Every time we look at a Torah portion it teaches us something new; Torah doesn’t change but we do. This week we read about Noah, the Ark, and the Flood. It is a story about surviving a cataclysm. For forty days and forty nights Noah rides out the flood with his family and the animals he has brought aboard. Then they emerge from the Ark and face a world that has completely changed.
For the past year and a half we too have been riding out a cataclysm, not of water but of disease. We have been tested, as individuals and as a community. I have often wondered why Noah didn’t invite other people to come onto the Ark. I thought that he was selfish, thinking only of himself.
But these days I wonder if I was wrong. Through the hard work of science we have been given an Ark, vaccines. Unlike the Noah story, the vaccines were available to everyone, but not everyone has chosen to climb aboard. A simple, life saving technology is being refused by millions of our fellow citizens who are putting their own lives at risk, and ours, when they don’t have to. Where does this desire for self-destruction come from? At the beginning of this week’s portion we read, “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.” Perhaps when people put their own freedom to make bad choices above the best interests of the community and their neighbors’ health, they bring corruption and lawlessness into the world.
Our actions have consequences, for good or ill. Our choices matter.
Noach, Genesis 6:9-11:32, Parshat Ha Shavua for Shabbat, Saturday, October 9, 2021
October 8, 2021 by Dean Kertesz • Drashot
Every time we look at a Torah portion it teaches us something new; Torah doesn’t change but we do. This week we read about Noah, the Ark, and the Flood. It is a story about surviving a cataclysm. For forty days and forty nights Noah rides out the flood with his family and the animals he has brought aboard. Then they emerge from the Ark and face a world that has completely changed.
For the past year and a half we too have been riding out a cataclysm, not of water but of disease. We have been tested, as individuals and as a community. I have often wondered why Noah didn’t invite other people to come onto the Ark. I thought that he was selfish, thinking only of himself.
But these days I wonder if I was wrong. Through the hard work of science we have been given an Ark, vaccines. Unlike the Noah story, the vaccines were available to everyone, but not everyone has chosen to climb aboard. A simple, life saving technology is being refused by millions of our fellow citizens who are putting their own lives at risk, and ours, when they don’t have to. Where does this desire for self-destruction come from? At the beginning of this week’s portion we read, “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness.” Perhaps when people put their own freedom to make bad choices above the best interests of the community and their neighbors’ health, they bring corruption and lawlessness into the world.
Our actions have consequences, for good or ill. Our choices matter.
~Rabbi Dean Kertesz