Cary Hillebrand takes a look at Parashat Noach

Parashat Noach

פרשת נח

בראשית Genesis 6:9 to 11:32

Many disparate cultures have stories about primordial floods. In many ways, the story of Noach appears so similar to its counterpart in the saga of Gilgamesh that it appears that one or the other had been largely “plagiarized”. Noted difference is that in Gilgamesh, the capricious gods destroy creation because humanity is annoying them with their loud noises. The gods could not get a decent night’s sleep! One individual, Utnapishtim and his family is saved. Unlike Noach, Utnapishtim is not spared because of his virtues, but simply because one of the gods took a liking to him. In Noach, G-d decides to destroy most of creation because mankind was corrupt (חמס) in undefined ways (6:11 to 6:13).

Chapter 6, Verses 9 through 22 – Earth became corrupted and will be destroyed

Gd tells Noach that the earth became corrupted (ותשחת) and was full of חמס (Hamas). This word is not related to the terrorist group (Hamas in Arabic means zeal or strength. It is also the Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement”). In Hebrew, Hamas means violence or cruelty. In contemporary Hebrew, the word חמאס refers to the terrorist group.

“Noach was a simple man, righteous in his generation” (איש צדיק תמים בדורותיו). This can be interpreted in two ways: Noach was not really a tzaddik; he was simply righteous only relative to everyone else in his generation, or, alternatively, that he was righteous in spite of the evilness all around him. Which do you choose as the proper interpretation?

When G-d tells him that he is about to destroy the world and he should prepare an ark, load his family, and get out of Dodge, he willingly agrees, with no pushback, argument, or negotiation. Is this the behavior of a righteous man?

Chapter 7, verses 1 through 24 and chapter 8, verses 1 through 14 – Noah and his entourage ride out the flood on the ark

Note: In the previous section, G-d commanded Noach to take two of each kind of living creature. In this section, of the (as yet undefined) “clean” animals, he is to take seven pairs. Why seven, and why the contradiction? Perhaps as he would make sacrifices only from the clean animals, before they had a chance to multiply after the flood, he needed some “spares”. Clean ( טהורה- tehurah), can also be interpreted as pure. It is unlikely that the intention is kosher. Is there some other meaning?

Note that the text does not relate Noach as showing any feelings or compassion for the immense and catastrophic destruction about to befall on the rest of mankind. He acts to save his family. He just does what he is told to do. For that reason, in this week’s Haftarah portion (Isaiah 54:1 to 55:5), the flood is referred to as “the waters of Noah (מי נח), possibly implying that Noah must bear some responsibility for the catastrophe. He neither tried to reason with G-d to avert the severe decree (as Abraham would later (18:23 to 18:32) do when informed about the impending destruction of Sodom), nor try to warn the people to change their ways.

Verses 15 through 22 – G-d promises not to do this again

Note line 21: “The Lord smelled the pleasing odor and the Lord said to himself – Never again will I doom the earth because of man …”. The promise is that G-d will not destroy the world. There is no implied promise that man, imbued with freedom of choice, won’t destroy the world because of his own folly. We should heed that implied warning in this age of climate change, not to mention nuclear weaponry.

It is interesting that the text relates to G-d here in human terms with human senses, thoughts and apparently regrets. Does G-d realize that he may have gone too far? “The devising of man’s mind are evil from his youth”. That is, G-d realizes and is resigned to the fact that destroying most of the world and starting over will not solve this problem.

Chapter 9, verses 1 through 29 – G-d sets a rainbow to remember his covenant; Noah plants a vineyard and gets drunk

9:12 to 9:15 – G-d sets his bow in the clouds as a reminder to himself of his covenant with Noah and all his offspring, and every living thing, never again to destroy the earth by floods. Does He really need a rainbow as a reminder to himself not to destroy the world? This section may conceivably borrow from ancient mythologies that see the rainbow as the gods’ battle bow and they hang it in the sky after a victory. The 13^th century sage Nahmonides surmised that the rainbow is a bow pointed away from the earth, in a sense deflecting G-d’s anger away from us.

Noach and his family are permitted (not commanded) to eat meat from all the animals and also fish. No kosher restrictions of course, so why the requirement to collect seven pairs of “clean” animals? No regard to cleanliness or kashrut. From the previous chapter, the Rabbis infer that the generations before the flood were vegetarians. Perhaps the world after the flood was a much less healthy place and so they needed the added strength given by consuming meat.

