The Poor Storm

This week the world witnessed the destruction of a famous southern American city. Such an event has not been seen by the current generation, and following our pattern, has to be related to the week's Parsha.

A few observations: We don't believe in random acts of "nature". We are warned repeatedly in Parshas B'Chukosai not to dismiss punishing "natural disasters" as Keri, as Mikra, as "chance accidents". The result of such an attitude is that Hashem responds in "Chamas Keri", vicious chaos.

An amazing coincidence, a "chance" event, the fact that the Haftora for Parshas Noach is the same as the one for Parshas Re'ee ( the week Katrina struck). If the Rabbis chose this piece of Tanach to replace the Torah reading, this means there are similar messages being sent to us by the story of Noah and the flood, and this week's Parsha of Re'ee. The Haftora starts off with Aniya Se'ora, "poor storm" that is not consolable. A se'ora refers to a whirlwind, a cyclone, a hurricane. And who do we see most afflicted by this wind? The poorest people in New Orleans. And due to our attitude about this act of "nature", the city descended into chaos, instead of a coordinated initial relief effort.

The Parsha doesn't seem to talk about water, except in three places it repeats the same phrase "You should pour it on the land like water". This is referring to the blood of animals eaten for food, and not as part of holy sacrifices. The idea is that since ideally the blood should have been used as part of a sacrifice, it has holiness and cannot be used, but must be poured out onto the earth like water (Emek Davar). Here we see that consuming material things must be done in a framework of holiness, and if not then it is subject to being poured out on to the earth like water. It may be that a message is being sent in response to the raw materialistic nature of that city, home of the hedonistic Mardi Gras celebrations where raw materialistic pleasures are celebrated annually in the pretense as being an inauguration to be supposed period of deprivation or mourning period leading to the death and resurrection of their deity.

America has been hit hard. It's oil-biased foreign policies have led to insane policies of rewarding terrorists with additional terrority, even while it is supposedly carrying out a "war on terror". The hypocrisy of America is not ignored: It claims that occupied Arab land must be returned to reduce hostility against the U.S. from such wonderful oil-supplying countries as Saudi Arabia, who will reward the U.S. with plentiful supplies of crude. Well, we see how low the price of gas is dropping due to these policies, and where is America hit? Smack in the middle of the Gulf oil refineries. Not only that, but this claim of "occupying Arab land" is being addressed, by hitting the source of the biggest "occupation" in history, the Louisiana "purchase", which led to the expulsion and murder of countless native Americans. Who is the occupier, and who is being expelled from their homes now?

Let us all help the victims of these crazy policies both in the US and in Eretz Yisrael to the best of our ability.