Rabbi Pont's Torah Thoughts

RABBI PONT'S TORAH THOUGHTS

FLOODS IN TEXAS

As of Wednesday, at least 111 are dead and over 170 are still missing in Texas due to horrific floods over the holiday weekend near the Guadalupe River. Officials are examining emergency warning and preparedness systems to ensure that such a tragedy won’t happen again.

In the Bible, floods are dangerous, most famously the Great Flood that God used to destroy all life on Earth except Noah and his family and pairs of all animals (see Genesis 6:9 – 8:22) Consider Psalm 29 as well. “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over the mighty waters … the voice of the LORD breaks cedars; the LORD shatters the cedars of Lebanon.” While nature is beautiful it can also be a source of peril.

I reached out to Liz Reingold, an associate member of MJC who along with her husband Lee moved to Austin, TX a couple years ago. “We live less than an hour from the flooding,” Liz told me. “It has been raining nonstop for days. And so sad what has been going on.” She suggested ways to help, so I had MJC donate to the Shalom Austin Flood Relief Campaign, which reported the following. “(As of Tuesday) We have received over $200,000 in donations … from more than 1,200 donors across 36 states as well as 200 donations to the Shalom Austin Jewish Family Service Food Pantry to help families impacted by the Texas floods — thank you! We are also grateful to Texas Jewish Federations, Jewish Federations of North America and Jewish institutional partners across Greater Austin, Central Texas and nationally for their support!”

I’m glad that MJC is helping those in crisis – this is the Jewish way!

Shalom,

Rabbi Pont