From Noah to Moses: an ethical evolution

Today is the third day of Passover but, ironically, I have spent the last couple days focused more on Noah than Moses -- all because of a recent conversation about Darren Aronofsky's new blockbuster movie, Noah.  Never has a movie so clearly illustrated the vast gap between Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Bible.  Judging from the reviews, it's one of those films you will either love or hate, depending on your theology.

I myself have not yet seen the film.  My wife and I were planning to go today, but then we got buried again by a Minnesota snowstorm, and as of this writing, our road is not plowed yet.  So this post won't be a movie review.  Rather, it's a discussion of the Jewish take on Noah, and why he is not considered to be as great a prophet as Moses. 


Classical depiction of the Ark

Because I have not yet seen the movie, I'll limit myself to the Biblical text (even though the movie does not), as seen through the lens of Jewish commentaries.  But for those who have seen Noah, this might give you some insight into how the Jewish director and his Jewish co-writer (Ari Handel) interpreted the character of Noah in a Jewish light.   (For an excellent compilation of Jewish reactions to the film, see The Jewish Roots of and Responses to Noah.) 

The kiddie version

All of us -- Jews and non-Jews alike -- grew up with the children's story of Noah as a kindly old man caring for animals on a floating zoo in order to save them from extinction.  I myself have used that imagery when talking about modern ecological issues.   So have many environmentalists, religious or not.  It's a beautiful story, and my intent here is not to criticize those who tell it that way.

However, when we look at the biblical text as adults, there are a number of perplexing questions.  The children's story ends with the appearance of the rainbow and all the happy animals leaving the Ark.  We don't talk about how Noah got so drunk afterward that he was lying in the tent in a naked stupor  (Genesis 9:18-23).  Nor do we ask why he didn't try to save  more people, or at least convince them to build their own boats -- or how the neighbors might have reacted to Noah as the crackpot who was building a ship in the middle of the desert.   Nor do we talk much about the unfairness of him cursing his grandson Canaan's descendants for all eternity (Genesis 9:25-27).

Russell Crowe's gritty portrayal of
Noah shows his fallible, human side.
(Photo courtesy of Paramount)

Jewish tradition does address these questions and takes a long hard look at Noah as a fallible human being.  The Torah tells us that he was "righteous in his generation" (Genesis 6:9)  Christians tend to read this as saying that he was a saint.  Judaism takes the opposite view: In his generation he stood out as righteous compared to all the evil people around him, but if he had lived in the time of Abraham, he would have been a nobody.  In the pre-Flood days, the behavioral bar was set so low, it didn't take much to be seen as a righteous man.

Unlike Abraham, who, when told by God that the city of Sodom will be destroyed, argues on behalf of the innocent who will also die, Noah just says, in effect, "Sir, yes sir!" and follows orders without question.  He builds an Ark to save himself, but shows no concern for the rest of humanity -- or the animals not aboard the Ark, for that matter.  This, according to Jewish tradition, is not righteous behavior.  God does not want us to save ourselves and to heck with the rest of the world.  Noah may have been the best "righteous man" God could find in that era, but he was far from perfect. 

We could argue that Abraham had the benefit of learning from Noah's mistakes.  So, when confronted with the same moral dilemma -- although on a smaller scale -- he responds by coming to the defense of the righteous living among the wicked (Genesis 18:24-32). Then he "bargains" with God about how many righteous it would take to save the city.  Abraham stops at "what if there are ten righteous people" because he assumes that Lot's family will make up the quorum.  But only Lot, his wife, and two daughters heed the warning to leave, so the city is destroyed after all.  But at least Abraham tried to save some of the people.

Moses talks with God
through a Burning Bush

Moses, when confronted with a similar challenge, goes even further than Abraham; he argues not only on behalf of the innocent, but on behalf of the guilty as well.   He stands up for the whole community.

The scene is this:  Moses is still up on the mountain, receiving the Torah, while the people below are making and worshipping the Golden Calf idol.  God tells Moses about this blasphemy, and says He will destroy all the people and start a new line with Moses (Exodus 32:7-11). This, on a smaller scale, is the same thing God told Noah:  Let's push the "reset"  button and I'll start over with you.

But Moses reacts differently from Noah.  He doesn't just follow orders, nor does he accept the offer of founding the new chosen line.  Instead, he argues on behalf of all the people -- righteous and sinners alike.  God accepts Moses' plea (or prayer, since he is talking to God) and does not destroy the Israelites, even though they have just committed the most heinous sin of sins by worshipping a false god  (Exodus 32: 12-14).   It is true that some people are later slain by sword or plague, but God makes it clear that "he who has sinned against me, him only will I blot out "(Genesis 32:33).  There is now personal accountability for misdeeds, not collective guilt.

These stories are not about God "making mistakes" or "changing His mind."  It is about the very Jewish idea that God's judgments are not always written in stone, and that, as the Yom Kippur liturgy says, "repentance, prayer, and charity avert the evil decree."  It is about the evolution of human consciousness from self-centeredness to caring about others.  It is about the spiritual power of a real change of heart, and about taking personal responsibility for tikkun olam, "repairing the world." 

