Noach, 5784
A joke:
An older Jewish man was crossing the street, and was knocked down by a car that approached too closely. The driver stopped, and ran over, calling 911 along the way. He approached the man, relieved that he seemed OK, and cleared the way for the ambulance. “Are you comfortable”, he asked. “I make a living”, replied the older man” Noach/ Noah’s name means “comfort”
My Grandpa Charlie loved terrible jokes, puns, particularly, and it turns out that the verses of Torah in Noach are filled with puns and palindromes. Noach’s Dad names him in Genesis 5:28 (Sefarai source page) “When Lamech had lived 182 years, he begot a son.(29) And he named him Noah, saying, “This one will provide us relief*relief Connecting Noah with Heb. niḥam “to comfort”from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which יהוה placed under a curse.” Grace, in Hebrew, חן chet nun is the opposite spelling of Noach,נח nun chet, whose name actually means rest, not comfort. Y’nachamenu means comforts us, and regret is from this same root Y’nachem! G*d regrets and is sad, heart is pained, yityatzev about creation.
Also, Noach’s name from y’nachem, chontains cham – warmth or heat within it. Noach, comfort, Rachem -compassion from the word Hebrew “womb” to Chum/cham – warmth or heat. (Cham is In fact is is one of Noach’s son’s names. It’s comfortably warm in the womb, but too much warmth, just as too much passion, just like too much water, is dangerous.
And to draw attention to all the double entendres is a double trop mark on Noach’s name – two melodies in put to a very short word. Why all the word-play?Aviva Zornberg in her book “The Beginning of Desire” sees the Noach word scramble as an “uncreation/ de-composition” symbol. Another pun: What is Beethoven doing right now? Answer: Decomposing. (apologies)
Consider: in a world made by means of Divine Word, this fluidity can undermine the solid ground of creation.
Earth, air, fire and water, the four elements, parallel the four worlds of existence: Asiyah – physicality, the world of action, connected to earth; Yetzirah – formation, the world of emotion is connected to water; Beryiyah – creation, the world of the intellect is connected to air; and Atzilut – Divine inspiration is connected with fire.
These elements are out of balance, because of Human desires magnetically drawn to evil, becoming violent actions in the world.
What of G*d’s pain and sadness? It interestingly is a hyperlink to creation, in the pain of “growing up” and being kicked out of Eden, the woman’s curse is pain in childbirth, and Adam’s curse is painful hands from a land that is cursed in bringing out food. Lamech invokes this same word for pain in naming Noach. Is this perhaps how Lamech (a man) can birth a son? (Only kidding!)
Where does G*d’s pain come from? Humans, created as good, degenerate according to G*d. A quick recap of creation up to here
One of the first acts of creation was for G*d to create order from chaos (tohu vavohu) first day light and dark separate, second day the waters above separate from the waters below, third day dry land and polants. Each was created with words “let there be…”, and after each, G*d pronounces “Tov” – Good.
Skip ahead to the sixth day, from the dust of four colors, from the four corners of the earth, and Divine breath, humans are created. Now water is essential to life, and our #1 ingredient. But too much drowns.
Now G*d want’s to undo this order, release the chaos of the waters.
The fourth element is fire. Noach’s name if it comes from y’nachem, has cham – warmth or heat.
Noach, comfort, Rachem – womb like compassion may also be related to Rechem, and to Chum/cham – warmth or heat. In fact is is one of Noach’s son’s names. It’s comfortably warm in the womb, but too much warmth, just as too much passion is dangerous.
Earth, air, fire and water, the four elements, parallel the four worlds of existence:
Asiyah – physicality, the world of action, connected to earth
Yetzirah – formation, the world of emotion is connected to water
Beryiyah – creation, the world of the intellect is connected to air
and Atzilut – Divine inspiration is connected with fire.
They must be in balance, what has thrown out the balance?
There have been ten generations from creation to Noach. Which has changed from Tov to Rah, from Good to Bad in the course of ten generations! How can that have happened. Aviva Zornberg in her book about Genesis, The beginning of Desire, entitles this section: “The collapse of G*d project”. She draws particular attention to the wordplay, scrambling of Noach’s name. Just to draw attention to Noach’s name, the trope is crazy: look here, it says “pay attention”! Zornberg sees the word scramble as an “uncreation/ de-composition” symbol
We are still left with the question, what caused the collapse of the G*d project?
