Dvar Torah on Parashat Noach (Gen. 6:9 – 11:12)
Given at Temple Israel on Friday evening 10/20/23
In Psalm 29, which we sang a little while ago this evening as part of Kabbalat Shabbat, the psalmist caps off his ode to God’s power and might with the image of “Adonai lamabul yashav”/ “The Eternal sitting enthroned at the time of the great Flood.”[1] This week, in accordance with the Torah reading cycle, Jews around the world are revisiting the story of the flood, as we’ll do tomorrow morning in our Torah service.
What prompts God to get so incensed with humanity that God decides to unleash the destructive force of ha-mabul/ the Flood? The Torah tells us that it’s because “Vatimaley ha’aretz chamas” / “The earth was filled with chamas [חמס] ” [2].
It’s just a macabre coincidence that the word in that verse which is variously translated as violence, lawlessness or robbery happens to be a homonym for the name of the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip. (The Arabic word “Hamas” is an acronym for a three-word phrase meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement".)[3]
But the definition of the identically sounding Biblical Hebrew word certainly fits the description of the terrorist organization that has been plaguing Israel and seeking to thwart any efforts for peace going back to its creation in the 1980s. The massacres they committed two Saturdays ago are new in scope but not in intent.
I don’t recall exactly where I read it, but one online Jewish commentary that I read this week compared Noah’s ark to the “safe rooms” in which Israelis throughout the country have been forced to shelter, not just on October 7th but on frequent occasions in the days since then as well.
(Indeed, I remember when I was on a rabbinical study mission in Israel in the summer of 2014, the same dynamic was in play. Hamas had started a war against Israel and I and my colleagues had to run to shelters many times during the ten days I was in the country.)
But getting back to that metaphor, just as the ark saved Noah and his family and the animals who were on board from the massive genocide all around them, so have the various safe rooms and shelters protected some Israelis from the efforts of Hamas and Islamic Jihad to murder them. Other Israelis, as well as foreign visitors and residents in Israel, have not been so lucky. That includes over 20 American citizens who were murdered by Hamas in the current fighting.[4]
And, of course, in Gaza, as Israel attempts to prevent Hamas from wreaking such havoc in the future, many innocent civilians have died as well. As we know, the millions of dollars donated to Hamas in recent years have gone to the building up of weapons and terror tunnels, rather than civilian shelters or other expenditures that could benefit the general population.
The Torah says that Noah was a righteous man and above reproach IN HIS GENERATION and that he walked WITH God.
אִ֥ישׁ צַדִּ֛יק תָּמִ֥ים הָיָ֖ה בְּדֹֽרֹתָ֑יו אֶת־הָֽאֱלֹהִ֖ים הִֽתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹֽחַ
“Ish tzadik, tamim hayah bedorotav, et ha’elohim hithalech noach” [5]
But in the midrashic tradition there is an argument about whether this is just faint praise – that maybe Noah could be seen as righteous IN HIS GENERATION because it was such a violent and corrupt generation, whereas in any other time he would not have been seen as being so great.[6]
By contrast Torah teaches that Abraham was righteous (without any caveat about being righteous just in his generation) -- and speaks of Abraham walking not WITH God (like Noah) but BEFORE GOD --- as we learn in Gen 17:1 where Torah teaches that God said to Abraham (at that point still known as Abram) --
הִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ לְפָנַ֖י וֶהְיֵ֥ה תָמִֽים
Hithalekh lefanay veheyey tamim.
(“Walk before me and be above reproach.”)
Noah is the guy who doesn’t commit violence himself – but still doesn’t step OUT FRONT to argue with God not to destroy the world with a flood.
Abraham is the guy who doesn’t assault and degrade defenseless strangers as do the people of Sodom and Gomorrah but he DOES STEP OUT FRONT to argue with God – to argue against the status quo and plead for compassion on the world and for the God of justice to do justly.
In recent days, as Palestinian casualties in Gaza have grown to outnumber Israel casualties in this latest war, many voices have been raised urging an immediate ceasefire and, in effect, arguing for compassion as Abraham did before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah but as Noah failed to do before the flood.
The arguments are heartrending, but the comparison with the Torah’s contrasting of Noah and Abraham breaks down here.
It’s important to remember that there is a fundamental difference between Hamas intentionally murdering and kidnapping Israeli civilians ---versus Israel’s military campaigns against Hamas terrorists and their infrastructure. Israel’s military responses regrettably also result in civilian deaths despite systematic efforts on Israel’s part to minimize such results.
But this is not about revenge.
This is not even about meting out justice.
Rather, this is about an effort to do what is necessary to prevent Hamas from continuing to terrorize the population of Israel in the future.
In the story of the Great Flood in Parashat Noach, when the waters finally recede and it’s safe again for the inhabitants of the ark to emerge from their Biblical “safe room shelter” God brings about the appearance of a rainbow. The rainbow, says God, is a symbol of God’s resolve never to destroy the world again. But, nevertheless, humanity still retains the power to wreak CHAMAS --- violence, havoc and destruction.
Torah teaches that after the time of Noah, God won’t try again to kill off all terrestrial life in order to eliminate CHAMAS from the earth. Rather, it’s up to humanity to do so.
In contrast to some of the anti-Israel slogans being shouted in recent days by those who don’t understand that terrorist organization Hamas will never be amenable to peaceful coexistence with Israel --- our slogan should be
“Free Gaza – FROM HAMAS”
When that task is accomplished, Israel and the world will be one step closer to realizing the promise of the rainbow and the quest for Tikkun Olam.
Shabbat shalom
© Rabbi David Steinberg (October 2023/ Cheshvan 5784)
[1] Psalms 29:10
[2] Genesis 6:11
[3] To be clear, the Hebrew letter “chet” [ח] is commonly transliterated as “ch”. The organization “Hamas”, though typically transliterated from Arabic starting with the letter “H” is pronounced identically to the Hebrew word for violent lawlessness in Genesis 6:11 [חמס].
[4] https://abcnews.go.com/US/americans-killed-israel-hamas-war/story?id=103829720
[5] Genesis 6:9
[6] Rashi on Genesis 6:9
בדרותיו. יֵשׁ מֵרַבּוֹתֵינוּ דּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לְשֶׁבַח, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן אִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹר צַדִּיקִים הָיָה צַדִּיק יוֹתֵר; וְיֵשׁ שֶׁדּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לִגְנַאי, לְפִי דוֹרוֹ הָיָה צַדִּיק וְאִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹרוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם לֹא הָיָה נֶחְשָׁב לִכְלוּם (סנה' ק"ח):
