Shalom friends,

As we all watch the horrific images emerging after the earthquake in Haiti, our hearts ache, our eyes fill with tears at the scenes of the dead and dying, dazed and injured children, now orphaned, wandering through devastated streets, crying "Mama," "Papa," - a country utterly destroyed. Amidst the tears, there is hope - families reunited, people saved after days, locked in the grip of collapsed buildings, the courage of rescue workers,  doctors, nurses flying in from all the world to save the people of Haiti. How proud we are of all of them - Americans, French, Israel -- an Israeli field hospital set up, an American hospital ship sailing from Baltimore toward Haiti's shores, Germans, many, many countries -- all coming together - not war, not bombs blasting -- just compassion and caring and kindness. We are all fighting a great battle, as Philo the Jew wrote two millennia ago in Alexandria, Egypt - so we must be kind to one another.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of my great heroes - a man who "prayed with his feet" and saw a response to God as responsibility for justice in the world, once wrote "A Jew is not asked to take a leap of faith; s/he is asked to take a leap of action." Our best way of taking that leap of action right now is to help with the greatest amount of tzedakah  we can afford. We are never required to send more than we can personally or communally handle. But we must send as much as we can. This is not dscretionary in our tradition. This is a mitzvah - not a good deed. It is a commandment. And even if we are somewhat anarchistic in our community, even if most of us don't really think we must follow "commandments" just because some ancient rabbis told us they are from God, then what I know we do believe is that we have a moral obligation to try our absolute best to do justice in the world. Please remember that the word tzedakah  itself derives from the word tzedek which means "justice").

     — It is profoundly unjust that the earth rumbled in Haiti (whether one believes that "God" willed it or that it   was simply Nature exercising its wild and sometimes arbitrary will) and thousands are dead or dying.                     — It is profoundly unjust that an entire country has been so devastated.                                                           — It is profoundly unjust that Haiti is one of the poorest nations on the face of our earth when millions here in America and elsewhere live in abundance.                                                                                                   

We have a chance to tip the scales of justice back at least a ways towards more justice. I have no illusions that we will entirely rectify the injustices in Haiti or in so many places on earth where so many of God's children suffer. Yet I remind myself daily  of Rabb Tarfon's lesson two thousand years ago that  "The day is short,  [and] there is much work to be done, [and that we] "are not required to finish the task, neither are we free to refrain from beginning." (Mishna, Pirkey Avot -  2:15-16). The way we ti[ the scales of justice back toward more justice is by giving as much tzedakah as we can      

Here is the best information I have gathered on three places we can send our tzedakah:

1. American Jewish World Service:  check out their website:  http://ajws.org/      Haiti Emergency Fund

2. Partners in Health:  check out their website:  http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

3. The Lambi Fund: check out their website: http://www.lambifund.org

The following are comments from my friend and colleague, Rabbi Toba Spitzer, recent president of the Reconstructionist Rabbnical Association who has been on a mission to Haiti who sent this bit of additional information about organizations #2 and 3:

"I have a dear friend who has worked with grass roots groups in Haiti for years and has a very keen sense of where money is best spent. For those of you who are interested or who haven't yet given, two organizations that she recommends most highy are: Partners in Health for immediate medical needs and The Lambi Fund for getting aid to folks on the ground to rebuild their lives. Neither of those organizations will take any cut of the donated funds for themselves, unlike many other organizations. The American Red Cross is not a good choice."

I send these words to you in sadness, in hope, in prayer and in determination to help as much as I can. I encourage and invite you ondividually and Kol Ami communally to do all we can.

B'tikvah u-vi-bracha,

Rabbi Leila