Beshallach: All the Brothers

February 3, 2012 at 2:57 pm · Filed under 2. Exodus, Beshallach

Copyright 2012 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Beshallach 

Dear Friends: 

This week the story of the exodus from Egypt reaches its climax, with the miracle at the sea and the great song in response. As the Israelites leave bondage in great haste, the Torah notes a small detail: 

“And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, ‘God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.’ ” (Shmot/ Exodus 13:19) 

I’ve written about this passage before, but not for a long time, so it’s time to revisit this verse, especially in light of a comment by Rashi that I didn’t consider prior to this year’s Torah reading cycle. First, please note, Moshe was probably not understood to be carrying a coffin, but an ossuary, a small box. Second, Moshe’s retrieval of the bones is the fulfillment of an oath made back in Bereshit 50: when Yosef was dying, he made his brothers swear to bring his bones up out of Egypt when the God redeemed them. 

Now onto something Rashi noticed and I didn’t: there is a slight difference between the report of that promise in this week’s Torah portion and where it is originally found in Bereshit 50. That’s the small phrase at the end of the verse quoted above: “with you.” The reason this little difference makes a difference is that Rashi assumes that the brothers weren’t going to be the ones to carry Yosef’s bones out of Egypt- their descendants would. According to Rashi, Yosef made them swear that they’d make their children swear to give Yosef a proper burial- and thus, “with you” (plural) means “your descendants will carry my bones out of Egypt along with all of your bones.” 

This completely changes our understanding of the verse. Rather than praising only Moshe for a singular act of filial piety, Rashi seems to believe that while Moshe carried Yosef’s bones, all the Israelites were involved in the rescue of the bones of their ancestors, bringing them out of Egypt towards repatriation in the Land of Israel. Not only does this understanding ascribe greater merit to the people as a whole, it also gives us an image of what it means to move forward on our journey: we cannot take just a piece of our history with us, but rather inevitably bring all of it. 

The image of the Israelites carrying the bones of the ancestors with them on their Exodus suggests to me that even when someone is going through a great transformation, they carry with them a legacy: of ancestors good and not-so-good, of deeds both loving and banal, of community and language and customs and hurts and strengths and all the rest of what makes us human. We can’t only carry Yosef with us- the proud and insightful leader- but we also carry Shimon, the zealot, and Reuven, whose failures of leadership and morality earned him rebuke from his father’s deathbed, and all the rest of the brothers and tribes. 

To be a people is to acknowledge that we are bound together with others across history and into a common destiny; to be thus bound, one to another, requires moral courage, because as much as we’d sometimes like to, we can’t leave any Jew outside the bounds of our community. That’s why all the bones of all the brothers came up from Egypt- because to be a people means to leave nobody behind. In our synagogues, schools, charitable institutions and defense organizations, we must try as best we can to be radically inclusive, to bring everybody in, to find a place for anybody who wants one. That, too, is a legacy of the Exodus; Yosef’s plea still calls us to action. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

RNJL 

Comments (2)

Bo: Stuck in the Dark

January 27, 2012 at 2:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Copyright 2012  Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Bo

“Moshe held out his arm toward the sky and thick darkness descended upon all the land of Egypt for three days. People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was; but all the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings. “ (Shmot/Exodus 10:22-23)

Good afternoon!

This week the pace quickens in the Exodus narrative: the final plagues bring destruction and darkness, but Pharaoh will not yield. The penultimate plague, darkness, is described as palpable and immobilizing. It is clear from the text, and amplified in the commentaries, that “darkness” doesn’t mean an absence of ordinary light, but something experienced as an inner state as well as an outward reality.

Our friend Rashi explains the plague of darkness with a midrash which imagines that the two descriptions of the darkness are actually sequential. That is, according to Rashi, “people could not see one another” and “for three days no one could get up from where he was” are two different things. In this midrash, there were first three days of darkness in which the Egyptians could not see one another, and then another three days of more intense darkness in which they were stuck in place.

