When we say it was a disaster of Biblical proportions we immediately think of this week’s Torah portion Vayeira, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis Chapter 19. As the story goes, the inhabitants of these two twin cities in the heart of the Negev were so bad that not even ten righteous people could be found living there. Sending Lot and his family out, God rains fire and brimstone, transforming what were once thriving communities into mere ashes.
Instead of calling these events Biblical, we should start calling them Modern. Every week or two we read about cities turned to rubble overnight, entire populations forced to rebuild. Here is a description I found about flooding in Athens just last week, “roads turned into rivers, homes and apartment blocks collapsed like decks of cards.”
Just in 2021 alone, there have already been eighteen national disasters in the United States. These include 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 9 severe storm events, 4 tropical cyclone events, 1 wildfire event, and 1 winter storm event, all of which led to at least one billion dollars in damage. According to recent studies, almost a quarter billion human beings live in areas that will be completely underwater by 2100.
The Biblical stories imagine natural disasters to be punishment from God for acts of human cruelty. We too understand our role in these horrific events. Living in Buffalo, we are blessed to be in one of the cities best situated to face climate change (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/climate/climate-migration-duluth.html). This bodes well for the future of our region, but also should inspire us to lead the way to a more sustainable earth. As we were told in Genesis 2:15, our job is to ovdah v’shomrah, serve and protect this beautiful planet and all the creatures that reside on it. If not for our sake, we should do it for theirs.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex