Noah and the Ark is one of the best known Bible stories. We think of it as a parable for children, how kindly Noah saved the animals from destruction. How they came on his ark by “twosies!” But there is more to the story of Noah, then the sweet children’s tale.
After the flood ends and the waters recede, Noah returns to a completely different one than he left. It is a depopulated world, where he and his family are the only survivors.
The second half of Noah’s story is one of how we cope with trauma, and Noah has two responses. The first is to give thanks. Noah builds an altar and makes a sacrifice to God in gratitude for keeping him and his family safe. The second is to get drunk. Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and drinks until he passes out.
The final response in our Torah portion is not Noah’s, but that of humanity, as people come together to build the Tower of Babel. But this, too, is a response to trauma–the need to be busy, to make things, to be productive.
The Torah is laconic; it does not give us too many details. We don’t know anything about Noah’s internal life, but we can speculate. Perhaps, Noah felt survivor’s guilt. Perhaps he could not bear living in a world he did not recognize. Perhaps he did not feel worthy of survival. Perhaps the entire experience was more than he could bear.
We will never know. We can just know what Noah did, and he gives us two ways to deal with trauma: gratitude and connection to the Divine (his sacrifice), or intoxication (his drunkenness).
As we persevere through this pandemic and all the traumas it is causing, let’s remember Noah’s lesson, that gratitude and spirituality are a stronger path for coping with trauma, than running from it.
Noach, Genesis 6:9-11:32, Parshat Ha Shavua for Shabbat, Saturday, October 24, 2020
October 23, 2020 by Dean Kertesz •
Noah and the Ark is one of the best known Bible stories. We think of it as a parable for children, how kindly Noah saved the animals from destruction. How they came on his ark by “twosies!” But there is more to the story of Noah, then the sweet children’s tale.
After the flood ends and the waters recede, Noah returns to a completely different one than he left. It is a depopulated world, where he and his family are the only survivors.
The second half of Noah’s story is one of how we cope with trauma, and Noah has two responses. The first is to give thanks. Noah builds an altar and makes a sacrifice to God in gratitude for keeping him and his family safe. The second is to get drunk. Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and drinks until he passes out.
The final response in our Torah portion is not Noah’s, but that of humanity, as people come together to build the Tower of Babel. But this, too, is a response to trauma–the need to be busy, to make things, to be productive.
The Torah is laconic; it does not give us too many details. We don’t know anything about Noah’s internal life, but we can speculate. Perhaps, Noah felt survivor’s guilt. Perhaps he could not bear living in a world he did not recognize. Perhaps he did not feel worthy of survival. Perhaps the entire experience was more than he could bear.
We will never know. We can just know what Noah did, and he gives us two ways to deal with trauma: gratitude and connection to the Divine (his sacrifice), or intoxication (his drunkenness).
As we persevere through this pandemic and all the traumas it is causing, let’s remember Noah’s lesson, that gratitude and spirituality are a stronger path for coping with trauma, than running from it.