gemara says that when the month of Av begins, we should reduce simcha. The Bretslaver Rebbe suggested that there is always a base line of simcha in Jewish life – that it’s a great mitzvah to always be in simcha.

This presents a very profound question. Is a Jew allowed to believe that one month is luckier than another, even though the Gemara says one cannot maintain that a particular time of year is or is not propitious, and the Torah says we may not consult a fortune-teller? When the Gemara says Adar is a good time to go to court and Av is a bad time, what does that mean?

The classical commentaries answer that a good Jew lives at the center of a horizontal and vertical axis. The Jew is connected at every point of both of them if he is living a good Jewish life. Through the horizontal axis, he is connected very profoundly to other Jews. Through the vertical axis, we are connected with Jewish history – with the Jewish past, the Jewish present and the Jewish future. At all times he lives and relives all of Jewish history back to Abraham and Sarah, to everything that happened to the Jewish people in Egypt, to everything that happened to the Jewish people in Persia with Haman, and to what is happening now. So the future is in the past and the past is in the present.

When the month of Av begins, Jews who live with this type of historical consciousness begin to feel the weight of Av – the destruction of the Temples, the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust.  We are worried, we are anxious, the burden of history is on us – so it’s no time to go to court

But in Adar, the burden of history is lighter. Adar is a time of confidence, the triumph over Haman, the approach of Passover. The whole mood of the Jewish people reflects this.

What this tells us is very important. Built into the Jewish psyche is historical consciousness– and that’s how we’ve been able to cope with catastrophe. Because Jews live in an historical perspective, these events fit into some logical pattern. There is an inner sense among the Jewish people that we’re part of a long process of thousands of years, that may end tomorrow (with the coming of Mashiach) or years down the road. That is a powerful consciousness to have.

Jews have the advantage of the horizontal axis – it’s very comforting that one is not suffering alone. The vertical axis is also comforting – what we’re experiencing is part of a long historical process.

We have now discussed two approaches to this problem of catastrophe – the notion of the tachash animal and the notion of Adar and Av. There is a third approach – Purim.

As we know, there are four mitzvot concerning Purim – to hear the Megillah; to give Mishloach Manot, two gifts to one person; to give Matanot l’Evyonim, gifts to the poor; and the Purim Seudah, or festive meal.

The Rambam (Maimonides) puts these mitzvot in reverse order of  importance: Mishloach Manot, Seudah, Megillah, and Matanot l’Evyonim. Why did he make gifts to the poor the most important of the mitzvot? It is because simcha means giving to others. The Rambam’s definition of simcha is that there is no simcha more beautiful than to bring joy to the poor, the orphan, the widow and the stranger. He who brings this joy, the Rambam says, can be compared to the Shechinah (the Divine Presence).

One who is searching for a religious response to catastrophe becomes extremely self-centered: “How am I going to make it through this suffering?” The Rambam answers that the way to get through is to bring simcha into your life by giving to others.

When there is a bombing in Israel, people don’t run away; they rush to the scene to help others. The secret to resilience in the face of tragedy is giving, not getting; in other words, in not being self-centered.

I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting a theological response to the question of religion and catastrophe, in other words, the question of “Where is God?” That approach is effective for very few people and we don’t do very well with theology these days. To be an amateur philosopher is not what is needed when we are confronted with tragedy, most recently with the tragic destruction of the space shuttle. The lesson we must learn is to take action. That is where we find comfort and hope.

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