(lubavitch.com) Purim with Chabad of Tokyo usually calls for several parties, multiple megillah readings, and lots of food for Jewish locals, military and embassy workers. Things were different this year. 

Ten members of the Jewish community gathered in Chabad of Tokyo to hear Rabbi Mendi Sudakevich’s megillah reading. After reading the story of the Jewish people’s deliverance from destruction, the much diminished congregation danced, briefly, for they too had survived Japan’s worst disaster since World War Two. But it was a Purim marked by the staggering loss of life, the looming danger, and the long road to recovery that has yet to begin. 

Gathering in Chabad’s building for the first time since the disaster the small group did not see any structural damage aside from books scattered by the ongoing seismic jolts. Nor did many buildings in the immediate area appear to have suffered any major damage. Nevertheless, “The city is like a ghost town,” said Rabbi Sudakevich. The streetlamps stare down on the sidewalk and cast no light due to the government’s urgent calls to conserve electricity. The LCD screens and neon lit storefronts have gone dark for the same reason, and because there is not much to buy in them anyway. Even basics like noodles and toilet paper are in short supply. 

Yesterday Rabbi Sudakevich flew back from Hong Kong, where he and his family had taken refuge after the triple cataclysm, to stand beside his community as they put their lives back together. (The rest of his family flew to Israel to stay with relatives until the situation in Japan is more stable.) A Chabad community member living near Sendai—one of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami—returned to check on his house. The only remnants he found were a kilometer’s distance from the place he once called home. 

“There’s chaos in Sendai now,” said Rabbi Sudakevich. “We are trying to help the Japanese people any way we can.” Hundreds of people formed around Chabad’s bread distribution point in the city.

Food shortages also plague Tokyo. Some 90 miles from the Fukushima nuclear reactors, Tokyo residents have been advised to refrain from drinking tap water, which is feared to be contaminated with radiation. Rabbi Sudakevich went out to stock up on bottled water, but stores are imposing a limit of one 2-liter bottle per customer per day. 

Kosher food, always tricky to obtain in Japan, has been affected by the recent disasters. The whereabouts of a container filled with Passover staples: matza, wine, and canned goods that set sail weeks ago, are unknown. Should the food not turn up in time, Rabbi Sudakevich will host a community Seder, even if that means resorting to a Passover food airlift, prohibitively costly with quantities not be nearly as much as the original shipment.  

Where to cook the food is also in question. Before the disasters, Chabad was planning to finish up a new professional kitchen in their building in time for Passover cooking, but all work on the kitchen is now obviously at a standstill. Work on Chabad’s mikvah, also in the same building, has been halted. Bags of dry cement are piled at the edge of the precisely dug hole awaiting the builders’ return.

Chabad’s other programs: prayer services, Jewish classes, women’s programs, kosher food services are on hold for now, too. Most of the 1,000 Jews in Tokyo – expats and embassy workers from the U.S. and Canada – are still out of the country. 

No one can say with any certainty how long it will take the city to get back to normal. Much depends on the nuclear reactors, which remain unstable. But the Japanese spirit of quiet resolve to survive, expressed in the three word phrase, fukutsu no seishin—or “never give up”—now often heard among survivors surveying what remains of their lives, resonates well with the Chabad rabbi, who says he hopes to see Tokyo bustling again in a few months. 

Currently, Rabbi Sudakevich said, the only thing to do is “to help the local community as much as we can.”