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.