The Conservative Torah commentary Etz Hayim suggests that “the person who cannot see his neighbor is incapable of spiritual growth, incapable of rising from where he is currently,” and while I certainly think that’s true, I think Rashi’s comment is a bit more nuanced. I think Rashi is portraying a nation in moral crisis: after all, the phenomenon of “not seeing one another” has already been true for years. The Egyptians turned away from the oppression of the Israelites, choosing not to see the horror in their midst. The plague of darkness becomes a metaphor for the internal reality of living in a society that is dependent on the oppression of others: we do not see what we don’t want to acknowledge, and then become frozen in place, unable to speak truth to power or push back against a ruler or system whose tyranny will ultimately consume both oppressed and oppressor.

Think of how hard it has been throughout history for good people to effect change, and how easy it is for corruption to take hold when decent people simply look away. Conversely, when change happens, it’s often because people become literally unstuck from their ordinary places: think of Martin Luther King leading assemblies across bridges in the South, or Gandhi and his Salt March, or those who left their homes to camp out in Tahrir Square. These movements made change happen because they forced the world to see and confront injustice. The tragedy of Exodus, repeated over and over in human history, is that Egypt became a society in which human beings were seen not as neighbors but as mere problems to be solved; the enduring truth that Exodus teaches is that such a society eventually crumbles from within.

I think this is why darkness is the final plague before death; the image of darkness evokes a moral and spiritual reality that leads to death. Yet “the Israelites enjoyed light in their dwellings.” Light was not lost even in this time of darkness; it’s up to each of us to bring that light, understood as the power of justice and compassion, to places that are darkened by fear and despair.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

Vaera: Willful Blindness

January 20, 2012 at 4:45 pm · Filed under 2. Exodus, Vaera

Copyright 2012 Neal Joseph Loevinger


Torah Portion: Vaera

 ”And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Early in the morning present yourself to Pharaoh, as he is coming out to the water, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Let My people go that they may worship Me.’ “  (Shmot./ Exodus 8:16)

Good afternoon! 

Sorry about last week’s Torah commentary- or, more accurately, lack thereof. We do our best but even the well-oiled machinery of rabbineal-list seizes up every now and again. 

This week we’re reading the story of the plagues against Egypt- you know, blood, frogs, lice, these are a few of my favorite things- and Pharaoh’s inability to let the people go or even fully realize what is happening around him. The verse above is the prelude to the fourth plague, the swarms of swarming flies (as translated in JPS) which leave no Egyptian house untouched. What strikes me as interesting is the commandment to meet Pharaoh at the water, presumably as he is emerging from a bath in the river. 

Note that the first two plagues, blood and frogs, affect the river, and the third, the infestation of lice, moves onto the land. Scholars have noted that the plagues encompass every aspect of the natural world- water, land, sky- as if to show the Egyptians the futility of worshiping localized gods of some subset of the cosmos. It’s also interesting that Pharaoh goes back into the water so soon after the river was blood and then teeming with frogs, as if he’s convinced himself that the river is safe now that the danger has moved elsewhere. 

Yet the river is not safe- not because it’s teeming with frogs but because Pharaoh can’t hide from the moral message of Moshe and Aharon. He wishes to believe that the problem is solved as soon as the symptom goes away- but this never works, and indicates to us that Pharaoh is acutely human, hardly a great leader and much less a god on earth. Self-deception, seeing what we want to see, is an inevitable aspect of the human condition; we face great challenges, as individuals and collectively, but we don’t always want to truly see the evidence of those challenges right before our eyes. Like Pharaoh, we go back to the water- that is, our old habits of heart and mind- as the course of least resistance. It’s just so easy to pretend that the world hasn’t changed and so hard to admit that new realities demand a new way of being. 

This little detail, tucked into the larger story, reminds me that Pharaoh is best understood not only as a great and evil villain, but also as a tragic figure, one who simply could not understand the world changing around him until it was too late. Great leaders help the world move forward by confronting and naming hard truths. Few of us rule empires, but any spiritually and morally conscious person can strive to grow in our perceptions and understandings, refusing to retreat into a comfort zone which requires no sacrifice, empathy or ethical reflection. Pharaoh going back into the water is such a profound image of a man unwilling to see and unable to change; seeking truth wherever it is found, and reckoning fearlessly with its implications, is the basis of any true spiritual practice. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

RNJL 

Leave a Comment

Vayechi: The Blessing of T’shuvah

January 6, 2012 at 10:19 am · Filed under 1. Genesis, Vayechi

Copyright 2012 Neal Joseph Loevinger


Torah Portion: Vayechi

“. . . when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died, to my sorrow, while I was journeying in the land of Canaan, when still some distance short of Ephrat; and I buried her there on the road to Ephrat.” (Bereshit/ Genesis 48:7) 

Good morning! 

