And she went to inquire from Hashem (Bereshis 25:22)

Rivka had a problem. She was pregnant, but the child inside of her was confusing her. Whenever she passed by a shul, the child kicked to come out. But also whenever she passed a place of idol worship, the child kicked to come out. For one child to behave this way concerned Rivka, so she did the only logical thing: she went to the Navi (prophet). The Navi received prophecy from Hashem and told Rivka that she had two children inside of her. Rivka was no longer concerned as now she understood why she felt kicking at two different times.

As we know, a few weeks ago, one of the worst natural disasters to hit American soil occurred. The Northeast, especially New Jersey and New York were hammered by Hurricane Sandy. Many people have asked why did this occur? Many years ago, the Jews could go to the Navi (like Rivka did) and the Navi would explain why something like this occurred. We can no longer do that. Many people have tried to explain a reason for the Hurricane. They have mentioned it is because of certain laws that were passed. Others say it was because of some other reason. I have heard in name of two of our Gedolim (great Rabbis) that we no longer
have prophets and that anyone who mentions a specific reason for a tragedy is mistaken. It is true that these may be reasons, but
nowadays, no one can be certain why something happened. Therefore, I am not going to attempt to explain why the Hurricane and then the nor’ester (and also the earthquake in Passaic) occurred. But I would like to focus on what happened after the Hurricane.

The storm came early in the week and knocked out power in most of New Jersey and a good portion of New York. Many did not have power back in time for Shabbos. But there was one woman in Queens who received power back on Thursday. She immediately ran to the store and bought 60 chickens. She spent the whole night cooking these chickens. She went onto her Facebook account and announced that anyone without power should come to her house and she would give them a whole chicken for Shabbos for free.

A few coach busses were sent from Silver Spring, MD to New York after the Hurricane. The busses picked up families in New York and brought them to Silver Spring for Shabbos. Since the community had power, they told anyone who needed to get away from the freezing weather without heat and hot food in their homes to get on the bus and join them in Silver Spring.

In New York, a man got power back soon after the storm. So, he decided to take an extension cord and connect it from his house to the street. He then set up a “charging station”. He plugged in numerous outlets to the extension cord and allowed anyone who needed to charge their cell phone to charge them here.

These are only a few of the many, many stories which have been told after this terrible storm. By looking at all of the chesed being done after this storm, we truly see what makes the Jews so great! Actually, I have heard stories that non-Jews are stating, “If it was not for the Jews, we would not be able to survive the aftermath of this storm,” as, of course, the Jews are not only helping other Jews but helping anyone they can.

Avraham Avinu’s greatest trait was doing kindness for others. He passed this down to his children and it has become a mark of a Jewish person. I do not know why this storm came, but no matter why it came, it is showing us a beautiful trait of the Jews.

Good Shabbos!
-yes
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