Torat HaLev - Leftorah

3 Elul. We send out all our blessings, support and sympathy to our brothers and sisters whose lives and homes were shattered by Hurricane Katrina. A reminder, and we evidently need many, of one of the motivations for the self-assessment we will soon be undertaking in our annual process of teshuva. The facts increasingly indicate that Hurricane Katrina's destruction was not entirely of a natural order. An op-ed piece by Robert Scheer in the L.A. Times, "The Real Costs of a Culture of Greed," powerfully condemns the con job perpetrated by pro-"free market" ideologues, the anti-government assult conducted by Republicans (and Democrats) since the Reagan Revolution and which led to the country's abysmal governmental and administrative unpreparedness for this predicted and known disaster.