In this final Torah portion of the book of Bereshit, there’s lots of death and remembrance of death. (Feeling cheery now?) 

Yaakov prepares for death by blessing his grandsons and then his sons at his deathbed, but also makes Yosef swear to bury him in the land of Canaan, where his father Yitzhak and his grandfather Avraham are buried, at the Cave of the Machepelah. These two preparations for death- blessing his grandsons and sons, and letting his family know his wishes for burial- are intertwined in the parshah. In the middle of explaining that he is adopting Yosef’s children as his own for purposes of inheritance, Yaakov mentions that Yosef’s mother, Rachel, died in Canaan but was not in fact buried in the ancestral burial cave with the other patriarchs and matriarchs. She died in childbirth (back in Bereshit 35) and is buried not too far from where she passed. 

Some commentators seem to think that perhaps Yaakov felt guilty about this. After all, at the very time he’s asking Yosef to carry his body across the Sinai peninsula and up to the land of Israel, he has to confess that he didn’t even take Yosef’s mother a few hundred yards to a settled town for burial- he just set up a marker by the side of the road. 

It seems to me that the Torah is portraying Yaakov as wanting to bless his children with both fine words and also as the example of one who does t’shuvah - repentance or return- right until the end. After all, if Yaakov is feeling guilt or shame about the way he handled Rachel’s death, then confessing that failing is one important way to achieve the reconciliation necessary for his final blessing of his sons. He is confident on his deathbed that Yosef will keep his promise, because he himself has drawn Yosef closer to him with his implied request for forgiveness. It could not have been easy to admit to Yosef that he had not properly honored Yosef’s mother, who was Yaakov’s first love and favored wife- but perhaps it was necessary, so that after a life of hard wandering, Yaakov could die in peace. 

In this reading, Yaakov shows his powerful son, the Prime Minister of Egypt, that it’s human to make mistakes, and even more human to humbly confess them. In these final weeks of Yaakov’s life, he gives his sons blessings, encouragement, rebuke and advice, according to their circumstances; but perhaps the greatest gift was his honesty and humility, which continues to be an example and inheritance for his descendants in present times. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

RNJL 

Comments (1)

Vayigash: Compassion and Exile

December 30, 2011 at 10:35 am · Filed under 1. Genesis, Vayigash

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Vayigash

And he removed the population town by town, from one end of Egypt’s border to the other. . . .  (Bereshit 47:21)

Good morning!

This week is undoubtedly one of the emotional high points of the Torah: after Yehudah’s impassioned plea on Binyamin’s behalf, Yosef finally reveals his true identity to his brothers, and they have a tearful reunion. Yosef sends them to get their father and settles the family inGoshen, a pastoral region ofEgypt, but the story then takes a darker turn. The years of famine that Pharaoh dreamed are not yet over, and the citizens of Egypt become more and more desperate, selling their possessions, animals, land and eventually even their own labor to Pharaoh in exchange for food.

Yosef is the one in charge of this nationalization of the economy, and after he takes the land in Pharaoh’s name, he allows the population to become sharecroppers, paying a portion of the crop to Pharaoh as rent. Yet in what seems like a cruel and dictatorial twist, Yosef moves the people around, from one town to another, not allowing them to remain on the land they sold to the king.

Commentators wonder at Yosef’s motives, but the simple answer is perhaps the least palatable: Yosef moved the population around so that people would know that they had lost the right of ownership of the land upon which they lived. In this, some commentators, compare him to the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who exiled Jews from towns in Judah when he conquered parts of the land of Israel. (Cf. 2 Kings 32 and see more on this here. )

Yet our friend Rashi, among others, offers an additional explanation: Yosef moved the people ofEgypt around so that none would call his brothers “exiles”[in derision]. If the entire population were exiles from their hometowns, then surely they could not disparage Yaakov and his sons as exiles fromCanaan.

Now, this is morally impossible logic on one hand- it makes no sense to cause great upheaval and pain in order to teach compassion- but it contains a kernel of wisdom on the other. First, this reading portrays Yosef as wanting to preserve his brother’s honor, even after their terrible betrayal of him as a youth, and thus serves as an image of overflowing forgiveness and spiritual maturity. More important, I think, is what it suggests about the redemption of suffering: suffering (in this case, the pain of losing one’s home and land) is an inevitable part of the human condition, but it can, with openness and grace, teach us compassion for others.