Humans, created good degenerate according to G*d,
Somehow violence has become the rule, and not just for humans, for all creatures, The earth was becoming ruined, and each creature was destroying its pathway on the earth. That magical space between creatures, the relationships went bad.
The Sefat Emet, writing about Rosh Hashanah asks the following: If at Sinai, G*d carved upon our hearts an eternal nekudah kedoshah, why must we pray and yearn each year: kotvenu l’chayim? Sefat emet reminds us what Cain learned – that sin has it’s erotic ddesire for you, and so you go for it, blocking, covering that holy spark. And so we must always be vigilant, always do teshuvah, always open our hearts! Otherwise entropy and complacency sets in.
We see degeneration of democracies across the world. Like microbes evolving resistance to antibiotics, we know we must be ever vigilant, and not to take for granted our gifts. Antibiotics were life giving, we took them for granted, used way too much, inappropriately, and know the microbes are resistant, the gift spoiled.
Noach means comfort. Can there be too much comfort? Did the craving for comfort drive the degeneration of the human world?
According to quote investigator Chicago humorist Finley Peter Dunne wrote a popular syndicated column featuring the distinctive voice of Mr. Dooley.The following appeared within a 1902 column titled “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper Publicity”. Newspapers serve to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable! I’ve heart the same quoted to explain how faith tradition serves us.
Too much comfort, making your comfort a core value at the expense of compassion is not a good thing. Too much comfort is called complacency.
Complacency strains the strings on the American work ethic value. Don’t be complacent, urges our society, Do something! Yet Pirke avot says coaches us with the wisdom of who is rich? The one who is happy with their lot. In other words, and this is a mantra of mine, the practice of Gratitude is a pathway to true happiness,
A story by Dr. By Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener A researcher in the field of positive thinking around the world went to Kolkata, India (or Calcutta) to research happiness in one of the radically impoverished communities of the world. ‘was everyone miserable all day long, he wondered?
But a scholar took warned “Be careful,” “People are going to hate your research. If you find that the people there are happy, they will criticize you for it. Specifically, they will say that you are painting a picture of the poor as being complacent.”
research by a team at the University of Virginia : are happy people complacent.would be less motivated to address society’s problems? …using a sample of more than 2 thousand people of all ages, they focused on environmental concerns. They discovered that unhappy people were prone to worry about the climate but not necessarily more likely to engage in more environmentally friendly behaviors. By contrast, the happiest people worried the least worried and were the most likely to take action!
Btw, the study in India revealed worry, and also high self-esteem, stable relationships, and also moments of joy enough to motivate them to affect change.
So comfort is good. Noach was a righteous dude, and walked with G*d, only the second connection since expulsion from Eden. And Noach finds grace/ hen in G*d’s eyes. R Rami Shapiro’s book, amazing chesed, says that grace is like the sun, a gift of shefa that always shines down. It’s like love
Midrash Tanhumah explains G*d’s relationship to Noach with this story. “This is like one (echad) who was traveling along and saw another traveler (echad) and sought his company. To what extent? Til he formed bonds of love with him” Echad + Echad in gemaatria 13 + 13 = , also Ahavah, love adds up to 13, 13 + 13 = 26, which is the gematria for G*d’s name YHVH
From this love, according to the same midrash, Noach learns the feeding schedule of the animals, how to keep them alive.
One last link to pain and what how we respond. In B’resheet, last week’s parashah, the first murder was the response to pain. G*d rejects Cayin’s offer and accepts his brother’s. Cayin, the first child is furious. His “face falls.” G*d then reaches out to Cayinn “Why is your face fallen?” G*d asks?
Cain never answer’s G*d question.
There are no more words.
Even Noach doesn’t talk to G*d.
What if Cain had given voice to his rage, or if Noach had discussed the situation with G*d,
And with the lack of words, destruction begins.
The universe is young, and G*d in pain and sadness destroys creation.
Does this mean we should be like this, destroy when we feel sad or hurt?
Well, NO!
The ending of Noach comes a promise never again to destroy with water! The rainbow is that sign.
From Grace and love, we must learn the “feeding schedule of the animals” This earth is a teva, an ark in space, lonley and precious.
Miryam's Space 