Mitzvah d'var

Isn’t it wonderful that a girl who loves animals so much got to do a Torah portion that is all about them?!

My Torah portion is from Genesis chapter 6, it is about the story of Noach.

Noach lived in a time when the earth was corrupt and humans were evil. God saw this corruption and decided that it needed to end. God decided to destroy the earth, but realized the earth would eventually need to be repopulated, so God looked for the most righteous human to save, and that man was Noach.

God told Noach to build an ark because God’s plan was to use a flood to destroy humanity. This Torah portion includes very specific instructions concerning the construction and use of the ark, as well as the plans for the animals which involved putting two of every kind of animal, bird and insect into the ark.

It took seven days of constant rain to create the flood. Noach boarded the ark with his sons, their wives, and all the pairs of living creatures. It rained for 40 days and nights, and all except those sheltered on the ark perished.

After 190 days and nights, God remembered the ark, and its cargo, and blew a wind across the earth to make the waters evaporate. Not all the water left though, and Noach could not see any land from the ark. So, Noach opened a window, and let a dove free. When the dove returned the dove was holding an olive leaf in its beak, indicating it had found land. God told Noach that everyone was now allowed to leave the ark, so they did. Once on land Noach built an Altar, upon which every clean animal or bird made an offering.

God was grateful for the offerings, and God said “I have set my Rainbow in the cloud as a sign of My Covenant with you. When I see My Rainbow in the clouds I will remember my Covenant and never again will I destroy every living thing with water as I have done.” 

For me, as well as for many rabbis, this Torah portion brings up the question of what is it that makes someone righteous, and for me specifically how righteous do you have to be to be considered righteous.  Noach was selected by God because he was righteous, but many rabbis, and I too, wonder if he was only righteous compared to all the other humans of the time, most of whom, we learn, were corrupt.

In the Torah it says that Noach was righteous, and then it says “he was blameless in his age”, this is the reason that the rabbis discuss his righteousness.  It leaves room to compare him and his righteousness to other righteous figures in Judaism such as Abraham or Moses which raises the question of whether righteousness is absolute or whether righteousness is relative.

The famous medieval rabbi, Rashi wondered the same thing.  He wrote and I quote  “he [Noach] was righteous even in his generation; it follows that had he lived in a generation of righteous people he would have been even more righteous owing to the force of good example. Others, however, explain it to his discredit: in comparison with his own generation he was accounted righteous, but had he lived in the generation of Abraham he would have been accounted as of no importance.” end of quote.

The rabbi Jacob Sforno says that Noach quote  “walked in God's way trying to be helpful to others, and to instruct and if necessary to rebuke them, as our sages pointed out.” end of quote.

According to an article on righteousness from the Jewish Virtual Library quote “Righteousness is not an inherent human characteristic, but rather a learned trait resulting from sustained performance of obligations.” end quote - It adds that humans can never attain the peak of righteous perfection: quote "For there is not a righteous man upon earth that does good and does not sin. The impossibility of achieving absolute righteousness, however, does not preclude the constant striving toward this end.” end quote In other words no one is perfect, an excuse that I use often when I have done something that my parents don't exactly approve of.

These are all interpretations of righteousness, but what does Nora interpret as righteousness? For a while I did not know, and I asked so, so many questions to try to understand my own thoughts.

Can you be both a righteous person and an unrighteous person at the same time? AND If the answer to that question is yes, then I have another question.  Although I really don’t like math, my question is what is the righteous to unrighteous ratio for a righteous person?

What I’m thinking about here is Cancel Culture. We have this trend now where someone who used to be considered completely righteous in their own time is now considered completely unrighteous because of certain things they did that today would be considered wrong. So it becomes one or the other and there is no middle ground. An example might be Dr. Seuss and Charles Shultz because of the way they depicted certain characters in their comics and books that is now considered racist. This is just like in the Torah.

Like these examples, Noach was considered righteous in his age, but might not be considered righteous in ours. Because later on in the story we read that Noah got so drunk he exposed his son’s and their wives to his nakedness putting them in a very uncomfortable situation. Should we cancel Noach for that? Should we take a sharpie and cut that part out of the Torah?  Some early Reform practices included cutting out the parts of the Torah that are unseemly.

But I don’t think we should do that because we should use these stories and others in the Torah as learning opportunities. If we got rid of Noach we would lose those examples of what God thinks of as righteousness and what it looks like to have faith. If we got rid of Noach we might also forget the importance of rescuing animals, and I would really hate that.

I think the same could be said for all the people we cancel now.  Maybe we can learn something from them and the ways in which we have evolved and grown since their time. I believe by exploring not only the strengths but also the weaknesses of those who came before us, we get to think about who we want to be and how righteous we want to be.

Most importantly what metric did God use to determine whether Noah was righteous enough to be chosen and would we meet that standard if we were being judged today?

I wrestled with this question- Should we strive for righteousness and do it so that we leave a legacy for tomorrow to be remembered as something great - or because in the moment - right now in our generation it is enough to be considered righteous.  I think it’s both, because either way we are trying to do the right thing and be the best we can be.

What I mean is, like the definition from the Jewish Virtual Library,  no one is perfect. If we forget all the bad things some individuals have done, we would have no examples of what not to do. If we begin to think that we must live up to the example of others and be absolutely perfect, we will feel bad because we are not.

I am not saying that we should read about the drunk Noach and think “oh hey, he’s a role model right, maybe I should get drunk too”. No, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying that we should read that story and think “oh, that’s bad, this is a model of something we are NOT supposed to do”. But does this drinking incident define Noah? I mean he did all that good stuff too right? Maybe the good balances out the bad?

Fortunately for us Jews, we have a specific holiday, Yom Kippur, and prayers we recite daily about righteousness that help us think about these things, and decide if we meet the gold standard of righteousness. This means that if we had a particularly bad day or year, we have a chance to start over and remedy the next day or the next year.

Speaking of Noah and floods, my original Mitzvah project was to ride the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail to raise money for Heifer International, to support families through the purchase of animals. These animals would provide everything from food to income to warmth and shelter for families in need all over the world.  Before the flood on July 10th and 11th destroyed the Rail Trail, the plan was to get family and friends to donate money for every mile I rode. I had already ridden 50 miles when the flood happened. Obviously those plans had to be changed and we switched gears and set up a direct fundraising page through Heifer International instead.  Thanks to all of you who donated through this page already which has raised over a $1000 towards my goal, and those of you who wish to can either put a donation in the box on the table outside the sanctuary or donate on the page.

Thank you and Shabbat Shalom.