Note, please, that the rabbis who offer this interpretation neatly turn around the idea, stated so often in the Torah, that we must treat the stranger with kindness, because we were strangers inEgypt. In this reading of our verse, it is the Egyptians who might learn to treat the Israelites with greater kindness based on their experience of dislocation. Tragically, it doesn’t last, and as the contemporary Conservative commentary Etz Hayim points out, eventually the Egyptians turn on the Israelites, perhaps out of anger at what Yosef has done to them.

Nevertheless, in this moment in the Torah reading, it’s striking to consider the image of Yosef taking Egyptians off their land so that they would not insult his brothers; it is an image both cruel and fascinating, provoking me to ask about ways that I have served one person at the cost of another. In this reading, Yosef knows that the famine calls for desperate measures, and perhaps hopes that at least a little good can come from such a terrible situation. Suffering is redeemed when we learn what we can from it; it doesn’t make the pain less, but can make us more human in the pain.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

Miketz: Power and Mercy

December 23, 2011 at 1:35 pm · Filed under 1. Genesis, Miketz

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Miketz and Hanukkah

Greetings and happy Hanukkah!

“For though Yosef recognized his brothers, they did not recognize him. . .”  (Bereshit/Genesis 42:8)

This week in our regular Torah portion (there are also special readings for Hanukkah) Yosef is reunited with ten of his brothers, who come to Egypt looking for food as the region is struck by famine. Unfortunately, the older brothers have no idea that the viceroy of Egypt is actually the younger sibling they sold into slavery many years ago.

These older siblings come before Yosef in the royal court, and although he accuses them of being spies- in order to see if they have matured and repented since their days of mistreating him- he does not exact immediate vengeance or violence. In fact, our friend Rashi understands “recognized his brothers” as not merely a visual recognition of their identities, but rather the moral act of recognizing them as brothers- that is, even though he had power over them, he deeply felt their common humanity, and had compassion upon them. Rashi contrasts this with the second half of the verse: “they did not recognize him”- as a brother, when they were in the ones with power.

To rephrase Rashi: when Yosef had power over his brothers, he recognized them as as siblings and equals, and thus showed compassion; but when the older siblings had Yosef at their mercy, they had no mercy.

I think Rashi’s comment hints at the problem of power: it often gives those who possess it a distance from their fellow humans, which prevents the powerful from deeply feeling the human needs of those they might otherwise assist as servant leaders. The antidote to the moral corruption of power is authentic religious ethics, which demands that we see in each person a spark of the sacred, which connects people to each other in compassion, empathy and the sense of a common destiny. Of course, the tragedy of human natures is that religious people and institutions can be corrupted by power just as easily as anyone else, and use religious authority in profoundly anti-religious ways.

In traditional rabbinic texts, Yosef is called the “tzaddik,” or righteous one; perhaps it is because he had great authority over others, but was able to transcend the logic of power and vengeance to embrace instead the course of humility and compassion. Each of us has power, to a greater or lesser degree; would that we would all take Yosef’s example as our own, and act wisely and with great mercy.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

Vayeshev: Each His Own Dream

December 16, 2011 at 3:13 pm · Filed under 1. Genesis, Vayeshev

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger
Torah Portion: Vayeshev
“When they had been in custody for some time,  both of them — the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison — dreamed in the same night, each his own dream and each dream with its own meaning. . .  “(Bereshit/ Genesis 40:4-5)

Good afternoon! Our weekly Torah commentary production team has been on family leave for the past few weeks but we’re back and ready to learn again. This week’s portion, Vayeshev, begins the story of Yosef, who was Yaakov’s favorite son; this hardly endeared him to his brothers, who threw him in a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt. There once again he gets thrown into a dark place, after being falsely accused by his master’s wife. In prison, he correctly interprets the dreams of Pharaoh’s cup-bearer and baker and this begins his amazing ascent to power and prestige.

