Noah: Theology, Not History or Science

Torah Thoughts
Noah    Genesis 6:9 – 11:32
Theology, not history or science
November 1, 2008   3 Heshvan, 5769

Every year we begin the cycle of reading the Torah again, as though it were for the first time. We all know the stories at the beginning of the Bible. Most people would be able to summarize at least part of the stories, with some confusion of them mixed in. Many people incorrectly figure that Adam and Eve were the people created in the first story of creation, with the seven days of creation. Lots of people try to figure out if there was one man and one woman created in the second story, and they had two sons, how were they able to populate the world without incest? Many people see the Noah story as subsequent to the creation stories historically, since the Bible gives us some really interesting genealogies between the two, but includes life-records that are hundreds of years long. “Who calls that livin’ when no gal will give in to no man what’s 900 years.” (Porgy and Bess: It Ain’t Necessarily So)

When we take the stories literally, they make very little sense. People try to rationalize the first story of creation, saying that “days” could mean centuries (now we’re not literal anymore) and try to make the obvious contradictions between the stories appear to be resolvable. And I always equate all of these allegories to the Wizard of Oz, another great allegory. An allegory teaches lessons through a story, but most allegories are not meant to be taken as literal “truth”. The truth is in the meaning of the story to the reader, not the literal words.

But, in our society, we have presidents and Boards of Education, and leaders of faiths, people who are supposed to be “smart” trying to force these stories into molds that make no sense. The same way as we can never find the Gales’ house in the Wizard of Oz, we can’t find Noah’s Ark. They are both stories, allegories, not history or science. And unfortunately, we hear a lot of the nonsense about “creationism” and do not engage in discussions of what these stories are really about. We dismiss the nonsense, but don’t put out there often enough what the stories actually teach.  People who know these stories can’t be literally true end up feeling like they have to reject the entire Bible because these stories are not believable.

Look at it this way: when these stories were written, everyone knew that the world was flat. If we want to credit Columbus or Galileo or Copernicus with figuring out the shape of the world, or the place of the Earth in the Universe, they lived at least 2,000 years after these stories were written. The stories are about theology, not science, not history. They introduce us to G!d, establish our relationship as humans with G!d. They are theologically “true”, and there is no conflict for Jews between our value for science, knowledge, research, and these stories. A cartographer would never try to locate Oz in the Midwest, and no one should be looking for an Ark on any mountain.

The first creation story, with the seven days of creation, which has been the most misunderstood by the creation self-proclaimed “scientists”, is actually the most Jewish of the creation stories. Its purpose is to lead us to see that Shabbat is the culmination of creation, that humanity was created as a partner with Shabbat. Every other living thing was created in a way that could be self-reproduced. The seed-bearing fruits, the creepy crawlers, the sea monsters, all had ways to re-create. The only way for Shabbat to recreate is as a partner with humanity. The story has lots of other theological implications, but it is not about how the world was created – it’s about how Shabbat was created, and why Shabbat is so important to the Jewish people.

The second story of creation, the Adam and Eve story, is a creation story in and of itself, not built upon the first story in any way, and it teaches that humanity has free will. It also teaches that G!d learns, grows with us, and can be surprised by humanity. After all, when G!d is trying to come up with a help-mate for the man G!d created, G!d parades animals past the man, asking if they are the right help-mates for him. Animals, in the second story, were created as trial and error for G!d in finding a match for the man. Free will, implies that everything may not happen for a reason, that G!d doesn’t know what we are going to do before we actually do, that it’s ok for us to make mistakes and learn consequences for our choices.

The third story of creation, Noah, teaches the value of life. There was no appreciation for life, or the order of the world of living things in the Noah story. That was the sin of his generation. In the first creation story, the one with the seven days of creation, G!d creates order out of chaos. In this story, G!d creates order out of chaos (of Noah’s generation), and again, G!d is surprised by the behaviors of humanity.

The major purpose of the Noah story is to assure humanity of G!d’s Presence, to assure us of the natural ways of the world, and that G!d is a loving and caring G!d, despite the way it seems in the beginning of the story. G!d changes from angry to benevolent. The story assures us that G!d is involved and committed to benevolence. The Noah story ends with an affirmation of hope – G!d promises never to destroy the world again. G!d sets the rainbow to be a sign of the covenant that we can trust in G!d, and in the natural order of the world. The rainbow is the symbol that good can come from disaster.

The allegories are “true” as theology. not as science or history. When other people, with other agendas interpret them for their own purposes, we don’t have to agree with them, or lose track of their meanings for us. We need to constantly undo the miseducation that says that either one “believes” in these stories or one “believes” in science. For us, as Jews, science and religion can go hand in hand. There is no contradiction, and no need for people to dismiss religion based on not being able to “believe” in these stories. Once the stories are explained in their truest context, that of theology, understanding our relationship with G!d and the Universe, there is neither conflict nor contradiction, only opportunities to understand them deeper each time we read them.

