Smoke
Lots of it.
So much, that major cities are looking up at white skies. In some cities the air quality is hazardous.
Quebec is a major source for this smoke, as wildfires burn.
Other Canadian provinces also have wildfires, but the Quebec fires seem to be causing the most smoke that is drifting over north-eastern cities in Canada and the U.S.
According to reports, Ottawa was the first major city to receive the smoke screen. Then New York City, then other cities.
Experts say that numerous factors are causing so many intense fires so early in the fire season.
Nothing happens by chance. Everything happens by Divine Providence.
We don’t know why G-d does things.
Nevertheless, we need to ponder such events. What we can do to control and stop the fires. And what we can do in the future to prevent reoccurrences.
And this includes not just analyzing the physical and natural causes, but also possible spiritual insights and causes.
In much of the past decade, Quebec and Ottawa have been at the forefront of legalizing euthanasia.
And I wonder if I did all I could to prevent it.
The person who is now Minister of Emergency Preparedness for Canada, who is overseeing the government’s efforts in the current crisis, sat down with my colleagues and me four years ago, to discuss euthanasia.
We conveyed to him how legalizing euthanasua has poisoned the atmosphere in hospitals, with numerous doctors reportedly encouraging patients and their families to just end it all.
We told him that the way to help those who are suffering, is to provide compassionate care for them. Not to kill them.
Because euthanasia contravenes “Do not murder,” which is one of the seven Noahide laws that G-d told Moses, at Mount Sinai, to tell all nations to obey.
Because when you light a fire that goes out of control, the resulting smoke endangers all of society.
I told him that the Lubavitcher Rebbe once explained what we learn from the Nazis. How could such a sophisticated country, leaders in philosophy and ethics, murder innocents? Their mistake was, that instead of obeying G-d, they relied on their intellect. Their intellect told them, that although one should not murder human beings, certain people are not considered human. Had they been subservient to G-d, then “Do not murder” meant exactly that.
And the same with euthanasia. G-d said, “Do not murder.”
The government has recently put in place plans to legalize euthanasia (they call it MAID – Medical Assistance in Dying) even for the mentally ill. And they are talking about allowing it for minors.
After this blog is posted, I plan to send it to this minister. I also plan to bring it to the attention of the leader of the opposition, who declared that, instead of helping people who are depressed, the government is ending their lives.
It’s time for government leaders to look at the big picture.