Learning to live together in the world

He looked like a teenager, until he began to tell his story, and then his face took on a sadness that aged him….

Avi (not his real name) had only recently finished his regular army stint in the IDF, and was due to fly to South Africa as part of a very special educational mission to work with less-affiliated Jewish teens in South Africa.

The night before his flight, he received a phone call with emergency call-up orders, and the next morning, instead of buckling his seatbelt on an airplane, he found himself on the Lebanese border at the beginning of the second Lebanon war in the summer of 2006.

For a few weeks his battalion was kept in reserve, as the high command debated when and how they would best be needed.

Finally, the Battalion commander gathered them all together one afternoon and announced they were being given a twenty hour leave to see their families; it was clear they would be heading into Lebanon the next day, and they all headed home with heavy hearts and much anticipation.

For Avi, it was one of the most intense experiences he had ever had. The abrupt call-up had left him without any chance to say goodbye to his friends and family, including siblings who had been away from home, and when the family heard he was coming home for an evening, everyone dropped everything, and the evening turned into a mass reunion.

It was very clear to all present that this goodbye was different from anything they had ever experienced before, as they might never see each again. How, indeed, do you say goodbye to your son who is headed back to combat, in war-time?

The following morning Avi’s father insisted on driving him up to the border, and was uncharacteristically quiet the entire drive up; Avi understood his father was trying to keep it together, and neither one of them wanted to ‘let the floodgates open’….

When they arrived at the base, Avi’s dad got out of the car to say goodbye and give his son a farewell hug, and it was then that Avi saw the tears in his father’s eyes…. How, after all, do you say goodbye to your son, knowing you may never see him again? And how do you say thank you to your father, for a lifetime of love, when you only have a moment to say it?

And as Avi walked through the base parking lot towards the main gate, he passed a very pregnant young woman, sitting in her car weeping, having obviously just bid a similar farewell to her husband, and then he passed a set of parents in a long powerful embrace with their son, and then he looked around the massive parking area, suddenly realizing that for as far as his eye could see, there were hundreds of cars, repeating this very same scene.

This week’s portion, Noach, contains one of the most challenging stories in the entire Torah: the story of the Flood.

Essentially, G-d created a world and placed us in it, but somehow we messed it up and G-d decided to destroy the world and start over.

But if G-d needs to destroy the world, then obviously the experiment (of creating the world in the first place) failed, which seems to imply that G-d had an idea that didn’t work! But of course, this makes no sense, because if G-d knows everything, then G-d knew this wouldn’t work, so why create it in the first place?

One might suggest that part of the process of creation, and particularly the ongoing and ever-unfolding drama of the creation of the world is precisely for mankind to experience the world that didn’t work so that it could be destroyed and a newer model created (after the flood) which did work.

However, even assuming the validity of this process, the question as to the nature and scope of this destruction still stands.

When G-d decides to destroy the world, He doesn’t just destroy mankind, but in fact all of creation:

“And Hashem (G-d) said I will erase man whom I created from the face of the earth, from man to animal, to the creatures that crawl, to the birds of the sky for I have relented that I made them….” (Bereishit (Genesis) 6:5)

Why must all the animals and indeed all life be destroyed? After all, if it is man who has become destructive, why are the animals to blame?

Indeed, it seems that there is something significant to be discerned from the focus on the animals here, especially when one considers that G-d commands Noach to bring a pair of creatures from every living species (6:19-20) of bird and animal into the Ark. Why on earth does Noach need to spend what will amount to an entire year living in an Ark which is essentially the largest zoo in history?

The Mishna (Rabbinic teaching) in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) teaches that there were ten generations from Adam till Noach, and ten generations from Noach till Abraham (perhaps suggesting that Noach was a pivotal link in the history of the world.) And the Torah delineates the generations as they were born both in Genesis 5 (which lists the generations from Adam till Noach) and in Genesis 11 (which lists the generations from Noach till Abraham).

And the way in which these generations are listed follows a very specific pattern:

“And Adam lived thirty and one hundred years and gave birth… and his name was called Shet. And the days of Adam after giving birth to Shet were eight hundred years and he had (many) sons and daughters. And all the days of Adam that he lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (5:3-5)

And each of the ten generations between Adam and Noach follows this same pattern, concluding with how long the total life span of said individual was.

However, in the delineation of the generations from Noach (after the flood) till Abraham, the final verse, listing the total life span and the individual’s death, is missing. Why the difference?

Perhaps this is the key to understanding the totality of the story of the Flood.

Before the Flood the listing of generations is focused very much on each individual: on the totality of his life and the fact that he died. But after the Flood, it is not the individual that is important, but rather his place in the chain that brings the world forward, closer to the generation of Abraham.

Perhaps what is really different in the world before the Flood, and the new reality afterwards, is the relationship between mankind and the rest of creation.

When the world is created, human beings are the final pinnacle of creation, and the entire world is really created just for them. In fact, the Torah points out (see 2:5 and Rashi ad loc.) that prior to man’s creation the plants and grasses of the field did not sprout forth as there was no rainfall, because man had not yet been created. In other words, the world existed to benefit man, so if man didn’t yet exist there was no point yet to creation.

Thus, when G-d decides to destroy mankind, in essence there is no longer any purpose to the world, which may be why the animals and all life are destroyed as well.

But something has to change, so Noach and his family spend an entire year in an Ark full of animals: because in that Ark, Noach learns that as much as the earth was created for us, we also need the earth, and we are all living, ultimately in one great ark.

There is in fact a beautiful Midrash (Rabbinic teaching) that has Shem (the son of Noach) describing to a young Avram what it was like to be in the Ark:

“Avraham asked Malki-Tzedek (Shem): ‘How did you merit surviving in the ark?

‘Through giving (tzedakah)’ he responded.

‘But what kind of tzedakah could you do on the Ark? There were certainly no poor people there!’ asked Avraham, to which Shem responded: ‘Tzedakah for all the animals; we never slept, spending instead our entire time taking care of all the animals!” (Midrash Tehillim 37:1)

In other words, the Torah describes that the world was destroyed because of robbery and adulterous behavior, all of which are the self-centered actions that result from a society based on self. If the world is created for me, then ultimately I am all that matters. So the ark became the incubator for a whole new world where man would learn to live in harmony with the entire world.

Ultimately it is not that Noach and his ark save all the animals; rather, all the animals in the ark is what will save Noach.

There is no experience in Israel that breaks down our boundaries more than war. And in a lonely parking lot full of people experiencing the same moment of pain, there were no lines, because all the differences were left at home.

The Jews (and non Jews) who filled that parking lot were left wing and right, ‘religious’ and less so (whatever that means), with kippot and without, and of every background imaginable.

Today, more than ever, we need to remember that we are all really one family, and that all of us, in this great ark we call a world, need to work a little harder at learning to live, love, and even let go, together.

Shabbat Shalom,

R. Binny Freedman

Rav Binny Freedman, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City is a Company Commander in the IDF reserves, and lives in Efrat with his wife Doreet and their four children. His  weekly Internet ‘Parsha Bytes’ can be found at www.orayta.org