Rabbi Nechemia Wilhelm

Chabad of Thailand was among the very first foreign aid organizations to offer help, solace, and comfort to tsunami survivors, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. This is the original report of Rabbi Nechemia Wilhelm, filed a few days after the disaster from Phuket, the nerve center of emergency operations in Thailand

Ten minutes after the disaster hit the news, my phone started ringing. It's been ringing ever since, 24 hours a day. Husbands looking for wives. Mothers looking for daughters. Friends looking for friends.

As one of the Chabad emissaries living in Southeast Asia, I was dispatched that very night to the hardest hit areas. My mission: to aid with the search and rescue efforts, particularly as regards the thousands of missing Israelis and other Jewish travelers. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Yakov Dvir, the Israeli consul in Bangkok, asked Rabbi Yosef Chaim Kantor, the director of Chabad activities in Thailand, that Chabad step in and help.

All of us -- the six Chabad rabbis and our families as well as the twelve rabbinical students living in Thailand -- immediately moved into 24-hour mode, fielding calls, compiling lists, and offering aid and comfort to survivors.

When I arrived in Phuket, bloated bodies were still lining the streets. I had hundreds of names on my lists with new ones being added every hour. For three days now I have been making my rounds of the morgues, hospitals and makeshift shelters, trying to match faces and fates to the names on my lists.

For the dazed survivors I arrange food, clothing, medical care, and transportation back home. For the dead, I have the unfortunate task of helping the ZAKA (Disaster Victims Identification) volunteers who have flown in from Israel make the identification, arrange for a proper Jewish burial, and get the news to loved ones keeping vigil by the phone.

In a place where unfortunately so many will be thrown together in mass graves, there is some sense of relief and closure knowing that the victim has been found and will receive a Jewish burial. From the moment a Jewish body is identified, it is not left alone for a minute. This is the last act of respect and love that we can give to our brothers and sisters.

Yesterday we found Mattan. We had been searching for him for two days. The 11-month-old boy was torn from his mother's arms as they played on the beach. Both she and her husband survived the tsunami, but Mattan was nowhere to be seen. On Tuesday morning, Steve and Sylvia Nesima found their son. He was in the makeshift morgue along with the hundreds of other children who had no chance against the monstrous waves. Mattan was flown to Bangkok, where the Chabad emissaries took turns sitting with him around the clock until they put his small body on the El-Al plane to Israel, the Holy Land, the only appropriate place where such purity and innocence can be buried.

United in suffering and charity

Our three Chabad houses in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Ko Samui have been transformed into crisis centers for counseling, clothing, communication, food, money, transportation, and shelter. We have opened our phone lines for free calls to assuage the fear of parents who will not rest until they hear their son's or daughter's voice on the other end. Our free email service has enabled hundreds to contact worried loved ones and assure them of their safety.

The survivors come to us shaken, hungry, and overwhelmed. They need to go home and be with their family. Until that is possible, it will remain our responsibility to provide them with that love, comfort, and safety while they are still here. For some that means a warm meal. Others need money and arrangements for necessary travel documents. Some want a hug or shoulder to cry on. Others yet require a place to sleep.

The Thai government has been very helpful and well-organized. Now that people have been able to travel here to help, we have been joined by dozens of volunteers who have flown in from Israel. We're all working together all around the clock. No one has yet digested the magnitude of what has happened. Right now, there's too much to do to even pause for a moment to contemplate it.

The camaraderie among all the workers is incredible. I was moved to tears when I saw the Israeli media and news reporters join us to help locate and identify the injured and the dead. They were no longer looking at the situation through the lenses of cameras, but rather through their own tear-filled eyes as they worked alongside the rabbis, government officials, and volunteers.

This disaster has united every race, creed, and religion. There are no divisions in suffering. There are no barriers. Rich, poor, young, old, male, female -- they were all helpless before the surging waves. And now we are all united once again in offering aid, support, and love.

Saved by the Shema

What keeps us going is the miracles sprinkled throughout the horror. Today a 20-day-old baby was found alive, floating upon a mattress in the sea. A one-year-old who had been torn from his mother's arms was miraculously recovered by his nanny seconds before he was submerged in water. A Jewish family of six were scheduled to fly to Koh Phi Phi, the hardest hit of the islands; we feared the worst for them until we learned that they had missed their flight and were sitting on the runway bemoaning their ruined vacation when news of the tsunami broke.

Today, when I visited the hospital, an Israeli woman called me over and started crying when she told me her story. She had been traveling by boat with another 41 Israelis. They had just docked at Koh Phi Phi when the waves began to hit. The group ran as fast as they could; yet they could not outrun the rushing water. They were immediately swept in its path along with debris, trees, and cars.

The woman was sure she was about to die and in a last desperate act of defiance to her impending fate she found herself screaming to the others to join her in reciting the "Shema" out loud. With the last ounce of strength in her body, she cried out the words of the most elementary prayer of the Jewish people, our acknowledgement of our Creator and His Oneness. "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our G-d. The Lord is One...."

As she finished the verse, she suddenly felt a log come up from under her feet, keeping her head above water. She managed to breathe again. Then, as she floated along, she looked up at the heavens and saw a rope come down from on high.

The rope had been thrown from her boat, where other survivors had gathered. They pulled her aboard and managed to save 40 of the group.

Life must go on

It is these miracles that give me hope and remind me of my mission. There are no words to describe the horror that has happened, and certainly no understandable explanations or reasons for it. But we must believe that even though we can't make sense of it, this -- like everything we experience -- has happened for a purpose and that the tsunami tragedy has been part of a larger picture that we just can't yet see.

We must also use this opportunity to focus on our ability to overcome, to help others, and to rebuild. Survivors of this disaster not only will have to carry on with their lives but must also live for those who perished.

We must remember that just as instantaneously as utter destruction struck, so too in a split second we can be redeemed, we can start anew, we can have complete peace, love, and goodness in the world.

I've seen more pain and suffering in the last few days than I've seen in all my 32 years. But I have also been privileged to witness compassion and faith of a magnitude that I had never imagined existed. I have watched as people from different cultures, faiths, countries, and mentalities joined together to help others. The G-dly soul, hidden deep within us all, often shines forth precisely when externally there is nothing to depend on. When physicality is destroyed, the only thing left is spirituality, and that is now what is apparent throughout this annihilated area.

So for now, I will continue to help rescue and identify the victims, working side by side with representatives from throughout the world here to do the same. We still are hoping to find more survivors, to provide the injured with all their needs, and make possible for those who were not so fortunate to be brought to their families for a proper burial.

Rabbi Wilhelm oversees Chabad of Thailand's operations on Bangkok's Khao San Road, a world-renowned backpacker district. The article above was widely circulated on the Internet by Jewish organizations in the tsunami's aftermath.

Pullout quote 1:

" Yesterday we found Mattan. We had been searching for him for two days. The 11-month-old boy was torn from his mother's arms as they played on the beach... He was in the makeshift morgue along with the hundreds of other children who had no chance against the monstrous waves. "

Pullout quote 2: "An Israeli woman was sure she was about to perish in the waves when in a last desperate act of defiance she found herself screaming to the others to join her in reciting the 'Shema' out loud. As she finished the verse, she suddenly felt a log come up from under her feet, keeping her head above water. "

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