Recently Eric Yoffie, the President of the Union for , and Bob Heller, the Chairman of the Board of the Union, visited our congregation and the other Reform synagogues of the Greater New Orleans area. This team came to assess where the Jews of New Orleans are; indeed, they came to view the status of our city. But most importantly they came to get a sense of where the Reform congregations are in the process of recovery, to offer ideas to help us with that recovery and to determine what further the national movement might be able to do to help us.

This is indeed a time of recovery from the greatest natural disaster this country has seen. Never before has an entire American city seen such a catastrophe, such an evacuation of population and a consequent struggle to rebuild the region from this crisis. Many people are in personal crisis on many levels. And even those whose homes are and have been secure and whose jobs are safe are nevertheless part of a community still recovering from crisis.

What I found most inspiring from Rabbi Yoffie’s visit were some words of encouragement he presented at the beginning of his meeting with our congregation’s Board of Trustees. Rabbi Yoffie pointed out that while this is an unprecedented American crisis, and is a crisis for the people involved, we in the Jewish community are experienced in crisis, and we have a traditional response to crisis. Our tradition response to crisis is HOPE. Rabbi Yoffie pointed out that hope is illogical. Based on the experience of our people in the last 4,000 years, we have every reason not to be hopeful in the face of a crisis. If the pattern of history does not change then no crisis will be the last and there will never be a reason to think that once we have made it through a crisis then we will never experience another. He pointed out that this view was the view of the ancient Greek writers. Their Stoic view was that demonstrating hope was foolhardy because there was no logical basis on which to assume we could feel hopeful in response to a crisis or tragedy. According to the Greeks the most noble response to crisis was acceptance of fate and making no attempt to hope that life would improve.

But this is the opposite of the Jewish view. We do not believe that God is callous, capricious or indifferent. Ancient peoples viewed crisis as evidence of either being ignored by their god or that there gods were either not powerful or non-existent. In fact, when one nation conquered another, then the conquered nation usually took the perspective that their gods were weaker than the conquering nation’s gods.

But Judaism took a different view. Judaism established the idea of monotheism, that there is one God for the entire world. And if was God’s chosen people, then how could they make sense of the fact that the Babylonian empire had conquered them? Rather, the captive Jews established a theology that kept their faith in God. They abandoned the idea that their god might not be all powerful, and established a theological system that allowed them to recognize that Adonai was still the one God of all the earth and that Israel was God’s chosen people. This allowed them to remain faithful to God and maintain the hope that with the proper commitment to God that life would improve and that the Jewish people would prosper again.

In the face of tragedy our approach is not to abandon faith. The suffering Psalmist cried out, “How long will You ignore me, how long will You hide your face from me? How long will I have grief in my heart all day?”

Yet two verses later in that very same Psalm, hope and faith are restored: “But I trust in Your faithfulness, my heart will exult in Your deliverance. I will sing to the Adonai, for He has been good to me.”

The support an encouragement by the Jewish community around the country – indeed, around the world – should help us persevere as we continue to struggle to reclaim our homes, our businesses, our communities, our entire region. Let us never forget the hope that our tradition instills in us that despite crisis and tragedy we look forward to incorporate God’s help into our lives so that we may rebuild and restore. Let us thank our community from around the country who have dedicated themselves to help us reclaim our lives, represented by the recent visit of the leaders of the and the expressions and commitment of ongoing support they pledged to us. And let us thank God for the blessing that have been bestowed upon us, giving us the strength to succeed as we are supported by our community.