‘It’s a very difficult situation,’ says Harlig, who also directs Chabad of Kendall and Pinecrest
SURFSIDE, Fla.—Suit jacket slung over his arm and badge around his neck, Miami-Dade police chaplain Rabbi Yossi Harlig walks briskly down Collins Avenue. He’s heading back towards the pile, the Surfside site where hundreds of emergency workers have been desperately digging since Champlain Towers South collapsed early on the morning of June 24. As one of Miami-Dade County Police’s 10 chaplains, Harlig has split most of his waking hours since the tragedy between the site where the workers toil night and day in the heat and humidity, and the area where families sit and wait for news of their loved ones.
“It’s a very, very difficult situation,” a visibly exhausted Harlig tells Chabad.org, enumerating the factors that have made it so. There is the magnitude of the building’s physical devastation; the strenuous work conditions, which have included fire, rain, humidity, sliding debris and a 12-story remnant towering ominously over the site; and the emotional and psychological difficulties unique to this mass tragedy.
Search efforts paused on Shabbat afternoon to prepare for the demolition of the remainders of Champlain Towers over concerns for its stability and ahead of an oncoming tropical storm. The controlled demolition took place on Sunday evening. Authorities have confirmed 24 people have died while 121 remain unaccounted for.
“This is a situation where some family members were talking to their loved ones while they were sitting on their porch, overlooking the water, and next thing they know not only did something happened to the building, but it’s crumbled in a pile of debris, rocks and cement,” says Harlig, who also directs Chabad-Lubavitch of Kendall and Pinecrest. “There was no time to process anything.”
In the first 24 and then 48 hours of the rescue operation, many, if not most, family members couldn’t understand why the search wasn’t moving faster. Frustrated, they waited for updates by the hour. What was taking so long?
At that point, Harlig explains, the only thing he and his fellow chaplains and other rabbis and caregivers could do was be there for them, support them. “Thursday was just the initial shock; it’s not a time to offer philosophical or theological explanations. Your job is just to allow people to express what they’re feeling and be that shoulder for them.”
Generally, people in such situations are not taken to the site of trauma. But on Sunday morning, June 27, authorities and mental-health professionals made the difficult decision to bring family members to the site. They weren’t quite sure what would happen.
Moment of Closeness
“The bus rides there were very tense,” recalls Harlig. The chaplains were on hand, as was Hatzalah emergency services and a team of mental-health professionals. “When we got to the site, there were a lot of emotions: crying, hugging, screaming out to their loved ones. But as the hour progressed, you saw a certain calmness come over people. After about 30 minutes, you saw that many wanted to speak to someone. Some people started praying. Whoever wanted to, put on tefillin.”
Being at the site allowed family members a moment to be close with their loved ones, but also to see for themselves how difficult conditions are and how hard frontline workers were working.
“Some of the police, fire, when they saw this sort of reunion, they started crying,” says Harlig. “People don’t realize how emotional this is for them. For rescuers, there’s no greater happiness than saving someone. Some even have family members in the building, but this is very personal for all of them.”
The ride back, says Harlig, was quieter. A certain calm descended on the families in the bus, with some coming away more hopeful that their loved ones would be found alive and others emerging with the opposite conviction.
The episode highlights the many terrains a chaplain like Harlig must traverse in fulfilling their job. There are the frontline workers on the one hand—the individuals to whom a chaplain’s main responsibilities lie—and families on the other. The chaplains are there to comfort all, regardless of faith, but they are also there to help ensure the needs of the religion they represent are understood and met. For example, as Shabbat approached, Harlig and his fellow Jewish chaplains briefed police and fire personnel on the unique circumstances the oncoming day of rest would present. There have been other situations, such as coordinating the release of the deceased for burial. The various agencies have been more than willing to cooperate to accommodate religious needs, and chaplains are on hand to help make sure everyone is on the same page. It’s a balancing act, but the common strand that runs through it all is empathy and heart.
“Families want to go in there and lift the building with their bare hands because that’s what a parent does for their child,” says Harlig. “The responders understand that, but they need to follow their protocols because the first rule of saving lives is not risking more of them. We try to help bridge that gap. But one thing I can say, having sat in meetings with families, the governor, the mayor, officials and seeing the responders in action, is that everyone’s main concern the entire time has been: How do we save even one life?”
