Disaster Clean Up

A Message for Rosh Hashanah

September 2015

I recently shared with my kehillah the following remarkable exchange released by the Reagan Presidential Library:

April 18, 1984
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Andy Smith. I am a seventh-grade student at Irmo Middle School in Irmo, South Carolina.
Today my mother declared my bedroom a disaster area. I would like to request federal funds to hire a crew to clean up my room. I am prepared to provide the initial funds if you will provide matching funds for this project.
I know you will be fair when you consider my request. I will be awaiting your reply.
Sincerely yours,
Andy Smith
400 London Pride Road
Irmo, South Carolina 29063

The president soon responded:

May 11, 1984
Dear Andy:
I’m sorry to be so late in answering your letter but, as you know, I’ve been in China and found your letter here upon my return.
Your application for disaster relief has been duly noted, but I must point out one technical problem. The authority declaring the disaster is supposed to make the request—in this case, your mother.
However, setting that aside, I’ll have to point out the larger problem of available funds. This has been a year of disasters: 539 hurricanes as of May 4th and several more since, numerous floods, forest fires, a drought in Texas and a number of earthquakes. What I’m getting at is that funds are dangerously low.
May I make a suggestion? This administration, believing that government has done many things that could be better done by volunteers at the local level, has sponsored a Private Sector Initiative Program, calling upon people to practice volunteerism in the solving of a number of local problems.
Your situation appears to be a natural. I’m sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster. Therefore, you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program to go along with the more than 3,000 already under way in our nation. Congratulations.
Give my best regards to your mother.
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan

A humorous exchange, it also serves as a perfect analogy for the period in which we find ourselves.

At this time of year I always think back to how messy my room was when I was a child. Every Tuesday I would be told to clean up my room, the bathroom, the playroom. When I asked my mother why she was extra-strict about clean-up on Tuesdays, she explained, “Because the cleaning lady is coming.”

This made absolutely no sense to me. Clean up because the cleaning lady is coming? But when I got older, I understood that it is demeaning to leave someone else to deal with a pig sty. Workers are human beings, and this is not how we treat people.

Similarly, lahavdil, we have a promise that Hashem is going to help clean up our mess—“Itzumo shel Yom Hakippurim mechaper, the awesomeness of the day atones (for us).” But we first need to clean ourselves up as best we can and not “leave” the entire job for Hashem.

When I read this correspondence between Andy Smith and President Reagan, I was reminded, l’havdil, of the midrash on Eichah that speaks of a similar exchange between klal Yisrael and the Ribbono Shel Olam regarding teshuvah (Eichah Rabbah 5:25).

The penultimate pasuk of Eichah, recited aloud by the kehillah, reads, “Hashiveinu Hashem eilecha v’nashuvah, bring us back, Hashem, and we will thereby be returned.” The midrash says that Hashem responds by assigning us the responsibility of taking the first step: “Shuvu eilai v’ashuvah aleichem, you must (first) return to Me, and only then will I return to you” (Malachi 3:7).

This midrash explains that there is an ongoing “quarrel” in which klal Yisrael asks Hashem to take responsibility for coming toward us first, and He responds that we must initiate our own return before He comes toward us.

Who wins this debate? Who is ultimately charged with beginning the clean-up?

It would seem at first that klal Yisrael triumphs, because the midrash ends by quoting a pasuk in Tehillim (85:5) supporting our request that Hashem take the initiative.

But perhaps during Elul, this changes. As we know, the Mishnah Brurah notes (in the name of many others) that Elul is an acronym standing for “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li.” This is not just a nice idea but reflects the fact that ultimately, we must take the first step—“ani l’dodi”—and only then “v’dodi li,” Hashem will assist us.

Just how far must we go before Hashem assists us?

Rav Yerucham Olshin cites an amazing idea explained by Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer (Yerach L’moadim 1, p. 235). The Torah teaches that Bisyah, Pharaoh’s daughter, saw Moshe in a basket in the river, “vatishlach es amasah, and she sent her handmaid (to get it)”(Shemos 2:5). Rashi says that amasah refers to her arm, which miraculously stretched far enough that she was able to take hold of the basket.

Rav Isser Zalman wonders why Bisyah reached out in the first place if the basket was beyond her reach. He says this teaches us that a person must make every effort to do the right thing, no matter how impossible it seems, and Hashem will take care of the rest.

Just a few Shabbosos ago, thousands of frum families in Florida were displaced when Hurricane Irma barreled in. They took responsibility for their lives by fleeing. And then the Jewish people came through. In the city of Atlanta alone, more than a thousand families were hosted for that Shabbos.

Hashem will always help us figure it out. The “dodi li”will always come—if we first do our part.

We live in a challenging era. It is harder than ever to grow in our avodas Hashem. How can we promise that we will change when we know the power of nisayon? As Bisyah did, we are asked to do something—at the very least, to take the first step.

It is said that Rav Shneur Kotler once accepted a halfhearted apology from someone who had behaved brazenly toward him in public. His shocked students asked, “But Rebbe, look what he did!” Rav Shneur explained that when someone takes the first step and apologizes, even if he is not fully sincere, it should be enough for us to complete the rest.

The Gemara teaches that anyone who says, “Ashuv va’echteh, ashuv va’echteh, I will sin and repent, and again sin and repent,” is not allowed to repent. I saw a beautiful chasidishe pshat on this that translates the phrase differently. Sometimes a person thinks, “Every year I say I will do teshuvah, and then after the Yomim Tovim I sin again, so what’s the point?” A person like this will not be granted teshuvah since one who questions his potential can’t grow.

All Hashem asks is that we take the first step in our return and “clean up” a little.

May Hashem respond to our efforts a thousandfold and grant all of our tefillos. Wishing everyone a chasimah vachasimah tovah!