Thus we have the following progression:  Noah, when told God will destroy the world but save him and his family, offers no argument on behalf of the world; Abraham, when told God will destroy a city, argues on behalf of the righteous; Moses, when told God will destroy the whole tribe and start over with him, argues on behalf of everybody.  From this we learn that Judaism is about community, not just saving yourself.  And that is why, from a Jewish standpoint, Noah is not considered to be such a great saint.  After the Flood story he is hardly mentioned at all.

So I find myself wondering:  What if Noah had challenged God's desire to wipe out every living thing on the planet? Would God have relented then, as He did with Moses later?  Does Noah bear some responsibility for the destruction of the Flood?  And does this lesson have anything to teach us today about our responsibility to each other, and to the planet?  Do we just sit back and wait for Judgment Day to come and "cleanse" the earth of wickedness, or do we take action in the here and now to "avert the evil decree?"

Building my own Sukkah from stuff in the woods

Last week I spent three days building my sukkah, the little booth that Jews erect for the Festival Sukkot.   The sukkah has many meanings.  First of all, it reminds us of the days of wandering in the wilderness with Moses.  It also teaches us that this life is a journey through a world that is not permanent.  And it is a celebration of the harvest, the time when we have gathered in our crops and can enjoy the fruits of our labors.

White pine for shchach --
courtesy of road maintenance!

The basic requirements for building a sukkah are simple:  It must have 3 walls, and the shchach (roof covering) must be made of natural materials cut from the earth.  The sides can be made from anything handy, including the wall of an existing building if you build it against the house or other structure.  However, the location must be open to the sky, not under a tree or other obstruction.

Nowadays you can buy prefab sukkah kits made out of plywood or various other materials in a variety of designs.  However, these are rather pricey and way beyond our tight budget.  Besides, my wife and I are getting a bit old to be hauling heavy plywood panels in and out of the shed each year.  So, I called upon my old Boy Scout skills to lash together a framework of saplings that I cut from the woods on my own land. 

I use nylon twine instead of the old sisal kind, because, although it is harder to tie permanent knots with, it does not rot or stretch, although some kinds will degrade in a couple years from exposure to sunlight.  But for a sukkah it's fine.  Through trial and error, I found that tying it off with a square knot, followed by three overhand knots up tight against the first knot, pretty much keeps the ends from untying.

This creates a rather permanent frame that I leave up after the holiday, making repairs each year as needed.  However, last winter the snow was so unusually heavy, it collapsed the whole thing (read that story), so I had to start over from scratch.  But I can't really complain, because the old sukkah frame had lasted over 10 years.  Still, it is a lot of work to drag all those new poles in from the woods.  Not to mention finding appropriate trees in the first place.

Andy Cat, one of my "helpful"
construction workers who loves string!

Luckily, I had a bit of help from a road maintenance crew.  About two  weeks before I began my sukkah-building project, they came through and cut down a bunch of trees and brush along our road for fire control.  This gave me a set of nice straight maple poles -- all the verticals in the new sukkah frame are made from this free material.  I also got a good supply of white pine branches from trees they trimmed that were overhanging the road.  That, plus prunings from my own white pine that had bent down too low to mow under, gave me enough shchach to cover the sukkah.  Not only was this economical, it was also ecological, because I used materials that would otherwise have gone to waste.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Here is what the sukkah looked like after I got the basic framework up.  Four cinder blocks help to anchor it in place.   It still needs some more diagonal braces, which I installed after this picture was taken.  (I used a flash at early dawn,  to show up the frame better against the trees in the background.)

Covering the sukkah was a challenge this year, because most of the old sheets and bedspreads I used before were either torn or moldy.  My wife is very allergic to mold, so I had to throw most of it out and start over.   Because Rosh HaShanah had come back-to-back with the Sabbath, and Yom Kippur was on the Sabbath itself this year, I could not take advantage of all those Friday garage sales to find more used cloth.   Not to worry --  I did have a lot of feed sacks and some clear plastic on hand, so I used those instead.  To keep the wind from tearing these rather fragile materials off the frame, I put a strip of corrugated cardboard over the plastic where I was stapling to the wood.   That reinforced it very well.  The cardboard, of course, came from old boxes I got at the grocery.

Here is how the sukkah turned out.  The outside table has a bucket of water for the ritual handwashing, and there is room for more chairs around the card table if needed.  The side table is very handy for setting dishes aside.  Both of the low gray tables, by the way, are ones we already had for flea market sales,  A fourth wall could be added in front, perhaps by hanging a blanket, but that would have prevented me photographing the inside for this blog post.  Besides, we enjoy looking out at the scenery.

Definitely primitive, but functional.  And much closer to what Moses actually used.  He certainly didn't have any plywood on hand.  Then again, he didn't have any plastic, either.  (He probably used animal skins.)   But still, this sukkah did well to evoke the story of wandering in the wilderness.  Spiritually, what I got from this whole project is that we are to bloom where we are planted, and that God will provide for us, be we must also be creative in using what is available.  "Who is rich?  He who is satisfied with his portion!" (Talmud, Pirkei Avot.)  And by the way:  The whole thing only cost me about $15 out of pocket, for the nylon twine and some staples.  Thoreau would have been so proud!

