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Ellen W. Horowitz and her family live on the Golan Heights. She is a
painter, columnist, and author of .
website: http://www.artfromzion.com
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By Ellen W. Horowitz
September 22, 2005
The earth was chaos and void, with darkness on the face of the deep, and the spirit of G-d fluttering on the face of the water. (Genesis 1:2)
The skies are surely darkening and sands are shifting while the winds of war and Rita threaten Israel and America respectively. It's both comforting and a bit discomfiting to know that the spirit of G-d is ever-so close.
I'm not going to second-guess the Almighty or connect specific geo-political events to meteorological ones. The very thought of treading in those murky waters seems like something of a sacrilege. On the other hand, it's simply wrong for us not to acknowledge what we've seen and are seeing, and to express how we feel. Because, as the headlines say, we are witnessing devastating events of "biblical proportions". To deny G-d's hand in all of this (or to remain silent) may be a bigger blasphemy than worrying about appearing to seem spiritually arrogant or judgmental.
I don't need to hear or adhere to the recent statements emanating from eminent rabbis, kabbalists, and astrologists, because I've got a Jewish mother's intuition.
And as a mother and an artist, I'm fully aware that a frantic level of turbulent activity is just as likely to be a precursor to creation as it is to destruction. And like the best of the French Quarter's improvisational jazz, I know that within the chaos is a profound truth which gnaws at me and draws me in -- but remains elusive.
Although I can't possibly fathom it, I'm acutely aware that there is Divine mercy, judgment, wrath and retribution in this world. Which is why I regularly pray that, "In Your great goodness, let Your fierce anger turn away from Your people, from Your city, from Your land, and from Your heritage."
One need not be a prophet to see and feel the obvious. But you are a detached fool if the dramatic changes taking place in the world do not put you in an introspective mood.
Living these past few years in the Golan Heights has allowed me the luxury of thinking long and hard, and writing about both natural and man-made disasters, their interactivity, and the potential effects of hurricanes on hubris and hubris on hurricanes.
I've dabbled a bit with the existential, but there are far greater minds than mine who drew, with confidence, the necessary conclusions long ago...
Moses Maimonides, the greatest Jewish philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, was also a physician, an accomplished scientist, and an enlightened thinker. And yet, when it came to reacting to disasters, he had this to say:
When a calamity strikes the public we must cry out, examine our lives and correct our ways. To say that the calamity is merely a natural phenomenon and a chance occurrence is insensitive and cruel (Laws of Fasting 1:2-3) .
In addition to being a great scholar, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, was a modern thinker, well versed in secular studies- including math and the sciences. In his commentaries on Psalms, he puts great emphasis on the following:
...wherever catastrophic events of world-wide import shock humanity, the Lord is the prime cause, and the occurrences take place under His guidance.
In his commentary on Psalm 18, verse 8, Rabbi Hirsch outlines several instances where King David uses an allegory of physical and natural phenomena to illustrate G-d's power in directing the events of human history. So, speaking of raging floodwaters...
He raised me from the pit of the raging waters, from the slimy mud (40:3)
...all Your breakers and Your waves have swept over me (42:8)
...when its waters rage and are muddied (46:4)
Who calms the roar of the seas, the roar of their waves...(65:8)
Save me, Oh G-d, for the waters have reached until the soul! (69:2)
...You have afflicted [me] with all Your crashing waves (88:8)
...like rivers they shall raise their destructiveness (93:3)
...the treacherous waters (124:5)
Stretch out Your hands from above; release me and rescue me from great waters; from the hand of strangers...(144:7)
And then there are far lesser men like George W. Bush, who in his Inaugural address of January 20, 2001 made a point of quoting a portion of a letter which John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson:
"We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?''
And so we track the storm - wondering whether the South will rise (or sink) again, and knowing full well that Superdomes and Superpowers, Pentagons and Twin Towers are neither invincible nor do they last forever.
Regardless of the depths, there are always some who will continue to "eat, drink and be merry...." But when inundated with real or metaphysical floodwaters, my people are supposed to choose life and head for higher ground -- and in this case that may indicate a move towards aliyah.
To the Jewish community of New Orleans and Houston, as well as the rest of my brethren in the Diaspora: Why don't y'all come home now!
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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