Even as that possibility dims, says Harlig, it’s clear that all differences in politics were put aside from day one in the unified effort to bring about the best resolution possible.
On the first responders’ end, there is a clear appreciation for the crucial role played by the chaplaincy.
“Our faith-based leaders are important to helping families through this crisis. We also need their help in supporting our first responders,” tweeted Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer and State Fire Marshal. “A special thanks to Rabbi Yosef Harlig for being there for everyone.”
A Chaplain’s Work Goes On
Harlig and his wife, Nechama, moved to Miami to establish Chabad of Kendall and Pinecrest in 1995, later founding the Friendship Circle of Miami. In 2005, Rabbi Harlig joined the Miami-Dade County Police Department as a chaplain.
“The Rebbe [Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory,] taught us that it is our job to seek out every opportunity to help others, both our fellow Jews and the broader community,” he explains. “As a chaplain, you’re there for when there is a particular Jewish need, but you’re also there for every member of the force when that need for comfort and support arises.”
The closest episode to the Champlain Towers collapse that Harlig can remember was the Florida International University pedestrian bridge collapse in 2018, when six people lost their lives. But thankfully, there had been nothing on this scale.
Harlig was awoken on Thursday at 5 a.m. by the Miami-Dade chaplain supervisor, who asked that he head directly to Surfside. While the 10 chaplains, four of whom are Jewish (including Rabbi Mark Rosenberg, director of Chesed Shel Emes of South Florida), are usually called into action by precinct, the circumstances here demanded all of them head to the site immediately. Harlig was at the site in Surfside an hour later.
“It was shocking to see how it looked,” he recounts. “The building was gone.”
In those early hours, family members who lived nearby had already begun converging on the site. Authorities had yet to cordon off the area as they soon would, so distraught parents and children stood and stared at the smoking ruins in disbelief.
“There was a father next to me, his son had been staying in the building that night so he could attend a funeral in the morning,” recounts Harlig. “He was devastated: ‘If only my son hadn’t slept here tonight.’ ” The rabbi remained on the scene until close to midnight, returning early the next morning.
During that first day, families waited for immediate news, hoping their loved ones could just be pulled out alive. By Friday, 24 hours after the collapse, it became even more desperate. A full day had passed and there was still no news.
“You just need to allow them to express their frustration,” Harlig says of the chaplain’s role. When representatives of fire and police briefed the families, the chaplains were on hand to help reassure families that everyone was working their hardest.
“Police and fire understood what the families were feeling; at no point were they offended,” Harlig says. Still, the decision to begin bringing families to the site on Sunday relieved some of the mental stress on first responders. “When families could see for themselves the elements and the work, they could begin to appreciate, despite their pain, what police and fire were doing on the scene.”
Aside for the emotional and religious needs of the responders and those dealing with them, in this case the many families, Harlig and his fellow chaplains are called to the scene when a nonliving person is pulled from the rubble and say a prayer before the deceased individual is transported to the onsite DNA testing lab.
At any time, there are about 200 workers pulling a 12-hour shift at the site. Due to the physical and emotional toll the work takes, though, the workers’ shifts digging on the actual pile are considerably shorter. Meanwhile, families have come to understand that closure of any kind may not come for some time. And so the chaplain’s work goes on.
“If you saw the Rebbe’s interaction with police and fire, those who put their lives on the line for others, it was always one of utmost respect and honor,” says Harlig. “The Rebbe also taught us that when we see anyone in pain, it’s our job to be there for them. The position of chaplain opens a door to being there for both police and fire and those who interact with them when they really need it most.”
Harlig is heading back to the scene—there is time for one last question, perhaps an obvious one. How has this experience impacted him personally?
“People have reached out to ask me that,” he considers. “You know, when you’re dealing with such a tragedy, you try to focus on the task at hand. Right now, in the middle of this, if you stop and process what you’ve seen, it can be overwhelming, and we can’t afford that. It needs to be ‘What’s next?’ You need to remain focused on the mission. Of course, it’s emotional, but I have a job, and I can’t stop.”
