Congregation Netivot Shalom

Parashah Noach
Genesis 6.9-11.32

5754
Art Braufman

I'm going to give a quick synopsis of today's portion with a few comments and then I'll go in detail into one particular section.

The second part of Noah that we just read, begins at the end of the flood with God telling Noah to "Go forth from the ark". It continues with Noah building an altar on which he prepares a burnt offering to the Lord. In response to the offering, the Lord said in His heart that He will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, ". . . neither will I again smite any more every thing living as I have done...". God proceeds with blesssing Noah and his sons and as with Adam and Eve he commands them to 'P'ru ur'vu; Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth'. God then proclaims the seven Noahide laws which He expects people to obey as the basic requirement for civilization to develop. As His part of the covenant, God repeats that ". . . neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

"As an everlasting token of the covenant between Himself and the earth", God selects the rainbow as that symbol. The children of Noah then go forth and the Torah states that "of these was the whole earth overspread". Noah plants a vineyard and drinks of the fruit of the vine, becomes drunk and his son Ham or most likely Ham's son Canaan finds him naked and depending on which midrash you read, either conducts sexual perversion with him or castrates him, and for this Noah curses Canaan.

The part of the Parasha we read then concludes with listing the families of the sons of Noah tracing the roots of the nations which populated the earth after the flood. This parasha contains some interesting parallels with Parasha Bereshit that we read last week. Chapter 9, verse 6 repeats the verse in Bereshit (1:27) that man is created in the image of God.

The flood story is almost like a second creation as with the command to p'ru ur'vu. Just like Adam had his down fall by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, Noah is humiliated by eating the fruit of the vine. This time women come out unscathed as Noah's wife is not blamed for his downfall. What appears to be a reversal of fates is the comparison between Bereshit 3:17, when God curses Adam because he ate of the tree of knowledge and says: "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." Compare this to the verse (8:21) in this parasha when God says "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake . ."Cassuto in his book " From Noah to Abraham", a reference for which I thank Murray Krelstein, puts an interesting spin on this by stating that this is not really a reversal, but that God was promising not to add to the curse, that is, not to further aggravate the position of humans on earth.

The part of the Parasha that caught my attention the most during this year's go-around though was the part about the post flood covenant and the rainbow and I want to focus on that for the remaining minutes. I'd like to call your attention to two verses: one from last weeks parasha, before the flood and one from this parasha, after the flood.

Before (GENESIS 6:5-6): "And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that EVERY IMAGINATION of the thoughts of HIS HEART was ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY (all the day). And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth and it grieved Him at HIS HEART".

After(GENESIS 8:21): "and the Lord said in HIS HEART: "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the IMAGINATION of man's HEART is EVIL from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done . . . ".

You can see that I've highlighted some words which show an interesting similarity between these two verses. For example, note at the end of the Before verse the reference to God's anthropomorphic heart when it says ". . . grieved Him at His heart". In the After verse, there is a parallel when it says ". . the Lord said in His heart".

Also in the Before verse, God said, ". . . that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every IMAGINATION of the thoughts of his (man's) heart was only evil continually". (v'chol yetzer macheshavot lebo rak rah). Note in the After verse the use again of the words IMAGINATION of man's HEART IS EVIL" (ki yetzer lev haAdam rah). Both verses refer to the evilness of man, the yetzer lev rah and yetzer lebo rah. Man's nature after the flood was still evil.

If that's the case, what did God accomplish by the flood? And if man was still evil why did God decide to make a covenant and promise Never Again? To me that is the key question. It's almost as if God was shocked by what He had done and He directs His thoughts to His heart, the same heart that had grieved Him, and maybe led Him astray, as mentioned in the Before verse. He had destroyed essentially the whole earth but what had He accomplished? Was this an emotional act of God who is slow to anger? Last week, Susan Abrami talked about God as the architect needing a plan for creation.

The midrash also tells the story about a king who had an architect build a palace for him. When it was done, the king didn't like it and he became very displeased with the architect. In this case if God was upset about the evil in man that He had created in His image, who did God have to blame? It appears that when the flood was over, God realized that He, the king and architect, had created human nature to be evil from the time of his youth. He couldn't change that and therefore decided to exhibit His attributes of mercy and patience, to give people laws to structure their society, to teach them how to achieve good lives and then He resolved Never Again. The question of why God wasn't aware of that unchanging human nature before the flood doesn't seem to be satisfactorily answered.