Let’s look for a moment at the verse above- it’s a bit clunky in both Hebrew and English. Both the cup-bearer and the baker dreamed a dream, so why does the verse need to say that “each dreamed his own dream?” Some commentators, including Rashi,  say that “each his own” along with “each dream with its own meaning” implies that each man dreamed his own dream but also the interpretation of the other’s dream- and that, in turn, is how they knew that Yosef was inspired in his own dream interpretation, because Yosef spoke what each man knew about the other.

I like this reading of the verse; it points toward a fundamental Jewish idea, that meaning is made in community. Each one of us is has our particular perspectives and limitations of knowledge and insight, but learning Torah and seeking truth together, we can create worlds of meaning greater than any one of us can on our own.

Yet perhaps the simple meaning of the verse is also important: the verse stresses that each man dreamed his own dream in order to show us that Yosef has matured from the days when he saw himself as the center of the universe. That’s exactly the symbolism Yosef himself used, for the dream of Yosef’s youth showed the stars, the sun and moon bowing down to him. Now, some time later, after some hard-won experiences which have taught Yosef humility and gratitude, he is able to understand that each person dreams their own dream- that is, each person is the center of a world, and we honor them by hearing well what they are truly saying. Yosef was able to discern the tragedy of one man’s life and the restoration of another’s because he heard them with humility and the recognition that truly knowing another is a gift from God.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

Vayera: Servant Leadership

November 11, 2011 at 1:46 pm · Filed under 1. Genesis, Vayera

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Vayera

“He took curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them; and he waited on them under the tree as they ate.” (Bereshit/ Genesis 18:8)

Good afternoon!

Our Torah portion, Vayera, opens with the famous scene of Avraham sitting in the opening of his tent, when he is visited by three men who eventually announce the birth of a son to Avraham and Sarah. Avraham doesn’t know these “men” are really angels or emissaries from the Holy One;  Rashi says they appeared to be just normal Arab travelers. Nevertheless, Avraham’s reaction is startling: he runs to greet them, invites them in, offers them food and drink, and instructs his servant to prepare a meal.

Now, never mind the apparent violation of mixing milk and meat together in the verse above; one could say that the laws of the Torah hadn’t been given yet, or one could simply point out that “curds and milk” come before the calf, and indeed even in a traditional understanding of Jewish dietary practices, one can have soft dairy like milk or yogurt right before meat, with only a quick rinse of the mouth and the table cleared between them. So let’s put that question aside, and focus on a different aspect of Abraham’s actions: his example of not only hesed, or kind generosity, but also his humility, in serving the guests himself, standing over them and attending to their needs.

The rabbis of the Talmud told a story in which several of the great sages attended a feast for the son of Rabban Gamliel, the leader of the rabbinic court, and marveled that R. Gamliel himself served the drinks to the guests. Rabbi Yehoshua pointed out that Avraham was the greatest man of his generation and yet stood over his guests and served them, so why not Rabban Gamliel? (Talmud Kiddushin 32b, quoted in the Torah Temimah.)

To me, this little story conveys so much about leadership, humility, and honor. Of course we should honor great sages and accomplished leaders; but they bring themselves even more honor through humble service to others. “Servant leadership” is a term you find these days in business books and journals, but it’s hardly an innovation: the ancient rabbis well understood that religious and moral growth is always correlated to great compassion and generosity, and these in turn are actions, made real through something as simple as serving a meal or welcoming guests.

In the view of the ancient sages, Avraham’s greatness was not in his status or prowess at war, but in the fine details of his ability to give. Seen this way, standing over guests and serving a meal is a profound and necessary religious act- indeed, who remembers that Avraham built an altar? Of greater importance was his example of humble service, which inspires to this day.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

Lech Lecha: The Wealth of a Kingdom

November 4, 2011 at 9:35 am · Filed under 1. Genesis, Lech Lecha

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Lech Lecha
“Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, ‘Give me the persons, and take the possessions for yourself.’  But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I swear to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth:, I will not take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of what is yours; you shall not say, ‘It is I who made Abram rich.’ ”  (Bereshit/ Genesis 14::21-22)
Good Morning! 

This week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, is mostly about the adventures of Avraham, who came from the east to the land of Canaan, only to descend to Egypt and come back. In an incident sometimes known as the “war of the five kings,” five kings of the land of Canaan fought against four other allied kingdoms, and in the middle of the battles, Avraham’s nephew Lot was taken captive. Avraham rouses his own small army of 318 men, pursues Lot’s captors, and rescues his nephew along with other inhabitants of the city of S’dom. 

