I’ve shared this opinion before: I find the story of Noah one of the most challenging narratives in our Torah. We may try to whitewash the story with images of an obedient, righteous Noah ushering pairs of animals into, as the children’s song paints, his “ark-y, ark-y” so that they are protected from God’s “flood-y, flood-y,” but at its core, it is a story of violence and destruction. And, even the rainbow at the end serves as a less than satisfying symbol of promise when we consider the extent of God’s Divinely mandated destructive forces. That’s it? We get a rainbow after the destruction of so much potential life?
The traditional understanding of God’s role in the story is one of patience and compassion. Despite the חמס (chamas), the utter corruption, with which the earth was filled, we are taught that God still saw fit to establish a covenant with the post-deluvian, surviving remnant of humanity, namely Noah and his family. Humankind was mercifully granted another chance. Accordingly, we should be so grateful that God saw fit to save any part of this wicked generation. We should be grateful for the compassion God offers through this new covenant, inclusive of what scholars refer to as The Noachide Laws, to the survivors of the flood.
I am not so easily swayed by our Rabbinic sages. I understand the Rabbinic need to let God off the hook. The story of Noah is part of our larger sacred canon whose agenda is to trace the development of the Israelite community and its relationship with the one, supremely powerful God known as יהוה, whom we call, Adonai. The story thus must contribute to this sacred, narrative ark that forwards God as a patient, albeit awesomely powerful, parent coaching the development of humanity and ultimately the selected community to be known as Israel. But, just because I understand the Rabbinic need to paint God as this patient, loving parental figure working to guide humanity in the face of corruption and violence, I don’t have to refrain from offering another more progressive opinion.
The Rabbis focus on humanity’s behavior. Every year when we come to this story, I am incredibly troubled by God’s behavior. Is mass destruction the only option? Noah’s God has modeled awful and disturbing behavior for us in the choice to destroy life. There must’ve been other choices. Apparently, God couldn’t see them. God was blinded by disappointment, perhaps fury at humanity’s corrupt and vile behavior.
How appropriate that we read Parashat Noah on the Shabbat where we mark the close of sheloshim (the first thirty days of mourning) for our beloved accompanist, Marty Coffman. Like God, Marty had choices. But his depression, pain - both physical and emotional – and perhaps rage blinded him from seeing all but one. I cannot view God’s behavior in Parashat Noah as compassionate any more than I can forgive Marty’s last act, an act that destroyed his own potential and that of any of his future generations and which left us and all who knew him with immense sorrow and confusion.
The Noah narrative can give us permission to be frustrated and angry with the choice to destroy life even as we remember a gentle soul who lifted our hearts and prayers with his music and passion for liturgy. Jewish tradition teaches that we have no right to destroy life but rather must do everything in our power to preserve it. Pikuach nefesh – even the sabbath gets sacrificed to save life.
Noah’s God must have known that. Perhaps the essence of the covenant made by God with humanity after the flood, and presumably God’s anger, subsides is pointed as much towards God as it is to us. The text reads, “My bow I have set in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen וזכרתי, "then I will remember My covenant which is between God and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy …” I will remember, God says! The pshat, the literal reading, of the verse leaves it unclear as to who needs this tangible reminder of the value of life. One possibility is that God needed it -- as a reminder to never again let the flood of disappointment and anger lead to the destruction of life.
Rainbows are certainly hard to see when in the grasp of anger, pain, and depression. A lesson of Noah is that we, like God, must do everything we can to set those symbols, the reminders of the responsibility we have to others and to ourselves, firmly and visibly in place out in front of us so that they can serve to give us hope and compassion in our darkest moments. That is the mandate of this covenant between God and humanity. It may not always work, but it is our responsibility to make the effort.
Zecher livracha, may Marty’s memory be a blessing, and may the complicated legacy he has left us inspire us to keep choosing life -- to keep reaching out even in the face of utter hardship and pain.
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