Noach 5773

With a booming ‘thud,’ the massive door swung closed and the ark was sealed tight.  Whatever was inside would survive; whatever was outside would perish.  The rain began to fall.

The Noah story lays out the blueprint of the ark, including the vessel’s dimensions.  But it never mentions windows.  I imagine that the ark had none, that it was both sound proof and pitch black.  Sound proof, so that the inhabitants couldn’t hear the screams of people drowning around them. Pitch black, so that the survivors wouldn’t have to look each other in the face, couldn’t see each other react to the sounds of horror around them, didn’t share their relief when the cries for mercy finally stopped.  (“Whatever on dry land had the breath of life in its nostrils, died.  God wiped out all that existed on the face of the earth—human, beast, reptile, birds of the sky—they were wiped off the earth; there remained only Noah and those with him in the ark” [Genesis 7:22-23].)  Only when the last sob petered out, only when the last finger stopped scraping at the door, only then, I imagine, did Noah’s fireflies start to glow so that the survivors could get to work.

It is so easy to shut our eyes to the pain and suffering around us.  We work and go to school with people whose bellies aren’t full.  We drive past homeless people.  We look past the bruises hidden behind sunglasses.  We ignore the overwhelming suffering of those in the developing world. 

Will you be like Noah, sealed inside a bubble, eyes closed to the need around you?  Or will you be like the dove, who travels out into the world, searching for opportunity, returning  and returning to offer help and hope?

B'reshit 5773

We lead chaotic lives.

From the minute the alarm clock shrieks, we race from demand to demand, deadline to deadline.  Our kid yells that he won’t get dressed; we’re out of milk and have to schlep to get it.  The email piles up and the phone won’t stop ringing.  Heaven forbid a kid gets sick or the car needs new struts—then, life is simply overwhelming.  When does the “to do” list ever get done?  When does it get easy?

The world was turbulent like that once, says the Torah.  “When God was about to create heaven and earth, the earth was a chaos, unformed, and on the chaotic waters’ face there was darkness” (Genesis 1:1-2, The Torah:  A Women’s Commentary, URJ Press).  The world was “tohu vavohu,” words impossible to translate but evoking a proto-world that is unformed, stormy, writhing.  The word “t’hom,” translated here as “chaotic waters” and often as “the deep,” evokes the Mesopotamian goddess Tiamat, primordial and violent goddess of the sea.
But our God, Elohim, brings order to the madness, creating the world in a thoughtful, organized, highly structured way.  God tames the turbulence and brings it under control.  How does God first appear in the Torah?  “Then the ruach/wind of God glided over the face of the waters.”  God’s presence is a soothing breeze, a cosmic breath, the spirit of order.  God exhales across the madness and settles everything down.

When life is too chaotic, when it all becomes too much, remember what God did in the very beginning:  breathe.

Sukkot -- 5773

Any child can tell you about the three little pigs and the big bad wolf who huffs and puffs and blows their flimsy houses down.

As scholar Bruno Bettelheim interprets, the story, “The littlest pig built his house with the least care out of straw; the second used sticks; both throw their shelters together as quickly and effortlessly as they can, so they can play for the rest of the day.  Living in accordance with the pleasure principle, the younger pigs seek immediate gratification, without a thought for the future and the dangers of reality, although the middle pig shows some growth in trying to build a somewhat more substantial house than the youngest.”   The oldest pig, building with brick, understands the realities and dangers of the world.  Only he invests his time wisely.  By using solid materials, he protects his life from the ravenous wolf.

Judaism sees things differently from The Three Little Pigs, not surprisingly. 

On Sukkot, we live for a week in a flimsy booth.  Starlight and rain can pour through the roof, wind can blow through the walls, and bugs can bite our ankles.  All of these are physical realities and symbolic experiences of the vagaries of life.   We remind ourselves that the dangers of the world come in a variety of forms and that that bricks and concrete can’t really protect us.  No matter what kind of home we build, no matter how much stuff we accumulate, life can huff and puff and blow us down.  The world of matter is fleeting; the worlds of spirit and relationships endure.

For Jews, the flimsy house is not a sign of the pursuit of fleeting pleasure.  It is instead a reminder of the fleeting nature of our lives.

 

Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment:  The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Vintage Books, NY, 1975, as reprinted at www.shol.com/agita/pigpsych.htm.