Rita and Katrina - these innocent girls' names now resonate with horror and anguish when we hear them. In fact, some have suggested that girls' names no longer be used to title hurricanes. The images of suffering and death from the Gulf Coast are overwhelming. Perhaps we have a relative, an acquaintance, or an associate who survived the nightmare of these storms. I was deeply touched when Stacey Bunes' friend from New Orleans came to Shaarey Tefilla to pick up some of the clothes and other items that we had collected for her. A bright pink top meant so much to her. She was overjoyed to find one of the super-size stuffed animals that was part of Ilene's collection that I was more than happy to donate. It was a hippopotamus shaped into a little seat for a toddler to sit on. "My grandson will really enjoy this," she said. When you have nothing, even an old pink blouse and a dusty stuffed animal make a world of difference to you. Sometimes, it is the little, tiny things that restore our sense of humanity.

Whenever we think of disaster and tragedy, we acknowledge that they are beyond our comprehension. We realize that we are very small in the vast scope of the universe and that our power is extremely limited. We think of those chilling words of the Unetaneh Tokef:

How many shall leave this world, and how many shall be born; who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of years and who before; who shall perish by fire and who by water, who shall rest and who shall wander, and who shall be serene and who disturbed, who shall be humbled and who exalted.

We realize that we have little control - if any - over the major occurrences in our lives. We are powerless in the face of forces that are infinitely greater than ourselves. We seek to penetrate the mystery of life. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" we wonder. The question has been asked in the wake of the destruction of Rita and Katrina. It has been asked in light of the tsunami that killed almost 200,000 people. It has been proposed as a challenge to the Holocaust.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, the best-selling author, asked that question when his teenage son lay dying of the horrible genetic illness, progeria, pre-mature aging. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" His son had the physical body of a ninety year old though he was only nineteen years old. Of course, Rabbi Kushner had heard all the answers that have been offered to the dilemma of human suffering throughout the ages.

Some said - G-d is testing you like Abraham's faith was tested in the narrative of the Binding of Isaac. "Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering." This is the Torah reading that we shall read tomorrow on the Second Day of Rosh Hashanah. Some claim that agony and suffering come as a test - to purify and refine us. Rabbi Kushner responded that he would prefer not to take such a difficult test - and besides, what type of G-d gives tests that so many people will fail. Not everyone comes through the test like Abraham and Isaac. Some of us become bitter, despondent, angry, and hostile.

Some others answered Rabbi Kushner by saying that everything is part of a divine plan. Everything happens for a reason, even the most horrific of tragedies. Many of us have heard this line before - "G-d has His reasons". I was irritated when one of my Butler University students wrote a reflection for my class that her 25-year-old brother-in-law was killed in a car crash. The student's sister was left as a young widow with two small children. However, she concluded, "G-d has His reasons." All I could write back was, "How tragic! How is your poor sister coping?" Elie Wiesel wisely reminds us that we should not say anything regarding the Holocaust that cannot be uttered in the face of the one and a half million Jewish children who perished in its flames. Some answers do not seem to offer any comfort.

Finally, there is the traditional answer that suffering is the punishment for our sins. We express this thought in our liturgy as the explanation for Israel's exile among the nations. "Mipnei hata-einu galinu mei-artzenu". We were exiled from our land because of our sins. However, our sages had a fairly logical reason for understanding why the Second Temple was destroyed and why the Second Commonwealth came to its conclusion. Jewish infighting and disunity presented a weak political front before the political might of the Romans. However, some explanations are less insightful and more hurtful. Believe it or not, some religious thinkers said that Hurricane Katrina was shaped like a fetus and arrived as a punishment the abortions of this country. Sadly, we have heard this type of thinking before in history. AIDS is a punishment for the sin of homosexuality - even though one of the most tragic deaths from AIDS was that of our own Ryan White from Indiana who was a hemophiliac. Some pious rabbis in Israel have asserted that the Holocaust was a punishment from G-d due to the lack of religious piety among many European Jews. Ironically, the most irreligious Jews were the ones who left for America while it was the Hassidic dynasties that were decimated during the Holocaust. One wonders where the G-d of comfort and consolation is to be found in this portrait of revenge.

However, the author of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer offers us some profound insight into coping with suffering and agony. He shares with us that, "Teshuvah utefillah utsedaka maavirin et roa hagezerah." Repentance, prayer, and charity make the evil of the decree pass. The pillars of spiritual life lesson the agony of sorrow.

Scholars note that the original text of this last line came from the Jerusalem Talmud. The original line stated, "Repentance, prayer, and charity annul the evil decree." The Talmud utilized the Hebrew word - bitul - meaning - to nullify. However, the author of our prayer realized that many times repentance, prayer, and charity do not change the outcome of events. Many people prayed in the Gulf Coast that the hurricanes would not hit their towns. Yet Katrina came and devastated New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi and Rita engulfed Beaumont and Port Author. We pray for the healing of our sick every Shabbat with the "Misheberach" prayers during the Torah service. However, many of our loved ones, sadly and tragically, are not healed.

