This is the time of year when Jews worldwide begin to pray for rain. Not for wherever it is that they live, but for Israel.

We do this because it is the beginning of the rainy season in Israel. Israel is our ancestral homeland, and it makes sense for those of us around the world to pray for rain there.

But today it feels odd, since my community here in America is still reeling from back-to-back hurricanes. And there is still more than a month to go until the end of hurricane season.

This morning, I heard an NPR newscaster say reassuringly: “If your heart just kind of skipped a beat when there was a little bit of rain and clouds in the forecast, that’s perfectly normal when you’ve been through a trauma like we have.”

More than a week after the last hurricane, huge piles of debris line the roads. Houses wear blue tarps on the roof, covering gaping holes.

Hotel rooms are still scarce while locals try to determine what’s next for their flooded homes, destroyed possessions, and cars that will never drive again.

One of the strangest parts of surviving the storm is knowing that just streets away from your intact home are the homes of others who have lost everything.

How do we enjoy our own safety and the normal continuation of our lives, knowing that neighbors are suffering?

This week we learned of the death by suicide of Shirel Golan. A survivor of the October 7 attack on the Nova music festival, she was found dead in her apartment on her 22nd birthday, a victim of the PTSD that plagued her after that terrible day.

So many of us carry wounds that are invisible to others. Hurricanes, terrorists, cancer, betrayal. It barely matters what caused our trauma. What matters is that we have been irrevocably changed.

We struggle with our pain. We struggle with others’ pain. We struggle with survivor’s guilt. And we struggle with our inability to make things better.

These are the times that I turn to Amos Oz and his Order of the Teaspoon. He believed that there are three possible responses to seeing a giant conflagration:

1. Running as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

2. Writing an angry letter to the editor.

3. Grabbing a bucket of water to help put out the fire.

He wrote, “Bring a bucket of water and throw it on the fire, and if you don’t have a bucket, bring a glass, and if you don’t have a glass, use a teaspoon, everyone has a teaspoon. And yes, I know a teaspoon is little and the fire is huge but there are millions of us and each one of us has a teaspoon.”

In honor of Shirel Golan and all who have despaired, today I will bring my teaspoon. It’s not much, but I hope it makes a difference, however small.