A Yom Kippur Challenge

Today -- as violence continues to plague Israel, Macedonia, and many other nations throughout the world, and as illness and starvation take their toll on poor communities all over the globe -- we must fight the tendency to look away from the resulting devastation and become numb in the face of human suffering.

If we need an "excuse" to dwell on such thoughts, then the introspection demanded of us during the High Holidays provides just such cover. Indeed, if we choose to gloss over these issues rather than to struggle with ourselves and our responsibility as moral human beings, we will effectively be wasting the time God set aside for us to confront our very nature.

While there are calamities we cannot control, such as floods and earthquakes; and disasters we can address only partially, such as the raging forest fires in the American West; there remain areas of suffering we can work to alleviate yet often ignore. Let us make no mistake. Whether we choose to help or to stand by and do nothing, we are, in either case, making a decision.

• By not working to ensure that adequate food supplies are targeted to areas of famine, we are ensuring that many lives will be lost or irretrievably damaged.
• By not working to ensure that basic medical care is available to those children whose families cannot afford it, we are ensuring that these children will be denied the chance to live a normal life.
• By not supporting agencies working to find cures for dreadful diseases, we are ensuring that many more people will die from the ravages of these illnesses.

If Yom Kippur is meant to elevate our thoughts and cleanse our spirits, we can only do a full accounting if we take stock not only of what we havedone but also of what we have failed to do.

May we all be blessed this year with another opportunity to help repair the world.