TORAH SPARKS

 

Parshat Noah

October 29, 2022 | 4 Cheshvan 5783

Torah: Genesis 6:9-11:32 Triennial: 1:1-8:14

Haftarah: Isaiah 54:1-55:5

 

Why Recreate the World?

Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah

Unsurprisingly, God is pretty good at what God does. When God sets out to put an end to all flesh to destroy them with the earth, God does it and does it well. The language of the destruction in the flood story mirrors the language of the creation in last week s parashah. The destruction of the flood is presented as the undoing of creation, a return to a state without creation. Where God had once looked and seen good in all of God s creations, God now looks and sees bad. Where God had once gathered all the water from under the heavens in order to expose land, the water now rises higher than the highest mountains under the heavens. We return to a pre-creation state of Tehom, the watery depths. The creatures which God had created God now destroys. God created with a breath of life. We read now that All that has a breath of life in it will now breathe its last as a result of the flood. This applies to all the categories of created beings from Genesis 1 – the livestock, the creepy crawly things, and the birds. Most of all, humans which [God] created, will be wiped off the face of the earth.

God does exactly what God says. Almost. In nearly the same breath that God explains that God is destroying all of creation, God creates an escape clause. God has Noah build the ark and ensure survival and ensure continuity from the first created world to the second. It is a particular quirk of God, promising total destruction and not quite delivering. God s calling card is to leave a remnant behind, someone to recount the tale of (near) total destruction.

The language of what happens to Noah after the flood also mirrors the language from the first creation story. We read, as translated by Robert Alter, And God sent a wind over the earth and the waters subsided. And the wellsprings of the deep were dammed up, and the casements of the heavens, the rain from the heavens held back. And the waters receded from the earth little by little, and the waters ebbed. We meet the wind, the water, and the deep, the Tehom, of Genesis 1. Once again, land emerges from the water. Once again, time is established; Alter translates, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. Those very livestock, creepy crawly things, and birds which had been explicitly killed in the flood are brought back for a second attempt. Humans are told what and how they can eat and given something that they are not allowed to eat. The tiller of the land becomes the planter of vineyards. Most strikingly, God gives us a nearly identical blessing to the blessing we had received in Bereshit. We to be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. The idea of filling the land stands out because the story of the flood begins with the land being full of the violence of humans. Nonetheless, we are once again not just permitted but also blessed to fill the land.

But when God looks after this recreation, God sees that humanity is still bad. So why bother? Why recreate, following the formula of the first failed creation? Has God put safeguards in to prevent us from going off the rails this time? The biggest difference between the two creations is who is responsible for maintaining order in each. After the flood, we get the chilling verse, one who spills the blood of a human, by a human will his blood be spilt. God says these words just after God has spilled the blood of countless humans. But now God removes Godself as the police of the world. As God says, humans are evil from their youth. When God holds us to God s standard of good and bad, we inevitably come out bad. So in order for this new creation to survive, we need to become our own executors. Here at the beginning of Genesis, it s just the start of a system of humans managing human affairs. We ve got a long way to go and a lot to learn about how to do it. God will help us to figure out better systems along the way. But after all of God s exact work in destruction, God decides to be a creator after all and let humans serve as our own destroyers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Destruction is Worse than Yours!

Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Haftarah

 

Text: Isaiah 54:7-10

7 For a mere moment I forsook you,
But with great mercies I will gather you.
8In fast fury I hid My face from you for a moment;
But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,
Says your Redeemer, the Lord.
9 For like the waters of Noah this is to Me;
For as I vowed that the waters of Noah would not again cover the earth,
So have I vowed that I would not be furious, nor rebuke you.
10For the mountains will remove and the hills will falter,
But My kindness shall not be removed from you, nor shall My covenant of peace falter,
Says He Who has mercy on you, the Lord.

 

When a literary work references other well-known events or narratives, the benefit is two-fold: Rather than giving us a lengthy explanation (which we are likely to stop following halfway through) it leaves us to draw conclusions about the connection. It gets the reader involved in developing the story and understanding it.

It also turns the new text into a commentary on the referenced work. While the reader has a certain understanding of that work, the new text might offer a different understanding.

 

 

 

In this haftarah the navi (prophet) Isaiah, apparently living in the post-destruction period and speaking to the people of Israel, compares God s vow to the people – to never repeat His fury (and its consequences), to the vow never to bring the waters of Noah again. Any comparison requires us to think about the reasons for and conclusions from such a comparison. Here are some points and questions to consider:

●       How do the events of the flood compare with the events of the destruction of Jerusalem? Think about the points in common (including the emotional consequences of such traumas) as well as the obvious differences. In your opinion, is this a good comparison? Why?

