Irma - I Am Not In Control!

I love the feeling of being in control. I need my daily routine: I wake up at the crack of dawn, study a Chassidic discourse, get my coffee, go running in Central Park, come home, and continue with my scheduled day. I like order and predictability.

But control is an illusion. I may feel like I’m in control, but when it comes down to it, I am absolutely not. And if there’s any indication of that, it’s Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.

We’ve all seen the devastation that Harvey left in its wake, and now Irma, a category 5 storm, is battering its way through the Atlantic, clobbering every island in its path. Winds of up to 185 mph have destroyed 95% of the buildings on Barbuda, with Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic also seeing extensive damage.

My colleague, Rabbi Moshe Chanowitz, the Chabad rabbi in St. Martin, moved his family to the Chabad center—a sturdier structure–while the storm raged. After the door shattered, they moved further in to the mikvah, a room with no windows, where they huddled together in terror. When they were able to leave, they discovered that their home had flooded completely, and the power will be out for weeks. Read the full storyhere.

Now Florida and millions of its residents are directly in Irma’s way, and the fear is palpable. Everyone who can is rushing to evacuate, gas is running low, flights are jam-packed, and those who are staying are doing their best to protect themselves and their homes while stocking up on enough water and non-perishables to last a while. People are nervous and panicky, and the president has already declared a state of emergency. “This is not a storm you can sit and wait through,” said the governor. “We can’t save you after the storm starts.”

Weather forecasters can identify the storm. They can track it, measure its force, estimate its trajectory and predict its impact. But they, and we, are powerless to stop or redirect it, despite the tremendous technological and scientific advances we have seen in the last few decades.

In this week’s Parshah we read about the mitzvah of bikkurim. Every farmer in the land of Israel was obligated to bring the first fruits of his harvest to the Temple for the priests to consume. Imagine! A farmer who tilled and prepared the soil, carefully planted, watered, pruned, and cared for his crop, was then required to give away his very first produce! Why should he? As a reminder that G-d, and G-d alone, controls our livelihood, and, in fact, every aspect of our lives.

Hurricane Irma reinforces this lesson. I am not in control of my life; G-d is. Let us beseech the Almighty to show compassion for all the people in the storm’s path and move the hurricane away from land.