May we continue to attempt to see the words of Bible in an ever-changing light, seeing that the truths we understand in one reading only lead us to find new truths the next time around. May we be blessed with the wisdom and understanding that these words are here to assure us that G!d is present in our lives, committed to benevolence. May we all create a world that reflects order and the value of life, as we are blessed beneath the rainbow of the radiant light of G!d’s Presence.

Sukkot and the Boogeyman

Torah Thoughts
Monday, October 13, 2008    14 Tishrei, 5769

Sukkot and the Boogeyman

During just these past few weeks we have experienced the worst global economic meltdown in history, accompanied by the media’s endless fear-mongering thereon. Now we fear recession, depression, pennilessness. When I was a kid, the boogeyman was the scariest guy out there. The ultimate in scary, the boogeyman was invented so we would have something to be really afraid of. How times have changed!

We’re approaching the “scary” time of the secular year, Halloween, when kids try to make people so afraid that they will give them candy to get them away from their doors. And we begin the festival of American Consumerism, which is sort of morphed into Hallothanksmas, a really scary blend of the three autumn/winter holidays. Just go to Disneyland to see what happens when all three morph into one holiday in The Haunted House. Skeletons with Santa Claus hats, ghouls circling presents under a tree, ghosts eating turkey at a Hallothanksmas table. (Scary because of the loss of their original meanings, and scary because the merging of these holidays only makes sense from the sales perspective.)

On the one hand, we celebrate and trivialize fear, and for us as adults, there are much more terrifying things than the boogeyman. We live at a time when fear abounds. During the last 7 years, we had the worst terrorist attacks on our nation, started a war in Iraq based exclusively on fears of weapons of mass destruction. Air travel has become an experience of reminding us that we “need” the Federal government to “protect” us from things we fear. Unlike Franklin Roosevelt, we hear from the government that we have everything to fear, not just fear itself.

I’m not doing a political commentary, but wonder about the impact of all the fear. We are celebrating the festival of Sukkot, the ultimate holiday of thumbing our noses at fear. Most of us try to live in places that are safe and secure, places where we can feel at home. We build sukkot to remind us of the fragility of our homes and our lives, the temporary nature of everything we have. Sukkot is a holiday of appreciation of what we have, even as life is so precarious. We build walls that are not really walls, a roof open to moon and stars, knowing that our sukkah could be blown down by a stiff wind, we could get soaked in the rain, as a reminder of the real source of shelter for us – the Holy Presence of G!d. The sukkah is a promise of the moon and stars in our lives, the spirit of the Holy One dwelling among us.

Sukkot reminds us that we were all wanderers in the desert and that we longed for a “permanent” home. Just like our people, a sukkah is constantly threatened, constantly in jeopardy. But we, and the sukkah, are still here. We do this incredibly silly thing of making a sukkah to remind us that we need not be so afraid. Individually, we do it to remind ourselves that we have managed to get through whatever challenges could have blown us away, and we’re still here.

We create a sukkah out of thin air. One minute it’s just some raw material – wood, fruit. Assembled, it’s a holy reminder place. The sukkah calls us to pay attention not just to our fears, but to the presence of G!d in our shakiest of times and places. The sukkah reminds us that no matter what we build, no matter how strong or how tall or how well reinforced, the healing and the hope come not from the building, but from what we put into it.

These can be frightening times for us as Americans. But there have always been uncertainties in the world, and always will be. We build sukkot, not bunkers. We are guaranteed insecurity, not security. We are assured by the shakiness of our sukkot that despite whatever else happens, we know we can find G!d and a place for G!d in our lives. We have always had boogeymen in the world, always had things that scare us, make us worry endlessly. But we get to decide how we’ll live today, how we’ll find meaning, how we’ll grow even in sickness, worry or adversity. We get to recognize that we can only do the best we can, and that that is actually enough. We get to take away all of the power of the boogeyman by telling him, in the words of Glenda, the Good Witch of the North: “Be gone. You have no power here.”

May it be Your will, Holy One, that we remember that nothing is more permanent or more unshakable than Your Presence with us. May we learn to seek Your Presence when we feel that the most shelter we have is a flimsy booth. May we see how our lives are filled with blessings as numerous as the stars we see when we sit in a sukkah, and may our world be illumined by a new light which comes from You.

Have a joyous holiday!!

