I am finishing this article shortly after Yom Kippur, one of the few days a year that I experience hunger and want. I spent the better part of that day struggling to come to terms with the liturgy that promises compassion for the righteous, and the horrors that I had witnessed this past summer as an intern in Cambodia. I doubt I will ever be able to resolve the disparity between the concepts of Divine Justice and the ugly realities of the world. However, I was raised within a framework that has provided me with a sense of wonder at the potential the world has, and a sense of my own potential to help repair the damaged world in which we live.

I first visited Cambodia in 1994. Although I had heard of her soaring temples and painful war-torn modern history, I was unprepared for what I found. I learned what it means to see hunger and hopelessness in someone's eyes; to watch as lives are lived out in full view on the street, for lack of anywhere else to go; to wander around a nation's capital whose streets have been reduced to rubble. Most of all, I was unprepared for the impact that witnessing small, ragged children, frequently missing arms or legs, begging in front of awe-inspiring houses of worship would have on me. The juxtaposition of the lowest depths to which we can sink and a majestic testament to human achievement forced me to confront preconceived notions I had taken as truths, and principles as I had taken as mere words.

Having grown up in New York's modern Orthodox Jewish community, I was raised with the belief that ours is a Just and Loving God, and that there are reasons for every event that takes place upon this earth. Cambodia challenged that notion. I can find no Divine rationale, no explicable motive that satisfactorily justifies the physical, emotional and psychological devastation of an entire nation. I cannot, nor do I want to, accept that there is a reason for this destruction.

At the same time, my religion provides me with the framework with which to constructively confront the ruination of Cambodia. I had often heard the phrase "to save one life is as if to save an entire world." I had also learned of the Jewish responsibility to repair the world, tikkun olam, and the imperative to engage in acts of chesed, loving-kindness. It wasn't until I visited Cambodia that those phrases had meaning to me, that I saw them as applicable to my own life. In this most alien of contexts, I was suddenly confronted with the heartrendingly familiar -- a nation whose population had been senselessly decimated, worked to death in camps, and left, forgotten, in unmarked graves; a nation working to heal its wounds, salvage its culture, and move into the future. Unable to answer the question "where was God?," for this mass extermination and its aftermath, at least, I could responsibly answer back to the question "where was mankind?" My experience in Cambodia has led me to choose a career in development work, so that I may work to repair the shattered world of Cambodia and other developing nations.

It is important to note, when wrestling with theology as it meets Cambodia, that while it will take human will to repair Cambodia, the Cambodian situation is human-made. From 1970-1993, the Khmer (Cambodian) people lived in a state of perpetual warfare. They were bombed by the Americans, invaded by the Vietnamese, and destroyed from within by their own people, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, whose killing fields witnessed the death of 10-20% of the population. All of the combatants left landmines in the Cambodian soil. Today, 1 in 250 Cambodians is an amputee, and 100-300 more people are killed or maimed by mines every month. There are between 5-10 million mines in this country of 10.6 million people. The economic toll this has taken is vast; it is estimated that the agricultural productivity of the country would be 135% greater if there were no mines. The psychological toll is immeasurable.

In 1993, in an effort to end the decades of strife and begin to rebuild the country, the United Nations sponsored democratic elections in Cambodia. The elections resulted in a power-sharing agreement with Prince Rannaridh acting as First Prime Minister and Hun Sen, Ranariddh's long time nemesis, acting as Second Prime Minister. This rather cold peace brought to Cambodia the first taste of hope in decades . It was at this time that mine clearance began, foreign aid, tourism and investment began to flow into the country, KR members began to defect in droves, and aid organizations began springing up all over the country.

This past summer, I returned to Cambodia as an intern for the Trickle Up Program, a New York-based program that works with one of these local aid organizations, United Cambodian Community-Kampot. UCC teaches small business skills to amputees and war-widow s. After graduating from the program, TUP gives them grants of $100 worth of basic materials needed to begin their own businesses.

