From Heart of Jerusalem

Learning to live together, with our differences

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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 join a 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. It was the summer of 2006.

For a few weeks his battalion was kept in reserve. Finally, the commander gathered them together and announced they were being given a 20 hour leave to see their families; it was clear they would be heading into Lebanon the next day, and they all went 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 clear to all present that this goodbye was different from anything they had 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 wartime?

The following morning, Avi’s father insisted on driving him up to the border and was uncharacteristically quiet during the drive. When Avi’s dad got out of the car to give his son a farewell hug, Avi saw the tears in his father’s eyes. When you only have a moment — how 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?

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 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 needed to destroy the world, then His experiment (of creating the world in the first place) was a failure, which might imply that G-d had an idea that didn’t work. 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?

Finally, when G-d decided to destroy the world, He doesn’t just destroy mankind, but all of creation: “And Hashem 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 6:5)

Why must all the animals be destroyed if it was man who had become destructive? 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 does Noach need to spend what will amount to an entire year living in an Ark which is essentially the largest zoo in history?

• • •

Pirkei Avot 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.) The way in which these generations are listed follows a specific pattern:

And Adam lived 30 and 100 years and gave birth … and his name was called Shet. And the days of Adam after giving birth to Shet were 800 years and he had sons and daughters. And all the days of Adam that he lived were 900 and 30 years and he died. (5:3-5)

Each of the ten generations between Adam and Noach follows this same pattern, concluding with the total lifespan of each individual.

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 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.

• • •

When the world was created, human beings were the final pinnacle of creation. The Torah points out (see 2:5 and Rashi ad loc) that prior to man’s creation, plants and grasses 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.

• • •

There is a beautiful Midrash 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 new reality in which man would 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 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.

Rabbi Freedman is rosh yeshiva at Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem. To reach him, write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com. This column was previously published.