At last! The “no music” part of the Omer was over! Typical of our warm and united Dallas Jewish community, two local Orthodox shuls – the one I attend now and the one my late husband and I used to attend before my current shul arrived on the scene – jointly put on a Lag B’Omer picnic. It was in a gazebo at an outdoor park, and the weather was just right. The wind was blowing pretty strongly – a delight for kids entering the kite-flying contest as well as for everyone seeking relief from the 90-degree temperatures of the preceding few days.
But the next morning when I woke up at dawn, the wind sounded fierce outside. I could hear frightening noises of destruction, but it was still too dark to see outside, and anyway as soon as I turned my phone on, there were all kinds of warnings to stay away from windows. Tornado sirens were wailing. Alone in my house with no one but Hashem, I tried to stay calm.
Eventually the pounding rain tapered off for a little while, and I ventured outside to see what had happened. Tree branches were everywhere; two large tree limbs had fallen in my front yard, but it didn’t look like anything was damaged. Later on, I went out to my back yard; everything there looked all right too, except for a few shingles missing from my roof.
That was all minor compared to what others in the vicinity had suffered: shattered windows, wrecked fences, chimneys falling off, siding torn away from houses, just to give a few examples. As I write this the day after the storm, many people and even stores are still without electricity. My part of the Jewish neighborhood is in a different quadrant of the eruv than where most of my friends live; my power had flickered off and on a couple of times, but it stayed on, and my generator was ready to kick in if needed.
I employ a Jewish gardener who mows my lawn; he came right over as soon as the rain stopped, and cut up my fallen tree limbs and put them on the curb for collection. Later this afternoon, my roofer, who is also Jewish, should be here with his crew to replace the missing shingles. To a woman, her home is an extension of herself; to a widow, it can be frightening to be alone in such a devastating storm; but in this community, no one is truly alone.
The local Sisterhood chats have been active with conversations between those living on the streets affected by the loss of electric power and those on adjacent streets offering them help, freezer space, guest accommodations, laundry facilities – you name it. I also reached out to see what I could do, but my house is in a different quadrant, separated from their area by a massive construction zone, and meantime their immediate neighbors quickly took care of their needs.
When the storm of the century hits a community like ours, everyone bands together. It’s at a time like this that we see the greatness of our people. Mi k’amcha Yisrael? Who is like Your Jewish people?
