“Fires in Los Angeles,” Rabbi Elaine Zecher’s Shabbat Awakenings

January 10, 2025 | 10 Tevet 5785

Welcome to Shabbat Awakenings, a reflection as we move toward Shabbat. You can listen to it as a podcast here.

As we move toward Shabbat, we hold all those who have been affected by the fires with all their devastation. Here is a link for the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles to send donations and contributions to help and to heal. May there be healing soon.

Many of us have family in the Los Angeles area and I hope they have found safety. Synagogues have burned down. Congregants throughout have lost their homes, including the homes of many of their rabbis. The fires rage on. My LA friends and colleagues have reported their personal losses even as they bring comfort and solace to their communities. There will be more information coming on the kind of help, physical, financial, psychological, spiritual that will be needed and desired. As we learn more, we will share with you.

It is all hard to watch the city burn right before our eyes even from this distance. Let us hold them close. For this Shabbat Awakenings, I offer this poem by Rabbi Naomi Levy.

Finally, We Pray for the Victims of the Los Angeles Fires
By Rabbi Naomi Levy

God, our Rock and our Comfort
Hear our prayer.
Our hearts break for all those
Who have lost their homes in this deadly blaze.
The victims are in shock.
Life as they knew it,
All their treasured possessions,
Beloved heirlooms,
Touchstones for so many cherished memories
Were swept away in an instant.
Their sense of place and home
Their safety and stability have been shaken.

Help us, God, to anchor them,
To shelter, support and steady them with love.
As the numbness wears off,
The enormity of the loss sets in
And the work before them begins.

Be with them, God,
Be their strength and their comfort,
Shield them from despair,
Let them know You are near.
Fill them with the courage they will need to begin again.

Bless the firefighters and first responders, God,
And watch over them
As they put their own lives at risk
To protect our beloved city.

Work through us, God,
Transform our helplessness into action,
Inspire us with the determination
And the perseverance we will need
To bring devastated neighborhoods back to life.
Fill us all with the vision of the new days that lie ahead,
A dream of our city restored.

Let Jeremiah’s prophecy of hope enter every heart and soul:
“The city shall be rebuilt upon its ruins!”

So may it be,
And let us say, Amen.

Shabbat Shalom! שבת שלום

I welcome your thoughts and reactions here

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Rabbi Elaine Zecher