Imagine standing where your home once stood and looking around at your neighborhood and seeing nothing but pile after pile of rubble, bricks, insulation and remnants of the personal items that made up your life. Now, imagine that it is not only your neighborhood but also the neighborhoods to the left and the right, and in front and in back. This is the scene in Moore, Okla.
As Jews, especially, we are taught that all people are our brothers and sisters. It is with this spirit in mind that Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel of KU Chabad reached out to our community asking who would join him in traveling to Moore to help those in need. I am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity that he gave me, my husband Jonathan, my sister Molly and nine others.
On the early-morning ride to Moore we were giggling and laughing as we would on any other road trip. The second we turned into the affected areas, the van went silent. We took in everything around us and the dramatic impact of it all.
The Oklahoma City Chabad facilitated our volunteering. When they took us to the neighborhood we would be assisting, they told us that these people have lost everything and we are here to do whatever they may need us to do. Jonathan, Molly and I went off in one direction by ourselves and set off to see whom we could help. As we walked down 13th Street, looking at lot after lot of former homes, we saw an elderly woman standing with another man. We approached her and told her that we were there to help her if needed and how sorry we were for her losses.
Diana shared with us her experience during the tornado. She was already being cared for by hospice prior to the tornado and her brother was with her on that day. Just like many homes in Oklahoma, her home did not have a basement. So Diana and her brother laid in the bathtub, using blankets and pillows as protection. After the tornado passed, the only walls left of the house standing were the ones around the bathroom. Diana passed out from the trauma of the tornado, but she saw the tornado pass over her home and saw a man caught up inside it screaming. There is just no way he could have survived, she told us.
Diana’s family had already been clearing away at the rubble that had been her house for the past 10 days, but they asked that we help because they were still desperately looking for a bag with her medications and the family Bible. We searched for hours. At one point, Jonathan located the stand that the family Bible had been sitting on. Her brother said that is the closest they will likely get to see of the family Bible that had been around for generations. He said he thinks the Bible went up to heaven.
That day there were so many volunteers, with groups of every faith and race, who came from across the county and across the world to assist the residents. There was even a group of Israeli volunteers who had been there since very soon after the tornado.
Seeing this level of devastation shows how quickly our lives can change. As we gathered our group together to leave, we all felt somewhat distraught at how little we had done compared to how much there is still yet to be done. But every brick moved is one brick closer to the people of Moore being able to start their lives again. We saw evidence of this even in a tree that although it had been shred away, the life within it was starting to bloom again on its branches, just one week later.
I felt such pride in our Jewish people and particularly the Chabad community of both Oklahoma City and KU for taking the initiative to assist Moore. The Oklahoma City Chabad has been down in Moore every day since the tornado hit talking to people, giving out teddy bears to children, gift cards to families, moving debris and whatever else was needed of them. It didn’t matter who these people were, Jewish or not, we were all children of G-d in that moment and we all depend on each other. We all wish that devastations like this will not happen again, but this is not G-d’s plan. We cannot question why these things happen but we can instead give of ourselves to make the burden even the slightest bit easier for those who must endure it.
Rebecca Katz, an attorney with Cohen, McNeile and Pappas, P.C., is a member of Congregation Beth Torah and Kehilath Israel Synagogue. She and her husband Jonathan are the parents of a young son, Sam.
