The basic picture of man since he first walked barefoot in a forest clearing from the time he flew to the moon, from ignorance to the glut of information available on the Internet, has not changed. Humans are still cowed and defeated by natural disasters, which go by many names. Those who tend toward religious belief talk about the nothingness of humans in the face of God. The secular version of natural disaster talks about wind and storm and earthquake and volcanic eruptions and avalanches and tides and floods and fire. To those on the scene, these events look like the end of days. Why did Lot's daughters have sex with their drunk father and bring the impure Moabite and Ammonite people into the world? Because they believed that if they did not commit this sin, humanity would come to an end after the punishment God wreaked on Sodom and Gomorrah. What caused the Prophet Amos to prophesize "two years after the quake"? What did the residents of Pompeii think in the year 79 C.E. when they saw their charming city wiped out and burned beneath the waves of boiling lava that spewed out of Vesuvius? Only after much history had passed did people learn that these disasters, caused by great unseen forces, are not the end. An avalanche in the Alps 98 years ago killed a great number of people, but World War I -- a greater bloodbath than any seen before -- continued unabated. People understood that a disaster does not stop the wheel of life. The media has spurred on two processes related to natural disasters. It increased awareness and facilitated the flow of information, and is also fixed the idea that the world would shortly get back on track, for good or ill, until the excitement of the next catastrophe. The same is true of the tragic avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas, in which hundreds of people were caught, including many Israelis. Throughout the second Sukkot holiday, everyone who had a relative or friend or anyone who could be considered one, there was on edge, waiting for any scrap of information about their loved ones' fate. Fearful thoughts ran through their heads: If the avalanche had only happened a week earlier or later, and happened before or after Sukkot, fewer Israelis would probably have been in the area. Who will cry out to the heavens like Job to ask why it had to happen just before Simchat Torah? And who will answer? But that's the reality of modern Western life in the 21st century. Young people want experiences, to be like Christopher Columbus or Vasco da Gama. They run to the end of the earth. It doesn't cost much in Western terms, even in a country where a Milky pudding cup isn't cheap, and there is easy transportation to the foothills. "This tune can't be stopped," the Israeli Air Force anthem says. There is no sense in trying. No young person will stop driving because of an accident, or forgo a post-army trip to a beautiful place, no matter what happens. We will mourn, a lot, these days, and the young people will continue in the spirit of "life goes on."