In his wisdom, the author of Unetaneh Tokef realized that repentance, prayer, and charity often do not annul the evil decree. However, in the words of our prayer, which we recite, they can make the evil of the decree pass. Repentance, prayer, and charity can allow us to cope and to overcome the horror of our anguish. The pillars of Jewish religious life can let us transcend the suffering of the moment.

Rabbi Marc Saperstein wisely comments on the words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer: Death, sickness, impoverishment, tragic as they may be, are not identical with evil. They do bear a potential for truly evil consequences. They can poison, embitter, fill us with self-pity, destroy a marriage, blind us to the needs of others, turn us away from G-d. But the evil consequences of even the most fearsome decree are not inevitable. If penitence, prayer and charity, cannot change the external reality, if they cannot arrest the malignant cancer, they can indeed ensure that the evil potential in that reality will not become actual and enduring, but will pass. They can enable us to transcend the evil of the decree. This, I believe, is the simple meaning of the Hebrew words. And this is a meaning, which I can, in conscience, share with the eleven year old girl whose mother died of cancer."

Through the power of teshuvah, through the uplift of prayer, and through the mitzvah of tzedakah, we can overcome the evil that lies within the tragedies of life. This is the religious truth that we have uttered in the Unetaneh Tokef. We cannot alter the terrible events that occur in our lives - the hurricanes of life sometimes cannot be prevented. The forces of nature blow with incredible power and strength. They wreak devastation and destruction.

However, we can definitely shape and mold our response to them. We can remove the bitterness of the decree. Our rabbis wisely stated, "Hakol bidei shamayim, chutz miyirat shamayim. Everything is in the hands of heaven, except for the fear of heaven." Terrible events are beyond our control - however, we can determine our response to them. We can become angry, we can become vengeful, and we can become callous. Or, we can become more loving, more caring, and more nurturing. This is the lesson of the Unetaneh Tokef. The great Jewish virtues of teshuva, Tefilla, and tsedaka - of repentance, prayer, and charity - can truly transform our lives.

Bahya Ibn Pakuda, the great Jewish moralist, shares a parable of teshuva - that all of us can change our approach to life, even at the very last moment. A traveler making his way through a difficult and perilous countryside came to the bank of a river too deep to be crossed. He could not return nor remain where he was. How, then, was he to get to the other side? Then he thought of the purse, which dangled from his waist, containing all the gold pieces of his wealth. In his extreme anguish, he began to toss the coins one by one into the river, foolishly hoping to create a path over the riverbed. Of course, the bag emptied. Everything seemed hopeless. Finally, he noticed there was one gold piece left. The traveler spied a ferryboat far down the river. In his frenzy, he failed to notice it earlier. He called out to the boat, gave the one gold piece to the ferryman and crossed to the other side. He saved his life and went on his way.

Teshuva - transformation of the self - is usually the last recourse - when confronting an insurmountable obstacle. However, like the traveler's story, it is the gold coin that allows us to survive. By transforming our perspective, we can triumph over adversity. By searching for that gold coin that lies at the bottom of our purse, we can find that strength of character that allows us to continue our journey.

One of the most moving speakers I have ever heard was the speaker at our last communal Yom HaShoah program, Rabbi Helga Newmark. Rabbi Newmark grew up as a Dutch Jew in Amsterdam. Anne Frank was one of her childhood friends. However, she thought Anne was too bossy. As young girl in Nazi Germany, Ms Newmark was raped by a Nazi guard and spent time in three labor camps. She survived the war and immigrated to New York. However, she left Judaism and religious faith behind her. However, as a mother of three children, she wondered what she would teach her own children about religion. Finally, she began to explore the richness of Judaism and found comfort in the prayers of a congregation. She began to believe that G-d is always present with us although she could not give an answer to the meaning of her suffering. Helga Newmark began to teach Sunday school in her synagogue. Then she became the religious school principal. She must have been truly transformed to still love Judaism after teaching Sunday school. Finally, Ms Newmark applied to the Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform rabbinical school in New York. She was rejected. She finally was accepted to rabbinical school at the age of 58 and ordained at 63. She once said, "For a long time, I lived in a narrow room and I didn't know how to get out. A number of people also live in rooms and prisons. And I think I can encourage them to look out a window."

That is what the process of teshuva is all about. Many of us live in narrow rooms that trap us and suffocate us. Perhaps Rabbi Newmark still does not know the answer to the horrors that she endured during the Holocaust. However, she does know how to live a full life and how to feel for others. "Many times people say to me, 'This is nothing compared to what you went through." Everyone's suffering is very personal, and there are many similarities." To learn the gift of empathy, to reach out to another person, is to permit the evil decree to pass. Rabbi Newmark has transcended the evil of the Holocaust through her life of Jewish commitment and service.

Tefilla, prayer, is the second path to mitigate the power of evil in our lives. Prayer gives us that inner strength to accept the challenges of life and to move forward with renewed vigor. An anonymous writer once stated, "Prayer is not so much a petition to God, it is a sermon to ourselves. He who rises from prayer a better person, his prayers are answered."

