Homes were destroyed. People, so many, many people were killed. The storms swept away whole communities. By the time the whirlwind subsided –Shoah we call it in Hebrew – by the time the Holocaust was over there were some six million Jews murdered, between 1 ½ and 2 million of them children. Why? Where was God in all this?

In the US we celebrate July 4 as Independence Day. In Latvia, July 4 is a memorial day, the observance of that day in 1941 when the Nazis locked between three and four hundred Jews in the Choral Synagogue of Riga and burnt it to the ground. There was so little left that the “ruins” we saw this summer when we were there was an artificial reconstruction. Outside the city in the woods of Rumbala we said Kaddish at a memorial for the 25,000 Jews who were murdered there on just two days, one in 1940 and one in 1941. Other than the memorial itself there is nothing, no clothing, belongings, bodies, even bones. They were all burnt, totally obliterated by the Nazis. Why? Where was God in all this?

Once upon a time – it almost seems like a fairy tale now – the 18th century Lithuanian city of Vilnius was a booming center of Jewish learning. Tens of thousands of Jews lived there, a population almost as great as the non-Jewish one. It was even called the Jerusalem of Europe. Its leader was the foremost scholar and sage of the era: Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman. He was known as the Vilna Gaon, the Genius of Vilna.

We walked the streets he walked: Jew Street, Gaon Street, and the others. We saw the very modest monument erected in his honor. Across the street was the site of the old synagogue, now returned to the Jewish community. It once had three stories, but one had to be in the basement so the building of the Jews wasn’t higher than the bishop’s residence. At present the land is leased by the Jewish community to a kindergarten that has a building there. There is no need to rebuild the old shul. There are less than 5,000 Jews now in all of Lithuania.

Why? Why this murderous whirlwind that killed so any of our people – first the Russians, then the Nazis -- and an entire history of persecution and massacre even before that? Why? Where was God in all this?

Why the tsunami, the terrible tidal wave that swept so many to their deaths in the ocean? Why the relentless storm that submerged the city of New Orleans and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives, and the terrible storm that followed that? Why? Where was God in all this?

Some say these catastrophes were punishment for our sins. Right wing Rabbis in Israel said that the Jews of Eastern Europe weren’t keeping kosher properly, so God sent the Holocaust to punish six million of us. Maybe we didn’t have enough sets of dishes, or ate the pot roast with a fork that had been used to eat cheese blintzes. The one and a half to two million children who were slaughtered, what could they possibly have done? Did they throw their blocks at each other?

One of our Congregants was kind enough to share with me a news piece from an Israeli radio station:

Israel’s leading known Kabbalistic Elder, Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri called upon worldwide Jewry to return to Israel due to natural disasters which threaten to strike the world.

Earlier this Jewish year, Rabbi Kaduri predicted great tragedies in the world. Just two weeks before the devastating tsunami in southeast Asia, Rabbi Kaduri was quoted in the Yediot Acharonot newspaper as saying:

“ … in the coming three years, uncertainty about the future will hang over our heads, unless we work and strive that the Mashiach be revealed.” [Arutz Shevah] 

So, according to Rabbi Kaduri and his followers, the catastrophes we have suffered are because we haven’t worked hard enough to bring the Messiah.

New Orleans? Our far right wing religious leaders in Israel are currently teaching that the destruction of New Orleans was God’s punishment because the US pressured Israel into giving back land in the Gaza strip!

Where was God in all this? According to these people, God was busy punishing us for our sins. This is horrific, evil theology. It demeans God and belittles us. Why did these terrible things happen? There is a very beautiful paragraph in the funeral service that I use in the event of a particularly tragic death, like that of a young parent or a child:

O God, help us to see that even if our questions were answered, even if we did know why, the pain would be no less, the loneliness would remain bitter beyond words and still our hearts would ache. 

Do we want to try and comfort those with aching hearts like the homeless from New Orleans with explanations about flood plains and silt distribution and the flow rates of the Mississippi? Do we want to try to comfort a Holocaust survivor whose whole family was turned into smoke and ashes in the Nazi ovens with a socio-political analysis of modern European history?

Sure, we’ve got to look back at the tragedies, try to find out their causes and try to prevent them from happening again, if we can. But that’s not enough. Instead of asking where God was, I think we would be far better off asking: where God is, and where will God be? As the soap opera title so beautifully puts it, we should Search for Tomorrow.

A young boy named Vladimir Kushnirov is painting pictures for his social worker. The first is of a bright yellow sun shining over his three-member family of recent olim: “We ate breakfast together and talked about our day, and then I left for school and my parents went to sign a contract for our new apartment in Ashkelon,” he says. The next picture: “My parents sitting on the #18 bus, next to the suicide bomber.” The last picture is very dark and shows Vladimir standing next to the grave of his parents. The social worker asks, “What will you do now, Vladimir?” He does not hesitate, “I have a grandmother, I have a grandfather and a little baby sister. My life will go on.” [Doniel Kramer, UJA Rabbinic Cabinet]

Where is God and where will God be? In the strength and the faith to simply go on.

Two decades ago, two unsung New York actors pledged to help each other if either made it big: Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve, who died last year. Paralyzed from the neck down after falling from a horse, Reeve faced medical expenses--about $400,000 per year--when his health insurance ran out. In stepped Williams, offering to foot the bill for his pal. [U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, January 15, 1996, p. 18, changes mine.] 

Where is God and where will God be? In the love and the insight to help a friend, a loved one.

One of our congregants has a son who lives in a city half a continent away from New Orleans. He heard about a family from New Orleans who were taken in by relatives who barely had space for their own family, let alone another one. He happened to own a condo that he rented out, but at the moment was empty. Rather than rent it and receive the income, he gave it to that refugee family, free, for six months. 

Where is God and where will God be? In the kindness we show even to strangers who are in need.

Robert Frost, the poet, died almost 40 years ago. Frost’s public career reached a climax in January, 1961, when he read a poem at President Kennedy’s inauguration.

For all his public triumphs, Robert Frost’s private life was horrible. One son died at age three; another child committed suicide. His favorite daughter died of fever while giving birth in 1934. Authorities placed his sister into a mental institution. Another daughter also went to a mental hospital. The only daughter to escape these fates blamed her father for the family misfortunes.

Still, Robert Frost said: “God seems to me to be something which wants us to win, just as God eventually survives the setbacks of this world to eventually win.” [“LectionAid,” Jul/Aug/Sept 1996.]

Where is God and where will God be? God is the force for good, the opponent of evil, the guide of our search for a better tomorrow.

Did God destroy New Orleans or so many of our people in the holocaust because of our sins? No! Never! Human limitations, human stupidity and human evil did that. The world, I believe, is not the work of a malevolent, angry God, but of a God who cries along with us in our pain and suffering.

Looking back is of little comfort. Looking forward, searching for tomorrow, is. Where is God and where will God be? In our resolve to go on, no matter what; in the way we transcend ourselves in trying to help others, family or stranger; and in the way we accept our role of trying, along with God to overcome evil and create what is good.

Where is God and where will God be? With us – always.