The Challenge
The earthquake and tsunami which devastated coastal areas of the Indian Ocean Basin earlier this year, killing tens of thousands, and ripping away any pretense of man’s control over his own fate, left religious people of all stripes groping for meaning on personal, practical and theological levels. The recent hurricane, Katrina, which destroyed New Orleans has raised similar questions, as well. In their wake, we need to consider how to fathom the unfathomable: How should we feel? What should we do? And how does a faithful Jew relate to G-d in the wake of such events? What follows is both a critique of inappropriate approaches, and a statement of a response to natural disaster which I feel best incorporates the requirements and ideals of Jewish law and tradition.

Destructive Approaches
Attempts by leaders of any religion to attribute this cataclysmic event to a specific sin are deplorable. Such attempts are unprovable and insensitive at best, self-serving and dishonest at worst. While using catastrophe as a spur for repentance has a long history in Jewish thought, pointing omnisciently to another’s fatal sin does not. It is one thing to counsel teshuva for ourselves in the aftermath of such a demonstration of G-d’s might; it is quite another to blame the victims for their misfortune.

Theologically Unsound Approaches
We must resist the temptation to disassociate God from terrible acts of nature. Whether overwhelmed by close proximity to the events or driven by a philosophical need to defend God’s goodness, a number of religious figures have denied that the hand of God could be involved in the death of innocents. In effect they sought to salvage Divine benevolence at the expense of Divine omnipotence, and were left with a “senile benevolence” C.S. Lewis would call “Our grandfather in heaven.” A God reduced to the proportions of human comprehension is surely not a worthy object of worship, nor does he correspond to the God of the Written and Oral Law. The vast preponderance of Jewish thought has taken for granted a God who is both loving and immediately involved in His Creation.

A possible exception to this principle would be the view of Maimonides on the extent of God’s personal supervision of the world and its inhabitants, but even that position posits a God who chose to run His world by the rules of nature, not One who was powerless to contravene them.

Toward a Traditional Approach
The beginning of a religious approach, one which is faithful to the souls of the dead and the living, and which refuses to reimagine God to suit our limitations, is a recognition of the tzelem elokim – the image of God – in every human being, Jew or non-Jew. That recognition must properly lead to searing pain at witnessing so many of His creatures obliterated. While not ignoring the stream in Jewish philosophy that sees an essential difference between the souls of Jew and non-Jew, we nonetheless think it proper to focus on those sources which highlight the essential bond of all humanity as God’s handiwork. When a Jew feels himself beleaguered or in pain, he prays, and so this element includes the imperative of prayer.

The second necessary element is context. We must remember that similar occurrences in the past – such as the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755, adduced by Chief Rabbi Sacks of Great Britain – challenged religious faith, but did not vanquish it. In this category, as well, may fall the many Biblical, Talmudic and Midrashic sources which reveal the other side of the coin – how, on a daily basis, G-d sets limits to the destructive forces of nature, not allowing them to vent their full force on humanity. Such context, while not answering the unanswerable, can relieve the panic and aloneness that threaten the religious soul.

The third piece is what Rav Aharon Lichtenstein has termed the “shock of humility,” which teaches that stunned silence is more eloquent than effervescent nonsense. It is not a cop-out to admit that the ways of God remain mysterious to man.

Fourthly comes the need to validate the very real questions of faith in the minds of some. Jews must remember that is permissible to question the ways of God, if one does so in sincere search for truth, and from within the community of faith. His petition for the wicked of Sodom denied, Abraham arose the next morning, beheld the smoke rising from the smoldering ruins of the city God refused to save, and prayed the morning prayer to the G-d whose ways eluded him. Those who have challenged God’s justice through the ages, from Abraham to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev to Rav Klonimus Kalman Shapiro of the Warsaw Ghetto, have innately understood the words of Ibn Gabirol: Mimkha Elekha—I flee from You into Your arms. The God whom we question is also the source of our comfort, and we are the child flailing our fists in tantrum at a parent, while calling to that very parent for an embrace of consolation.

Fifth, some of us may want to inculcate the sensitivity addressed by Sarah Shapiro, who expressed ambivalence at the quasi-voyeuristic nature of imbibing the media glut of photos of victims and their suffering. Surely this relates to the words of Pirkei Avot: “And do not seek to see your friend at the time of his misfortune.”

Sixth, but perhaps first in importance, we Jews must join people of good will of all faiths in providing financial and moral support for survivors of the disaster who are trying to rebuild their lives. Such acts are certainly a sanctification of G-d’s name, but they are more. As Maimonides notes in recommending charity be given even to idolators, they are a form of emulating the ways of G-d himself, regarding Whom Tehillim 145:9 states: “His mercy extends to all his creatures.”

When all is said and done, this approach fails to set one’s mind at ease, but that is how it should be. It is unsatisfying to grieve for the pain of thousands of innocents without being able to either attach it to their responsibility or detach it from God’s. But neither extreme rings true. We are left in pain but resisting facile explanations that impute to us knowledge of God’s motives, or to Him an image pared down to our size. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik once ascribed a similar state of mind to Moses himself. At the burning bush, Moses hid his face, refusing, the Talmud says, God’s offer of a revelation that would put him in possession of all the mysteries of how God runs His world. Understanding why the innocent suffer, Moses feared, would diminish his empathy for their plight. Better a thousand questions than one complacent moment of comprehension at the expense of another.

I might add: Better the nobility of the struggle with unanswered questions than the reinterpretation of God to suit our preferences.