Upon returning the captives of S’dom to their city, the king offers to let Avraham keep all the spoils of the war, and Avraham’s reply, quoted above, seems to convey almost contempt for the idea. Avraham seems to be refuting the idea that he would need or want a reward for rescuing his nephew,* but he does allow the king to pay him for his servant’s provisions. 

It strikes me that both Avraham and even the king of S’dom are drawing a distinction between what’s really valuable- the people- and what is of secondary importance: the property. Avraham was motivated to go to war to rescue his family member, and doesn’t want that motivation ever to be called into question, and even the king of S’dom seems to be mostly happy that his captured subjects have returned. One could argue that the king showed his true values in assuming that Avraham would be pleased by an offer of material reward, but for today, let’s assume that he, too, was happier for the safety of people than by the restoration of mere property, however valuable. 

This reading of Avraham’s refusal of reward makes sense to me after the great Halloween blizzard last week. For those who haven’t heard, the northeastern states got up to 18 inches of snow last weekend, which is often part of life around here, but not usually this early in the fall, when the leaves are still on the trees. The weight of the snow on the leafy trees brought branches down in great number, knocking out power, internet, telephone lines and even cell phone towers. We lost power by late Shabbat afternoon, and didn’t get it back for several days, but fortunately kind congregants with heat took us in and we were just fine. This past week I’ve heard the same thing over and over: it was a royal inconvenience that the power and internet was lost, but thank God, my family is OK. 

It shouldn’t take a freak snowstorm or a war of five kings to remind us of the obvious: at moments of danger or life transition, the things we think of as most valuable are not the material things we own but the spiritual relationships we treasure. For his nephew, Avraham would go to war, but if not for his family, the wealth of a kingdom is not worth a sandal strap. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

RNJL 

*For more on Avraham and the war of the five kings, do come to Shabbat services this week, when our bat mitzvah will expound upon these events and their application. Thanks for getting me to think about this story, Elianna! 

Leave a Comment

Noach: History and Imperfection

October 28, 2011 at 2:07 pm · Filed under 1. Genesis, Noach

Copyright 2011 Neal Joseph Loevinger

Torah Portion: Noach

“And Noach began, a man of the earth, and he planted a vineyard. . . . ” (Bereshit/ Genesis 9:20)

Good afternoon!

We’re reading the Torah portion Noach this week. The basic outline of the story is well known: Noach was chosen to built the ark, to save his family and the animal kingdom, when a great flood came upon the earth to wipe out humankind’s wickedness. After the floodwaters recede, God makes a covenant with Noach and the entire earth;  never again will there be such a catastrophe. Noach leaves the Ark and plants a vineyard- only to immediately get himself in trouble in a drunken episode which splits apart his children and family. (Cf. chapter 9.)

The ancient rabbis pick up on the phrase “a man of the earth”- ish ha’adamah – and relate it back to the first human family; they make the connection between Adam in the Garden of Eden and Noach being a man of the adamah, or earth. However, this is rebuke, not a compliment: they imagine that hint of Adam in adamah as God’s way of telling Noach: didn’t you learn from the first human what trouble a vineyard can be? (E.g., in this telling, the fruit in the Garden was grapes of the vine, but the point is about wine, not grapes.)

Certainly the plain meaning of this midrash is a warning against the poor judgement of drunkenness, which is an ever-present danger in human affairs from the very start. Fair enough, but remember that Noach is the second Adam, as it were; in the mythic telling, all humankind descends from Noach and his sons, making him the symbolic father of humanity as was the first Adam in the Garden.

Seen this way, Noach’s inability to learn from the mistakes of his predecessor is a sign that the rabbis believe this is a chronic imperfection of humankind: we are loath to learn from others, from history, from the disciplines of philosophy and ethics. It’s just too easy to go with what seems right at the moment. Being human is a serious business, requiring thought and reflection, but that’s our challenge, not our destiny.

One must note, however, that despite their impulsiveness, both Adam and Noach were worthy of Divine covenant. We, too, who are understood to be their children, are imperfect, but nevertheless beloved; we will make mistakes, as they did, but are given the opportunity to be builders of the world and partners with its Creator.

Shabbat Shalom,

RNJL

Leave a Comment

« Newer Posts · Older Posts »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.