Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream….merrily, merrily…life is but a dream. This ditty comes to mind whenever I see pictorial representations of the story of Noah. It’s a cute children’s song. The story of Noah is all too often presented as a cute tale for children. It adorns books, nurseries, blankets, our Temple Emanuel Learning Center walls and as well as walls in many other Jewish institutions that cater to children: schools, pediatric hospital wings, daycare centers; even the Union of Reform Judaism’s child naming certificates are beautifully adorned with Noah’s ark. Noah depicted as the nurturing caretaker, the zoo-keeper, providing for all the animals during the flood as if his ark flows ‘gently down the stream’ through the storm. I would dare to say that this is the most frequently drawn upon Torah story for children’s stuff. We don’t depict the Temple or the sacrificial cult detailed in Leviticus for our kids, though according to Rabbinic tradition Leviticus is the first book of Torah we are to teach our children; nor do we depict the Exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Reed Sea – a defining moment in Jewish peoplehood, on the walls of our nursery schools. No, we pick this sweet story of Noah caring for the animals during the flood.
But is it really? Is it such a sweet story? God is fed up with all that that has been created – particularly humankind and decides to “לשחת כל בשר אשר בו רוח חיים” destroy every thing that breathes. All living creatures save for a number of selected representatives only 2 of whom are human are doomed to destruction. Anyone who has witnessed the devastation brought on by massive flooding knows this is at heart a violent story. Our country and particularly the regions most affected are still recovering from the catastrophic floods of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. And our biblical narrative describes flood waters far more expansive, so high that the tallest mountains on earth were completely submerged bringing destruction and death to any and all life on earth. Carefully, painfully, the text explains: וימ֜ח את כל היק֣וּם אש֣ר על פנ֣י האדמ֗ה מאד֤ם עד בהמה֙ עד ר֙מש֙ ועד או֣ף השמ֔ים וימָ֖חוּ מן הא֑רץ ויִשָ֧אֶר אך נ֛ח ואש֥ר אִת֖ו בתבֽה, "God wiped out all that was on the face of the earth, from man to beast, from all that crawls to the birds in the sky, they were all wiped out from the earth. Only Noah and that which was with him in the ark remained." Bringing some goats and doves up as sacrificial offerings to God seems to me like light reading in comparison.
Perhaps we lighten it into a children’s story because we fear facing the horror of it. Denial is a very real psychological phenomenon! And it works.
Today has been labeled International Day of Climate Action. Jews have joined the hundreds of thousands of people in 158 countries who will be participating in this call to action by identifying this Shabbat, Shabbat Noah, as Global Climate Healing Shabbat. Today is expected to be the most widespread day of environmental action in our planet’s history. Extraordinary, really.
But why bother? There are many who argue that we are dealing with improbable, unpredictable, even uncontrollable phenomena; and, some of their arguments seem awfully compelling. Denial is easier, isn’t it. Sun columnist Mike Tidwell reminded us this past week that we “…comfortable Americans tend to view really big catastrophes such as tsunamis and famines as far away matters involving people usually too poor or undereducated to plan better.” But this does impact us, and this isn’t some children’s story, or even a tale we can dismiss as Mesopotamian myth like we can with our biblical text. This is our 21st century reality, and we’ve had our heads buried in the sand (whatever’s left of it) for far too long.
Twenty-one years ago, I was finishing up college, considering grad schools, diligently working at various jobs between classes while trying to maintain some assemblance of a social life. Twenty-one years ago, I blissfully knew nothing of the first congressional testimony regarding Global warming. I admit, I was a late bloomer when it came to interest in current events, but environmental and climate issues were far from most of society’s mainstream consciousness; this was a time when even recycling was limited to special event organizational drives. As early as 1988, though, Dr. James Hansen, of NASA, a scientist who perhaps has been studying climate trends for longer than anyone else, testified before our United States Congress that Global warming is real and has serious consequences if left unchecked.
Two decades later, we are finally beginning to pay serious attention. 350.org, the sponsor of today’s International Climate Day and the motivator behind our Global Climate Healing Shabbat, views an international treaty as paramount to combating global warming and its consequences. Few remain confident that one will pass this December in Copenhagen as was hoped when leaders from the international community first began meeting, but at least the issue is being recognized and efforts are being made to further the environmentalist agenda. The momentum must continue, and we can do our part by encouraging our political leaders to stay the course and remain proactive on environmental issues.
350.org did not consult the Jewish calendar when selecting this date. Its confluence with parashat Noach – and this story of rising flood waters, is pure accident, yet it is fitting. It reminds us of our dependence on the earth’s resources for our survival and the extraordinary power of nature.
Our Torah portion tells the story of what happens when society is left unchecked. There are a variety of ways to understand the text. A fundamentalist reading strives to blame such natural climate phenomena on behavior that doesn’t fit into the overly rigid moral agenda of the religious right. The historical Rabbinic reading, our midrashic sages blamed such phenomena on the yetzer ha-ra, the human inclination towards lawlessness that was said to run rampant in Noah’s day. Today we recognize the science behind the pattern of global warming, a trend that if left unchecked could lead to continual glacial melting and subsequent flooding. Our behavior is critical – but the behavior that we now know is critical has all to do with our environmental choices. These must begin take on a moral imperative.
350.org takes its name from the upper limit (350 ppm) of carbon dioxide that is viewed by scientists across the board as the safe limit for the continued healthy functioning of our planet. America, while certainly not the largest producer of CO2 in gross output (I believe China and India can battle for that honor), yet we produce more CO2 per person than virtually every other country in the world.
It may not seem it, but there is much we can do to make a difference, and even small choices make an impact. The Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network (BJEN) has many suggestions which are listed on our website and on a poster in our lobby that range from planting trees, reducing our dependence on the automobile, changing what kind of light bulb we choose to use in our homes and offices, to simply unplugging unused electrical appliances and chargers. But we do have to make the choice to respond and act.
Our Torah portion makes it clear that humans continued to make poor choices even after the apparent lesson of the flood – we are far from perfect, we are inherently flawed. Yet we also have the capacity for incredible goodness. The text also makes clear that God recognizes this inherent goodness, for God decides never again to destroy humanity despite the fact that we will make mistakes. The symbol of this promise is of course the rainbow. The Hebrew is clear that this bow is far more than picturesque symbol; it is a tangible sign of, brit, of covenant. Covenant demands a partnership, an agreement between two parties by which both parties have responsibility. The text never outlines the human part of the deal that is left for our imagination. So, let us imagine that our responsibility is to wake up to the reality of what we can do to take care of this planet and do it, one small step at a time.
Noah according to the Biblical accounting lived interestingly enough 350 years after the flood. Let that span of his life, after the covenant of God’s rainbow, be a reminder of our part in reaching the communal goal of keeping our carbon dioxide emissions below that 350 ppm upper limit. If we don’t do our part to heal our planet earth, if warming trends and the melting of our earth’s glaciers continues, only we will be to be blame. And I guarantee we and our progeny won’t be rowing so merrily down the stream.
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