Over רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah
Actually, the journey began when Adam and Eve left the garden after the debacle
of their denials regarding the fruit of the tree. In the Pseudepigraphal book, The Life of Adam
and Eve, upon leaving Eden each respond differently; one accepted their fate
and still elected to trust God while the other saw no reason to carry on since
God had abandoned them in a strange land outside the garden. In the narrative of Adam and Eve in the written
Torah itself we are not told about how they related to their moments, how they
felt or thought, we never heard about their fears or resilience to overcome. As we turn our attention to Noah here in Parashat
Noach, we learn that Noah was born outside of Eden, he does not know what
it means to have an ideal life with no wrong of fear, being born into the world
some 10 generations after Adam that is “corrupt.” But Noah is aware, and
although he too stumbles and falls, he recognizes the need to reconcile the
lower and upper worlds seen in the brokenness around him.
According to Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch the reason why
the parsha begins by saying, “These
are the generations of Noah,” is to signify that the first thing we learn
is that Noah was most concerned about his own “character.” As such, we
further read that “Noah was in his generation a righteous man and
whole-hearted.” The Midrash teaches that
he was a righteous man because he warned his generation to repent (Gen. R.
30:7). Rashi teaches that in connection
with Proverbs 10:7 Noah is called righteous because he would be remembered for a blessing by those
who follow after him. The Sforno said it
was because of Noah’s deeds and for Nahum Sarna (JPS Commentary) Noah was acceptable
to God just as an unblemished sacrifice (also see Lev. 22:19). Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (lets not forget to
keep him in our prayers as he battels cancer) suggests that no one else,
meaning Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, would have had the courage to build an ark like
Noah, the work of a righteous man.
Still, the question should be asked; does this mean that Noah was really better than everyone else?
The Torah tells us that, “Noah
walked with God,” Rabbi Hirsch
describing that to mean that Noah was “allowing himself to be led by God’s
hand.” Maybe you or I might use different
language, but basically Noah choose to walk through life being led by his
understanding of God, so perhaps that is why in Torah he is called righteous? Nahum Sarna says of Noah, like Enoch before
him (see Gen. 5:22), that walking with God was just not to say, “he lived,” but “how
he lived.” But how Noah walked with God was
also about what he brought into the world around him. We learned back in Genesis
5:29 that Moses would be a voice to the people, bringing them comfort (יְנַחֲמֵנוּ, y’nachamaynu)
in contrast to God’s own regret (וַיִּנָּחֶם; vay'yanachem). “Comfort” and “regret” come from the same
root word, נ.ח.ם. (nun-chet-mem),
which can mean either console/comfort or regret/repent. The Midrash gives two reasons for regret and
two reasons for comfort, yet both reflect God’s sadness that the world had
become barren of good people and why comfort was needed. Rabbi’s Judah and Aibu taught God
regretted that humankind was created with earthly elements that had to do with
their evil inclination whereas Rabbi’s Nehimiah and Levi said God was comforted
that humankind came from below as
to not incite the celestial host. God regretted
what humankind had become and Noah would be the first of many good folks who
would come to repair what was broken. A
reminder, it said in Genesis 5:29 that this comfort was needed because of “our work and in the toil of our hands, which comes
from the ground which the LORD had cursed” (See Gen.3:17). Rashi teaches that Noah brought comfort
to those who were working the land by inventing the plow, making land
cultivation much easier (see Rashi on Genesis 5:29). But Rabbi David Fohrman suggests in his
weekly Torah lesson that “technology” has the potential to get in the way of
the human spirit, meaning the good of the plow also had the power to be a
barrier as well.
Rabbi Fohrman reflects on Ramban’s
teaching of Genesis
1:26 where it says, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ
כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ,
“let us make humankind in our image according to our likeness.” The Ramban teaches that אָדָם נַעֲשֶׂה (na’aseh adam), “let
us make humankind” spoke to both heaven and earth, who were the “us”
involved in the fashioning of people. Here,
the earth will bring forth the body form its elements and God will breath the
spirit of the Devine into humankind, making them a living soul within a body. This is no different than what the RaDaK
(Rabbi David Kimchi) taught in Parashat Bereishit, teaching that the Torah
makes the distinction between the creation of the soul without gender in the image of God and also the body itself, making Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:7 two different
but related parts of creation. With that understanding the plow of
comfort is a tool to make life better, reconnecting human labor with its
objective, just like Torah presents the
heavens and earth as co-partners who no longer work in tandem, a byproduct of
the curse itself. Recalling the act of creation, humankind existed
within the framework of the universal order. Noah seeks to reignite the flame of the organic oneness of heaven and earth while
coming to terms with a broken world around him.
What might that look like today?
When I sit with people who are
preparing themselves to leave this world it becomes more urgent as physical life goes full circle that they need to know that their
family will be okay, or making amends with an estranged child or grandchild, also reflecting on accomplishments
and shortcomings or regrets and delights, making sense of their mortality. But even the unreligious person will also seek
to reconcile themselves with God, driven by the fear of the unknown or simply of
their sense of wholeness of body, mind and spirit. But it is not just at the end end of life that
seeking such reconnection has value, which is why Noah was called righteous in his
day. Maybe Noah was not the only person, but for the narrative of Torah he was the only man of
his generation who sought to repair what was broken, which he did by creating the plow to
make the work easier.
In Parashat Noach the plow
can therefore be likened to useful objects or thoughts that can either help or
hinder our own sense of body, mind and spirit, solidifying or interfering with
that organic connection. The very thing
that Noah created helped to cultivate the land that produced the grapes that became
the wine that also made Noah drunk, stuff happens along the way. Seeking to reconnect the human elements of body,
mind and spirit will always fight against the two edges of the same plow. Being
righteous means the pursuit of the better way, not being perfect.
Shabbat Shalom
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