Why is Noach’ s first act after the sacrifices to be planting a vineyard? Did he want to get drunk? Perhaps he is traumatized by all that occurred (suffering from PTSD?) and wants to drown his sorrows or possibly escape from guilty feelings in drunkenness?

Noach curses Ham’s son Canaan and not Ham directly. Could this be because G-d had already blessed Ham and Noach can’t contradict G-d? Or perhaps Ham is being punished through the fate of his sons and descendants. Plaut raised the supposition that uncovering one’s nakedness was a euphemism for sexual perversion.

Chapter 10, verses 1 through 32 – The sons of Noah begin begetting, repopulate the world

The sons of Noach began begetting big time and formed the basis for the so-called seventy primary nations that began to spread out and to repopulate the world. It is interesting to note that Israel is not listed among these seventy nations. Of course, Israel did not begin to become a nation until the generations following Jacob, the last of the patriarchs.

Chapter 11, verses 1 through 9 – Story of the Tower of Babel; dispersion of the people

The story of the Tower of Babel attempts to “explain” how humankind came to disperse and speak a variety of languages. In my opinion, this Is a silly paragraph in our beloved Torah and probably reflects an earlier lost tradition.

The descendants of Noach, barely having dried themselves off from the flood are off to misadventure. As a unified people with a common language, rather than disperse and repopulate the earth wit h their offspring (which they already did in chapter 10 above, so this is a merging of two somewhat contradicting traditions), instead they chose to organize and concentrate their energies into building a city and a skyscraper and make a name for themselves. It is not really clear from the text what their transgression is. Perhaps this public works project wasn’t by itself a sin (or possibly the minor sin of hubris) but its completion may have led to sinning in undefined ways. One Midrashic explanation offered by the Rabbis was that by reaching to the heavens they were attempting to enter the abode of G-d and perhaps to challenge him (there Is nothing in the Torah text to suggest or even hint at this). This was unacceptable hubris and they had to be cut down to size. By having them all speak different tongues, they could not organize or even communicate with each other, and by necessity, they disperse. End of problem! Also, their commandment was to fill the earth, and instead they engaged in this bombastic public works project.

It should also be noted that Judaism does not share an ecumenical world view. A universal culture and language are neither called for nor desirable. Ecumenicism is not a Jewish concept. Uniformity tends to stifle free expression and creative thought. Other, more contemporary commentators have noted that there is a slippery slope from uniformity to totalitarianism and the tyranny of the majority.

Babel of course refers to Babylon, the empire and city to which the Jews were exiled after the conquest of the southern Kingdom of Judea. The story can be allegory about the corruption and arrogance of Babylon. The Torah can be seen as having an anti-urban theme, the Israelites being herders and farmers as opposed to the Canaanites and the Egyptians, etc. which were in large part urban societies.

Chapter 11, verses 10 through 26 – Genealogy fro Shem to Abram

Genealogy of the ten generations after the flood from Shem to Abram.

Verses 27 through 32 – Terrah sets off for Canaan, gets as far as Haran

Here we set the stage for the next part of the Torah, the saga of the three patriarchs. We are not told why Terrah wanted to travel to Canaan, nor why they only got as far as Haran.

A Final word:

I read one extremely relevant commentary prepared by American Jewish World Service. I want to present two excerpts:

This reading of the Noah story provides a striking parallel to our own society in the midst of a global climate-change crisis. No single act of environmental sin or indifference has caused the Earth to heat up; rather, it is the combined effect of billions of small actions across the globe. Similarly, our affluence and our ability to harness and control the Earth’s resources, which have enabled the scale of consumption that has altered our atmosphere, are the prime causes of our destruction. And, as with the generation of the flood, the waters are rising around us slowly. We still have time (perhaps not much time) to examine our actions and change them.

……….…

In this week’s Haftarah, the floodwaters are called מי נח (the waters of Noah), suggesting that although he was sufficiently righteous to be saved, Noah still bore some kind of responsibility for the destruction by not doing enough himself to prevent it. While our generation does not have the option of retreating to an ark, we do have a chance, and an obligation, to prevent the next flood, the oncoming environmental catastrophe.