Lessons from Dry Ground
Parashat Noach, Genesis 6:9–11:32
Rabbi Paul L. Saal, Congregation Shuvah Yisrael, West Hartford, CT
Parashat Noach seems increasingly sobering over the past few decades and especially this year. September and October seem to bring new catastrophic threats and concerns to the southeast portion of the USA and the Caribbean Islands. This year, as Hurricane Ian rapidly made landfall, my family like so many others held our collective breath.
The horror seemed so much more poignant since my wife and I have so many family members and friends on the west coast of Florida. Year after year they have confidently recounted to us how the brunt of the tropical storms missed them, and they did not need to evacuate. This year they did evacuate and thankfully they were safe! Others, though, were not so fortunate. In Lee County, Florida, which was hit the hardest, state and local warnings to evacuate were withheld until a day before the storm hit, way too late for so many. It is hard to know why, perhaps fear of error, concerns about panic, a misguided optimism that the storm might change path, or just a mistrust of the science that has become so accurate predicting these storms.
The biblical recounting of the great deluge records a century-long human avoidance of warnings. Of course, the Noah narrative speaks of a worldwide evil that is eradicated since humanity had become irreparably evil. So, I want to be cautious not to suggest that the proliferation of catastrophic natural disasters is that. But . . . these disasters may be due in part to humanity’s failure to keep covenant with God. In order to consider this we should look back briefly at last week’s portion, B’reisheet.
Before the Deluge
As described by the first two commands given in Genesis, humankind was given the responsibility of being the image bearers of God in this world in two distinct ways. First, humanity is commanded to have dominion in this world. “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth” (Gen 1:28). The second divine charge to humanity is to “care for (l’avdah, literally to serve or to worship) and guard the garden” (2:15). While this command is similar to the first command, it is actualized quite differently. In the first, humans mirror the image of God as kings, but in the second, as servants. Dominion or mastery does not suggest unbridled freedom to ravage, exploit, and exhaust the rest of the creation; rather as the only beings created in the image of God, humans are expected to be benevolent rulers, serving the creation as Hashem does.
The God of Israel is pictured as a uniquely benevolent ruler who cares for his creation. We are to do no less! It is the virtually unanimous conclusion among climate scientists that the tropical storms, floods, droughts, wildfires, and other natural disasters are the result of an irresponsible human footprint on the planet. Furthermore, that warning has been sounded for well over five decades and has increasingly been realized.
How we treat the planet is a direct reflection of our regard for others, for God, and for his creation. For Noach and family there were lessons to be learned on dry ground after the deluge. I would like to point to three of those and suggest how they might inform our going forward in a manner that I believe will be pleasing to the Creator and would allow us to be his image bearers as he created us to be.
Lesson 1: We can rise above our circumstances.
Midrash Tanhuma 5:4 asks, “What is meant by Noach was ‘righteous in his age’. It means that Noah was righteous in his age but not in others. To what may this be compared? If someone places a silver coin among copper the silver appears attractive.”
The same midrash gives an alternative understanding: “It can be compared to a jar of balsam placed at the top of a grave and gives off a goodly fragrance. Had it been placed in a home, how much more so?”
The midrash’s conflicting interpretations suggest that we are all products of our time, yet we can rise above the expectations of the age. We are not meant to be merely a reflection of current values but can be examples of a better way of living.
Lesson 2: The world was not created in a day, and neither will it be rebuilt in a day.
It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. The work before us will not be accomplished instantaneously. According to the midrashim it took so long so that men might have time to repent, even though in the end not one heart was turned.
Noach spelled backwards in Hebrew is chen, or favor. In Tractate Sanhedrin (108a) of the Babylonian Talmud we read this remarkable statement: “Noah had a death sentence sealed against him. But he found favor in the eyes of God.” In other words, but God chose to save him because of God’s own grace.
Slow and Steady, Board by Board, should be our motto.
Lesson 3: Our best will arise out of our diversity.
The rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant with all living creatures (9:12–17). It represents all the color and contours of life. Sir Isaac Newton, who himself was a religious man and Hebraist as well as the father of modern science, observed that it is the entire range of the color spectrum that together comprises luminescence of pure light. The light of God is best seen in the diversity of humanity.
Later, God confounds language so that humankind might experience the command and blessing of filling all the earth. The diversity of languages, though sometimes a hindrance, might be understood as a blessed assistance, not a punitive measure as we often think of it.
We are made up of academics and those who work with their hands, those who think more transactionally and those who are more relational. Those who think in terms of larger, more systemic plans and those who tend to the immediate needs. We need each of these foci and therefore we can learn from each other.
After the Deluge
It is now 17 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Four US presidents and eight congresses have since come and gone. In the immediate aftermath many stepped forward to help their neighbors, yet little has improved and every effort has been made by those who would shape the natural beauty of creation into vestiges of power to persuade us to keep the status quo. It is time to return to our heritage as the image bearers of the Creator and tend and protect his garden.