(UPDATE 2012:  This year, the sukkah got an upgrade:  I was able to find enough old sheets at the thrift store to cover it with cloth instead of old feed sacks.  Since we took "salvage" quality rejects, we got enough for the whole sukkah for $5. The schach this year is tall grass and goldrenrod stalks.  My wife added the "woman's touch" with some fall-themed decorations.  It was also her idea to use the flowered sheet for the front -- making it nice and homey-looking.   And BTW, although the frame now leans a bit where it has settled in since last year, it is still good and sturdy, although I did add a few more diagonal braces.)

The sukkah upgraded in 2012

Here's a picture from 2019.  When we put in a ramp a couple years ago, we had to move the sukkah.  The only place near the house not shaded by a tree was farther away, so we set up a row of solar garden lights leading to it, and a solar spotlight inside. Also got a better folding table.

Revised version with solar lights

Unplugging for God and nature

The past two days were the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which is both the Feast of First Fruits and the commemoration of the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.  (For our first fruits, we ate our first leaf lettuce of the year from our garden.  In addition to liturgy, we like to tie our holidays in with what is happening in nature.)  On the major holy days, as on the Sabbath, religious Jews do not use the phone, computer, TV,  CD player, radio, or other electronic communications devices.  No texting, blogging, surfing, chatting, gaming, etc.  No, we don't turn off the electricity -- the lights and fans were still on -- but we do unplug from the endless chatter of the outside world.

My non-Jewish friends cannot conceive of doing this.  "What if there is an emergency?  How will people contact you?" Well, if it is really an emergency, then I will hear the sirens, see the tornado, or the police will come to my door.  Anything less than that can wait.   And you know what?  We survive being unplugged just fine.  In fact, we more than survive -- we actually enjoy it.  Turning off all the human chatter gives us the quiet space to enjoy the natural sounds in the woods around us.   Birds, frogs, toads, insects, the rustle of the wind in the leaves -- how can you hear these things if you are always plugged into your ipod? 
In 1987, as part of a series of lessons on kabbalah (49 Gates of Light), I wrote the following about Moses and the Burning Bush: 

What is genius? Perhaps it is the ability to see familiar things in a new and different way. For example, how long did it take Moses to realize that the burning bush was not being consumed? After all, this was something he had never encountered before. Most of us would probably have glanced at it and said, “Oh look, there's a bush on fire.” Then, shrugging our shoulders, we would have continued on our way. But Moses took a little more time. Turning aside to investigate, he became personally involved. Only then, the Midrash tells us, did God call out, “Moses, Moses.”

The question is, how many other potential prophets have missed their opportunity to receive, simply because they were distracted and did not recognize the vision? In this fast-paced world of ours, it’s so easy to say, “I don't have the time.” Yet in order to receive inspiration, we must be willing to make time for the Creator to speak to us.

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was fond of saying that a person who does not have an hour of solitude with God each day was not truly human. By this he meant that we were created to be channels of God's blessing. If we do not make time in our lives for this, we are not fulfilling our purpose. To be truly human is to bridge heaven and earth, to join together the spiritual and material worlds. To do this, we must listen to the "still, small voice" speaking to us from the Silence.  (From  49 Gates of Light: A course in Kabbalah, 2010 revised edition.  Also available as a download on Lulu.com on my Lulu Storefront page.)  )

This is even more true today.  I recently read about a survey where college students were asked about their use of electronic devices, and a large percentage said they cannot go for more than ten minutes without checking their email or Twitter or whatever.  And here I am, turning off the whole Internet for 26 hours every Sabbath, and two days for the Festival of Shavuot.   Not only that, but I do not carry a phone everywhere I go, because I don't want to talk to you or anyone else when I am out communing with God and nature.

In his now-classic book, The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described it as "a palace in time."  He was the first Jewish theologian to spell out for the Western world how traditional Jews live more in time than space.   While gentiles tend to travel to sacred places to feel holy, Jews have sacred times that we carry with us.  The Sabbath is a portable sanctuary, a retreat that you can have anywhere.   This is not to disparage the importance of sacred space, but if you clutter that space up with emails and text messages, then where is the holiness?  When we prepare for the Sabbath, we speak of creating the "Sabbath space."  By this we mean more than just setting the table.  We are creating an atmosphere where we can interact with God, nature, and each other in a personal, "be here now" kind of way. 

The Sabbath is based on the Seventh Day of Creation, when God rested.  It is not that God got tired.  Rather, God ceased creating, thereby making it possible for us to do the same.  On the Sabbath, we are not doing our busy-ness.  We are free to just be.   Try it sometime:  Turn off your phone, don't log on, don't play video games or watch TV, etc. for a whole day.    Instead, watch and listen to the real world around you.  Who knows?  You might even discover your own equivalent of a burning bush.