Wall of Deadly Dominoes

The domino wall continues to fall: just hours ago, and additional blast at the Fukushima plant now has radiation freely pouring into the atmosphere. The Japanese government is beginning to admit that they're in serious trouble, and people are now fleeing Tokyo.

Bulletin Update, just received from Reuters, 21:11 AM Israel Time, Wed, 16 Mar 11 - a new fire has broken out in the #4 reactor at the Fukushima plant

There's an apparent contradiction in Scripture: In Genesis, Hashem declares that the world He created is "very good." Yet, King Solomon in Ecclesiastes call the world "vanity of vanities." Doesn't that sound like insolence on King Solomon's part, Heaven forbid?

The answer of course is no. There is neither insolence on King Solomon's behalf nor a contradiction between Genesis and Ecclesiastes. Hashem in Genesis talks about the world as He created it. King Solomon in Ecclesiastes is talking about what man does to Hashem's world.

The 8.9-level earthquake and devastating tsunami have passed, but the radioactive-pollution catastrophe grows from minute to minute. Tens of thousands of Japanese are either missing, or homeless, or lack power and water with winter in Japan not yet over. But, no one knows how terribly the people and the land of Japan are being radioactively affected for posterity. A Japanese-grown strawberry is liable to be lethally carcinogenic if it's not completely mutated beyond recognition first.

Earlier today, I asked the Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a about his take on Japan. The Rebbe pondered my question for several minutes in silence. He then told me that any of our great sages, from Moses to the Rambam to the Vilna Gaon and Rebbe Yonatan Eibshitz to the Chazon Ish, could have designed nuclear power plants if they had wanted to. But they didn't, for in their far-reaching holy vision, they didn't want to do anything that would be detrimental to Hashem's magnificent creation which we all know as Planet Earth. In that respect, our sages were always in favor of anything that was conducive to protecting the earth and opposed the opposite.

The Melitzer Rebbe knows what he's talking about. A little later in the day, European governments began having second thoughts about nuclear power. A few hours ago, Germany shut down 7 reactors while they rethink policy. Nuclear expert Joseph Cirincione said that a nuclear meltdown could happen in America too.

Anything people do that is detrimental to Hashem's perfect creation ultimately becomes deadly domino wall - one domino falls and knocks the others down in rapid succession. The meltdown of the Japanese reactors are creating a growing economic catastrophe as well as an environmental one. Much of Japan's industry is down. Japan will undoubtedly be forced to sell hundreds of billions of US bonds to pay for recovery and rebuilding, making the US debt much costlier than it already is. Meanwhile, Tokyo's stock market is on a slide, world markets are in a panic and Wall Street is nose-diving.

Who knows where the radioactive cloud - now moving east from the Japanese coast to the Pacific Ocean - will end up and what damage it will do.

So what's the lesson from all this?

Let's get back to basics fast and put our efforts into the things that Moses, the Rambam, the Vilna Gaon, Rebbe Yonatan Eibshitz and the Chazon Ish put there efforts into - Torah, emuna and teshuva. With Torah, emuna and teshuva, we build the world rather than destroying it, Heaven forbid. If the nations of the world knew the value of Torah, emuna and teshuva, they'd be forcing every single Jew to learn and pray day and night. If we don't want the universe to be a crashing wall of deadly dominoes, we must cling to the Tree of Life - Torah and emuna, returning to Hashem while there's still time. There's no other way.

Some folks like being ostriches, ignoring Hashem's messages and putting their heads in the ground. They can't do that anymore because either the ground is trembling from an earthquake or it has a higher-than-safe level of radioactivity. The Geula is coming, fast.