Friday, October 28, 2011

Parshat Noach

In the beginning of this week’s Parsha (6:11-13) it says,
The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.  When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth, God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.”
In verse 11, God uses two different terms to describe the problems on earth.  He says, “the earth was corrupt (ותשחת הארץ), and that the earth was filled with lawlessness (ותמלא הארץ חמס).  According to Rashi’s commentary these were 2 separate offenses.  Rashi describes the crimes relating to corruption as idolatry and sexual immorality, and he describes lawlessness as referring to robbery.  After describing the problems in verse 11, in verse 12 God points out how deeply these problems had infected the entire world through these behaviors, and in verse 13 God concludes that world needed to be destroyed.  It is interesting to note that in God’s decision to destroy the world in verse 13 only one of the offenses of mankind is listed as the reason for the destruction.  “for the earth is filled with lawlessness (כי מלאה הארץ חמס)…”  It is possible to conclude that God might have been able to tolerate the corruption; it was the lawlessness that couldn’t be tolerated.
                This idea makes and important statement about the religious significance of the different types of laws.  Idolatry and sexual immorality in Judaism are usually examples of transgressions of the laws which are between human beings and God (ritual law), and robbery is an example of a transgression of the interpersonal laws between human beings (moral law).  Many people might mistakenly prioritize the ritual law in their quest for spirituality, and their religious focus exclusively is on their relationship with God, sometimes even over their relationship with other human beings. The boundaries of society that get broken down when interpersonal laws are not respected is the offense that God cannot stomach.  But in the Jewish religion, the laws that govern interpersonal morality are religious laws too, not just moral laws.  It is not enough to just be a good person, just as it is enough to only be careful with religious law and not be a good person.  The implication in the text is that the breakdown of interpersonal laws were directly related to, and impacted by the corruption of world.   
                The obvious point here is that a person needs to be as concerned with how they treat other people as they are concerned with their own relationship with God in order to be truly religions in the Jewish religion.  But I think there is a bit more to learn from God’s decision making process in this episode.  In Pirkei Avoth (chapter 2:10), we learn, Rabbi Eliezer said: "Let the honor of your friend be as dear to you as your own; and be not easily provoked to anger."  We see God being able to forego anger on account of the insults to God by the humans, but when the problems between human beings got to the point that the entire world had been corrupted, God could not abide the behavior of human beings.  The lesson for us is, if God was more concerned with the honor of others than with his own honor than we should be able to emulate God and learn to do the same.  We can learn to care about others more than our own pride our our disagreements over religions perspectives.  When we accomplish that, we will not be drawn towards anger, but when we do become angry it will be in protection of others.