Cassuto offers one possibility. He suggests that human nature did indeed change, maybe only slightly, but enough to justify God's promise. In the Before flood verse (6:5), note that man's evil inclination is described in Hebrew as "V'CHOL yetzer macheshavot libo RAK rah; ALL inclinations of the thoughts in man's heart are ONLY evil. . . ". In the post flood verse (8:21) the evil of man is described as ". . . ki yetzer lev haadam rah miniurav; the inclination of the heart of man is evil from his youth". Do you see a slight difference? Note that the words "ALL and ONLY are absent from the After flood statement, thus implying that the severity of man's evilness has indeed been reduced. Ramban says that it is possible that the verse further justifies God's decision by implying that evil is only "miminurav" ". . . in his YOUTH". To me that seems to be stretching the point a bit.

This statement of man being evil from his youth starts to sound like original sin and predestination. If that was so what is OUR responsibility? Throughout the Torah, and as so brilliantly set out in Devarim we are taught to choose life not death, good not evil, blessings not curses. If God has decided not to destroy the earth because of our evilness, and acknowledged that we are evil, then why be good? (pause) The answer appears to be that if God is not going to remove evil from the world and if evil is to be eradicated, then WE must do it. In other words, God helps those who help themselves.

That reminds me of a story which seems appropiate for Parasha Noah and also after the recent Great Midwest Floods of '93.

There was this guy living on a farm in Iowa, right in the middle of the Bible belt and as the flood waters started to rise, a fire truck came around to his house, told him to evacuate and asked if he wanted some help. "No" was his reply; "God will save me". Well the waters continued to rise so he moved all his belongings up to the second floor. Along came a rescue squad in a motor boat and offerred to evacuate him. "No" was his reply; "God will save me". Well the rains continued in biblical proportions so he went up through his attic and perched himself on the roof. Along came a helicopter and yelled down at him with a loudspeaker, "Grab the tether, we'll pull you to safety" "No" was his reply; "God will save me". Well sure enoough, the waters kept rising and the poor man died. When he got to the pearly gates, he was very angry and demanded to know why God hadn't saved him. A booming voice was heard, "What else did you want, I sent you a firetruck, a boat and a helicopter?"

We, who are created in the image of God, also need to affirm that WE too will never destroy the world. It is easy to become depressed about the state of the world and the evilness that is so prevalent in every news broadcast and every daily paper. It is up to us to have faith that life can be improved, that we can strive for Tikun Olam, Healing the World. Why did God save a remnant of the preflood world to start the world over again? To teach us that We are all there is, there is no better. It's up to us. We've got to work with what we have and strive for Good. In spite of great disappointment, we must be determined. Just think of God's disappointment and frustration going from creation which He described as "Tov Mi'od", Very Good, to the time of Noah when the "earth was corrupt and filled with violence". Yet He was shocked at the result of his corrective action and vowed "Never Again".

We too are shocked daily by what is around us and God's vow of "never Again" reminds us of the greatest evil of all, the Holocaust. In his book titled "In The Beginning", Adin Steinsaltz states that "To redeem the earth, evil has to be overcome by confrontation and struggle, by sorting out and purification, by the conscious effort of repentance. The spirit of evil is not so easily removed from the earth after people know sin. As in every war, victory is not so certain. The struggle of humankind is very trying because it is war from within and without. People have to struggle on two fronts at the same time, incessantly repairing themselves while trying to correct the outer world. Steinsaltz continues with an ancient analogy which provides a graphic description. "A garden is surrounded by a fence and the evil beasts are outside. The job of humans is to watch over the garden and to patrol the fence so the wild beasts do not enter. But once the fence is broken and the evil penetrates, their task is to fight the beasts, both those already in the garden and those outside trying to enter. Were people permitted to make their escape, the garden would be abandoned and go to ruin. Hence, people are not so easily allowed to get out of their responsibility. They have to stay on earth, continue to care for the garden and try to get rid of the evil they have themselves introduced.

Leonard Bernstein in his Kaddish Symphony No.3 summarizes these thoughts in a very powerful way: man is talking to God: "I have You, Father, locked in my dreams. And You must remain till the final scene... Now! Look up! High! What do You see? A rainbow, which I have created for You! My promise, My covenant! Look at it Father; Believe! Believe! Look at my rainbow and say after me: MAGNIFIED. . . AND SANCTIFIED BE THE GREAT NAME OF MAN!

Franz Rosenzweig asks the question: "Who takes the first step, God or man?" He states that ". . . we think we have time to take that first step - that God is patient and will wait for us" so Tikun Olam doesn't really occur at the rate it could. "God has given us freedom to choose © He permits us to procrastinate and then suddenly one day we realize in fear that there may not be a tomorrow. And through this fear the deed is born at last. The deed that transports today across into the eternal tomorrow."

So the message I'd like us to come away with is that when we see the rainbow and remember God's covenant, may we think not only of God's promise to not destroy the world again but may we be reminded that it's up to us to take that first step for Tikun Olam, that we need to be God's partners in completing His creation, and say with our voices and with our actions, "NEVER AGAIN" will WE let evil destroy the world.

Shabbat Shalom.