Torah Thoughts – Ha’azinu

Torah Thoughts:  Ha’azinu
Deuteronomy 32:1-52
October 11, 2008   12 Tishrei, 5769

One of my favorite TV shows is My Name is Earl. Earl was a petty thief, a low-life scumbag. He “buys” a lottery ticket, wins, runs dancing into the street and is hit by a car. In the hospital in a body cast, he learns from a TV show about karma, and in every subsequent episode, he makes amends for one of the hundreds of things terrible things that he has done to others that are now on his “karma list” for him to undo. Each episode usually focuses on one of the people he has done something terrible to, and the implications and outcomes of his behavior. So Earl doesn’t just apologize, or seek forgiveness, he has to undo the damage that happened as a result of his behavior. He has to talk with each of the people he hurt so he can figure out what happened as a result of what he did.

If you haven’t seen the Sex and the City movie yet, it’s about people in relationships who do terrible things to one another, mostly through carelessness, passions, or fears.  Then they ask for, and ultimately receive, forgiveness. Each of the people who were hurt finds a way to forgive, and most of the movie revolves around their route to forgiveness. You may have thought the movie was about fashion or women who are friends, but it was clear to me that the authors wanted us to look at how to ask for forgiveness, and how to forgive others.

Both Earl and all of the characters in the Sex and the City movie do what our High Holiday season tells us to do. In the Talmud, Yoma 86b, Reish Lakish says “Great is repentance, for because of it, sins are turned into merits.” By redefining our attitudes, our values, our place in the universe, repentance redefines and recreates time, undoing our past sins. The essential nature of Yom Kippur is to freeze time, and within the frozen time, to rearrange our lives, redefine our existence, and rewrite our past. Moments from our past influence our future – we are who we are, and do what we do, because of where we have been, what we have experienced.

But none of the power to change can be there if we’re not willing to listen, to incorporate what we are hearing, to transform by paying careful attention, even to the details. The little things we do have the power to change everything. Earl listens to the people on his list; the characters in the movie listen, when they can, and ultimately hear the pleas for forgiveness. One has to listen; we hope G!d listens.

So I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first word of this week’s Torah portion is “ha’azinu”, literally “give ear”, or in less poetic form, “listen”. I didn’t get past the first word before I started asking questions about that word itself. Why is it “ha’azinu” and not the much more familiar word for listen, “shema”?  The first verse continues by using the word “shema” – let the earth “hear”.  So, in the first four words of the Torah portion, there is a reference to hearing twice. Later on in the Torah portion, Moses says to the people “Pay attention/take to heart these words which I have warned you this day”.

This Torah portion is a poem, almost at the end of the Torah. Moses is making his farewell speech to the people (in this Torah portion, he ascends Mount Nebo to go to his final resting place), in the form of a poem. Maybe it’s because we’re at the end, and people need to start paying attention already, really listening to what they have heard!

I was sitting in the last row in synagogue on Rosh Hashannah, my first time in 20 years as a congregant and not as someone on the bimah (I was a High Holiday cantor before I went to rabbinical school) and I couldn’t help but notice how many people were sitting and chatting, not paying attention at all to what was happening up front. While the cantor and choir were singing beautifully, and while the rabbi was providing insights into the worship and the Torah portion, so many people were not paying any attention at all! Perhaps the Biblical author knew our people’s proclivity for expressing our opinions, and not necessarily for being the best listeners!

In thinking about it, as a society, I’m not sure how good we are collectively as listeners. When I started teaching people how to volunteer to do bikkur holim (visit the sick), we spent substantial time training people to “actively listen”, to enable the people they were visiting to say what’s on their minds, and to know someone was listening. Even on TV, Dr. Frasier Craine’s welcoming line on his radio program was “I’m listening”. We pay people to listen to us when we have to be heard!

We read this Torah portion immediately after Yom Kippur. Is it asking, “Are you listening”? Have you paid enough attention? Have you really taken to heart the meanings of the holidays? Have you forgiven, and have you sought forgiveness? Are you listening and hearing, or are you just talking and missing what is being said to/at you?

Moses says “May my discourse come down as the rain; My speech distill as the dew… like droplets on the grass.” Let the gifts of G!d fall upon us, nurturing us like the droplets nurture the grass. Tiny, almost unnoticeable dew or mist. To notice the small droplets, you have to pay attention. G!d is constantly there trying to nurture us, but we can’t seem to find the nourishment. We’re not listening – we’re not paying enough attention to the droplets, to that which we miss when we go so fast, when we shut out by talking over. Maybe if we looked a little less for the big things, we could find G!d where G!d is, in the showers of blessings we tend to ignore each and every day, in the TV shows or movies that seem frivolous but actually may have deeper meanings. If we were paying more attention… The messages are out there; we just need to tune in, literally and metaphorically.

This holiday week, and throughout this New Year, may we all find G!d around each and every one of us like the droplets of dew on the grass, and may we all find healing and hope. May we pay attention, listen, to that which needs to be heard from our inner selves, from others, and may we truly become active listeners to the world around us.

Shanna tovah, and g’mar hatimah tovah. May we all be blessed with awareness of the dewdrops of G!d in our lives, so we may experience a truly good New Year.