●       In v.10 the navi continues the comparison in a less obvious manner. During the flood the natural world, whose creation was just described as very good by God, falls apart. All life on the face of the earth is wiped. The mountains disappear and the seasons seem lost. How does the navi hint to those events in v. 10? How does God s vow to the people of Israel compare with the vow to Earth? What is the message of such a comparison? Which is stronger and how is that expressed?

●       Reading this text as a commentary: While we often relate to the events told in parashat Noah as the Flood , the navi refers to them as Noah s Waters. Noah is hardly the cause of the flood, and nor the instigator of his own salvation. He may, at the most, have something to do with God s vow not to destroy the Earth again. Why does the navi name the event for Noah? (This can be taken in many directions. Try to explain your answer.)

 

 

Glancing at the Rainbow

Dr. Joshua Kulp

The story of Noah and the Flood concludes by God giving humanity the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of God s covenant never to destroy the world again through a flood (Genesis 9:12-17).

Rainbows are one, if not the most, beautiful of all the heavenly phenomena and certainly the most photographable. Today, when a rainbow appears in the sky, most of us will rush out with our cameras and try to take as many pictures as possible. We quickly send them off to our friends, bragging, We saw a rainbow. Here I want to note that halakhah is somewhat ambiguous about our desire to look at the rainbow and what we should do when we encounter one.

In Tractate Berakhot (59a), Rabbi Alexandri, citing Ezekiel 1:28, rules that One who sees a rainbow in a cloud must fall upon his face. The rainbow in Ezekiel has become not just a sign of God s covenant, but the likeness of the Glory of God and therefore an object of worship. However, the Talmud immediately notes that Rabbi Alexandri s ruling is not universally accepted in the West (the Land of Israel) they forbid this practice for it looks like one is mistaking a physical phenomenon for an ineffable God.

Ambiguity is also echoed later in the 14th century halakhic compendium written by R. Ya akov bar Asher, the Tur. In Orah Hayyim 229 the Tur writes, One who sees a rainbow must say, Blessed are you Who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to the Covenant and who upholds His Words. But it is forbidden to look [at the rainbow] for a long time. The ambiguity is palpable we are commanded to bless God upon seeing God s sign, but we are forbidden to look at that sign for too long.

These two halakhot are a combination of two different Talmudic passages. The blessing is found in the passage from Berakhot above. While the rabbis of the West do not allow one to bow down to the rainbow, which is a sign of mistaking the rainbow for God, they do mandate the recitation of a blessing, a more intellectual reminder of what the rainbow symbolizes. We do not worship anything in the world as if it was God, but we can bless many things in the world for they remind us of God s goodness.

The second halakhah, the prohibition of looking at the rainbow for too long, is taken from Hagigah 16a: Whoever has no concern for the honor of his Maker deserves to have never come to the world: What is lack of concern for the honor of one s Maker? Rabbi Abba said: This is one who looks at a rainbow. Later in the passage the Talmud goes on to say the eyes of one who looks at the rainbow will be dimmed. Unlike the passage in Berakhot, this passage seems to absolutely forbid even looking at the rainbow.

R. Asher (the Rosh, the Tur s father) as quoted by R. Yosef Karo in his commentary on the Tur (the Bet Yosef), notes the obvious practical problem how can one recite a blessing upon seeing the rainbow when one should not even look at a rainbow! The Rosh resolves the conundrum by ruling taht one should look at a rainbow, but not for too long. One who looks for too long, explains the Rosh, is questioning the authenticity of God s promise.

We want to have faith in the rainbow as a sign of God s everlasting covenant not to destroy the world. This is especially true in our world, for we who live with the fear that destructive floods will return to our precious planet. I might even argue that we need to look at the rainbow, to bless it in confidence that God will keep God s words. But we shouldn t look at it for too long, for as the Rosh said, when one looks at something for a long time, one can begin to question it. We need to have confidence in God s blessing in order to continue with our day to day lives here on Earth. And in a more modern take on this, I might add that overconfidence, also a potential result of looking at the rainbow, a sign of God s eternal promise, might dim our eyes to the harsh fact that if the world is destroyed again through a flood, this one is on us. The halakhah reminds us that the rainbow is a positive sign of God s love, but that human beings need to figure out how we act in response to this love.