Let us try to master the art of prayer - and it is truly an art. The Tanzer Rebbe was once asked by his students how he prepares for prayer. He answered, "I pray that I might be able to pray." Perhaps the saddest thing about contemporary Jewish life is that so few Jews have a commitment to the art of prayer. The challenge to teach Jews the art of prayer is not a new one. The Hassidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev faced the same problem. However, the Hassidic rabbi always found the silver lining in the cloud. Once in a synagogue, the rabbi's students were chatting during service - so, what else is new - and the rabbi called out to God, "O Heavenly Father. What wonderful children you have! Even when they are busy talking, they interrupt their talk and take time out to pray to you."

However, when we learn to listen to the silence of the world, we will begin to master the art of prayer. When we learn to shut out all the commotion that is going on about us, then we will begin to focus. When we learn to concentrate on what is of ultimate purpose, then we will become baalei Tefilla, masters of prayer. Prayer can get us in touch with our loved ones, our community, our G-d and ourselves. The beautiful name of our congregation, "Shaarey Tefilla", teaches us that the Gates of Prayer are always open. Let us learn to walk into these gates of reflection and renewal. Prayer can lessen the pain and the anguish of the breaking heart. It can give hope and comfort in the hour of despair. It can mitigate the evil of the decree.

Finally, the author of Unetaneh Tokef teaches us about the power of tsedaka, the power of truly giving of ourselves. When we truly extend ourselves to others, then we gain an eternal gift in return. The gift of sharing is priceless because the reward of touching another soul is of inestimable worth. The great teacher Hillel shared this in a simple lesson. Hillel once said to a group of his students, "If a man has one thousand dinars and gives three hundred ot the poor, how much does he then have?" "Seven hundred," the students replied. "Not so," declared the wise Hillel. "He truly possesses only the three hundred dinars he gave to zedakah. He may lose the other seven hundred by accident, or in a business venture, or, with luck; he may leave it to his children. Therefore, know that all a person truly possesses for eternity is the money that persons gives away.

When we give of ourselves totally and genuinely, the return is infinite. Our sages said it simply, "The reward of the mitzvah is the mitzvah itself." I recently heard of a nurse who went to volunteer in New Orleans immediately after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. When she returned back to Indianapolis, people asked her if she was overwhelmed by the hideous conditions, the horrible sanitation, the sickness, and the dying. "No," she replied. "I feel as though I am doing something truly meaningful. I will be returning back to Louisiana as soon as I can." The reward of the mitzvah is in the doing. The nurse felt that she was doing her small part to mitigate the evil of the destruction of the hurricane. She was lighting a candle in the dark whose rays would give hope and comfort to the suffering and afflicted.

I am sure that all of you are aware that this is a very exciting time for Shaarey Tefilla. Shaarey Tefilla has purchased ten acres of land for our new home in Carmel at 116th Street and Town Line Road. We are about to embark upon the realization of a vision - a dream that was born thirteen years ago in 1992. Our founding fathers and mothers had always wanted to build a congregation in Carmel, Indiana - a synagogue for the future of the young Jewish families of Indianapolis. Now, all of us have the opportunity to fulfill that vision.

As we begin this new year of 5766, I ask all of us to begin to think about what we can do personally to realize that vision. Let us think about the incredible opportunity that we have to build a new synagogue - a synagogue for our children and grandchildren, a synagogue that will be warm, embracing, and nurturing, a synagogue that will reflect the love of Jewish tradition that we share. I hope that we can begin to think of our personal gift that will truly be a mitzvah of the heart. Let us think of all of our infants, toddlers, and elementary students that will need classes for learning. We now have a strong religious education program but we need a structure to reflect our educational goals. We have a dynamic Board of Directors and several committees, an incredible Sisterhood, and a strong adult education program, but we need rooms for meetings. We have a synagogue that functions seven days each week, but we need an administrator's office to manage all our activity. Probably, in the near future, we will have several young women who will be asking about Shaarey Tefilla for their wedding ceremony. Finally, we will want an uplifting, inspiring space for our services - a place that has the warmth and the intimacy of our current sanctuary. Please begin to contemplate the wonderful opportunity - the very special mitzvah - of building a new home for Shaarey Tefilla. The early Zionists sang, "We have come to the land to build it and be rebuilt by it." By helping us build a new home, you will be erecting a renewed religious life for yourselves and your families. Begin to dream how you can personally help Shaarey Tefilla. However, you will find that you are actually enriching yourself. The reward of the mitzvah lies in the doing.

Today, we sadly remember the destruction and devastation of Rita and Katrina. We think of the families that have suffered incredible losses that are irreplaceable. We know sadly that we lead a very precarious and challenging existence. It is beyond our comprehension. Sometimes, the severity of the decree is overwhelming. However, our mahzor teaches us that we can transcend its harshness and bitterness. Let us dedicate this new year of 5766 to teshuva, to inner renewal, to Tefilla, to prayer, and to tsedaka, giving of ourselves. In this fashion, we shall truly merit a year of beracha, of blessing.