I spent the better part of the summer doing field interviews, speaking to villagers to determine how the program and the grant had affected their lives. I found repeatedly that graduates and their families were eating and dressing better and paying more attention to health and hygiene than before they entered the program. Furthermore, amputees and widows who had successfully shifted away from dependency upon their families and society reported without fail that they had greater self-esteem, and now saw a future for themselves where before they had not. One amputee recounted that when he first stepped on a mine and realized he would spend the rest of his life without a leg he had clutched a grenade to his chest in the hopes of dying. After learning to repair motorbikes and starting his own business, he felt his life was now better than ever before.

Seng Chry, a 42-year-old father of six and landmine victim who lost an arm, relied on odd jobs such as collecting duck eggs before he enrolled in the UCC program. The TUP grant allowed him to buy 50 chickens to start his own egg business. Today he owns ov er 600 chickens, and has been able to buy pigs, oxen, cows and a small field. He works as a District Coordinator for UCC, and has recently become a livestock vaccine administrator. Furthermore, he hsa improved his home, built a latrine, and is sending all of his children to school. He reports that beforehand, he was regarded as a drain upon his community. Today, he helps others to generate income, teaches people to dig wells and ponds, and frequently meets with local authorities. While UCC graduates meet with varying degrees of success, Seng Chry's story is indicative of hte potential that the poor have, given the opportunity and the support necessary to build their lives.

I also spent time with one of the principal demining organizations, the Cambodian Mine Action Center. I was able to witness the painstaking demining process, the marking off of dangerous areas, and the CMAC mine education program for villagers. However, there is a limit to how much the deminers can do. Minefields are unmapped, and yearly flooding shifts the mines from the marked fields. Many mines have been planted in residential areas. As such, all the marking and education cannot protect Khmer civilians from danger.

While the tasks confronting organizations such as UCC and CMAC are enormous, it was clear to me that they, and so many organizations like them, were indeed making inroads into the reconstruction of Cambodian society. Much of this activity was curbed on July 5, when a series of events precipitated by the toppling of Pol Pot culminated in Hun Sen's troops staging a coup d'etat to overthrow Prince Rannaridh. The fighting lasted only 3 days, but as I listened to the sounds of bombs and gunfire, I wondered how long the Khmer people would feel the impact of the fighting, and what this would mean for the resilient, newly hopeful survivors I had met in Kampot.

On July 12, a week after the fighting began, at the behest of my employers and my parents, I left Cambodia. I was fortunate in having the option to leave, unlike millions of Cambodians who, having tasted peace, were once again confronted with war. At the time of my departure, most of Cambodia's major aid providers were talking about withdrawing aid in order to send a message to Hun Sen. As I boarded the plane, all I could think about was how the cessation of aid, which comprises 50% of Cambodia's annual budget, would affect people who depend upon internationally funded projects for their livelihood, their self-esteem, and their peace of mind. To date, the major funders have decided to resume humanitarian aid, but cut off direct and political aid. Hun Sen has already threatened that the withdrawal of aid will affect rehabilitation and reconstruction programs.

The mine problem, too, has been exacerbated. Both sides have begun to plant new mines, undoing the painstaking labor of the last four years. One must recognize the drain that caring for casualties of war will have on the country. With already limited resources growing slimmer and slimmer, Cambodia can ill-afford to have the humanitarian aid earmarked for health care and the rehabilitation of amputees funneled away from villagers toward the casualties of the war between the forces of Hun Sen and Prince Rannaridh.

I returned from my brief, inspiring, sad summer in Cambodia to my second and last year at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, where I am finishing a degree in economic development. This degree will allow me to pursue a career in helping the poor of this world better their lives by teaching them the skills necessary to become self-sustaining. To be sure, my decision to enter development work is rooted in my Jewish upbringing. I am following Maimonides' injunction to help people to work, in order that they no longer require charity. At the same time, my work in development has helped me to better appreciate the values and ethics with which I have been raised.

While I have spent a lifetime reciting prayers of gratitude for the food that I eat, for the use of my eyes and my limbs, never before had I been so viscerally aware that food, shelter and clothing are not to be taken for granted, but are privileges. I had never before understood that to have the full use of both arms and legs was truly a blessing. Cambodia made me aware that my entire existence was a gift. Confronted with the opportunity to put words into action, rather than rail at the Divine injustices of the world, I have chosen to pursue a career that will (I pray) allow me to give back to a world that had given me so much.