There really are no words to describe the tragedy that hit South-east Asia and any that try seem hollow and vain. We must all have felt shock and horror - indeed, even awe. The right choice at this time is to focus our energy into doing everything we can, and beyond, to help the five million shattered lives and displaced persons. How the quiet oceans can turn so cruel, not differentiating between soda cans and children. How beautiful beaches can become grave sites of countless innocents. In their villages, huts, homes and hotels, on the beaches and on the streets, in a Hiroshima-scale disaster, infants, children, teenagers, parents and grandparents were destroyed in the blink of an eye.

Where is the pen that can capture the grief of a Swedish mother who pleads for any information on her four-year-old daughter, who was swept from her father's arms by the giant wave in Thailand? You could repeat this story tens of thousands of times and grieve for 150,000 (and counting) souls snuffed out in a single instant. Who can estimate how much light these souls cast upon our planet with their love, laughter, and, indeed, with their very life? Yet the tsunami did not take any notice. Tranquil waters turned into monsters, extinguishing the glow of generations.

Each of us witnessed a flood of Biblical proportions, perhaps claiming more lives than those lost in the Biblical flood of Noah. Mass media has given five billion of us front row seats to closely observe the greatest natural disaster of modern times. How ought we to respond? What is our calling at such a time?
To extend our hearts, souls and primarily our bank accounts to the five million shattered survivors is the first and foremost of our human responsibilities. Yet, we dare not send a donation and then retreat to our complacency and smugness, continuing to submerge ourselves in our daily pressures, satisfying ourselves with the delusion that what happened to them is not really connected to us.

As Jews whose primary paradigm for interpretation of history is the Torah, allow me to draw your attention to the following Biblical incident. Following the Biblical flood, mankind decides to build a tower reaching up to the heavens, and to make a name for themselves, lest they be scattered over the face of the entire earth. G-d comes down and does just that. So what was their sin? The answer given is that in stating their objective for creating the tower, the people declared...."let us make a name for ourselves." When you have observed a flood in which the entire human race has perished, have you nothing else to think about but securing for yourself a name and a legacy? Something here is profoundly wrong. When the mission fails to be fulfilled LeShem ShaMayim, and falls under ulterior personal motivations, corruption and deceit are likely to flourish.

The idea of giving LeShem ShaMayim finds its fullest resolve in the Parshah of Terumah in the words "Veyikchu Li Terumah", You shall bring for me a gift. Rashi zeroes in on the word "Li"and transforms it into "Lishmi"- thus indicating that LeShem Shemayim is a paradigm to be present at every stage in the process of building the Mishkan. There is a parallel use of this association in Melachim 1, Chapter 5. We find King Solomon informing the non-Jewish King Hiram why his father, King David, was unable to build the Temple. He explains that due to wars he had to fight, and being surrounded by many enemies, David failed to find the "menuchah" (rest, peace) necessary for the building of the Temple. He concludes the subject by saying the need to have built the entire project "Lishmi". The need for this seemingly unnecessary explanation, says the Malbim, was to anticipate the response by Hiram who would have asked" If David was such a righteous king, then why didn't he build the Temple?
Through the Malbim's eyes, there are three themes here:

1. In order to build this huge undertaking, a period of tranquility was needed - and King David was too distracted by too many wars
2. According to the Torah, one is not allowed to build a Temple until the enemy has been vanquished. The Gemara in Sanhedrin teaches that Israel received three mitzvot on entry to Eretz Yisrael - to appoint a king, to wipe out Amalek, and to build a Temple, and that the last-mentioned mitzvah is to be done after the first two, for only when the Jewish people have the sense of "menuchah" can they then go ahead and build.
3. And finally, the truth is that the main aspect of building the Temple is not for its own sake, but a crucial aspect of the building has to be LeShem Shamayim ,without any ulterior purpose involved at all.

King David did not build the Temple because he knew that in so building, all his wars would cease, and was afraid that the motive of Shem Shamayim would be replaced by some ulterior motive - thus it would have had to have been King Solomon to build because his reign was filled with peace. Any building by King David would have been suspect of an ulterior motive behind the project.

It is with this in mind that we have a responsibility to give of ourselves, and not just momentarily and that the motive for such giving must be surely leShem Shomayim, to the exclusion of any ulterior purpose.

May our generosity know no limits.