Genesis - Cycle One - 0609-1132 - Noah

In the parasha Noah the flood comes down. And the tower goes up. The two events are clearly connected. In fact, you can almost feel the cycle of energy, the intention as we attempt to reach and reflect the great light of God. The tower though doesn’t get finished. Clearly, something doesn’t happen as planned.

Let’s begin with Noah’s flood. There are paintings of it in bright happy colors. It has been the focus of children’s toys, games, stories, coloring books, myths. But really, Noah builds a boat and has to watch as a flood obliterates everything on this earth. How that must have hurt. How that still hurts today.

Now let’s take some distance. In line 7-10 we read that the wellsprings of the great deep burst forth and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. Wellsprings? I think of health and cleansing. Floodgates? This word refers to the kabalistic gates to God, our hands and feet, our hearts, our lips. Clearly, good or bad, this flood represents an opening. Therefore, the flood is an attempt to fix a problem in humanity, not to punish us. From a distance, therefore, this story of devestation is about connection and regeneration.

Then, it rains for forty days and nights. In Ekev (Deuteronomy) Moses fasts for forty days (and nights) before he receives the first two stone tablets of the covenant. Both times, we experience a powerful cleansing (either inside or outside) before we are to continue our work as agents of the divine…and before we mess up again. But that’s all right. We are still blessed. As early as Bereshit (5-1) we see that we can make some pretty drastic mistakes and God won’t give up on us. What is unique about this flood therefore is not God’s attempt to correct human weakness (we get enough of that in Torah) but the folding of the finer light of divine consciousness onto the lesser light, an attempt by God to bring about oneness. It’s about what does survive within the amazing radiance, what doesn’t and how we, mankind, deal with it.

So, the first question is who and what survives. Well, the earth certainly does. In fact, the word earth is repeated more in this parasha than the word water. Next, we do. Our reason for being survives. Constantly we read that the animals enter the ark, male and female, two by two. The repetition refers back to Bereshith when we, male and female, become them. We are reminded of tikkun olam, of our goal of divine consciousness. The rainbow survives, so gentle that it’s a vision, a promise. Whenever we see a rainbow we know there’s hope. Hope survives.

What doesn’t survive? Well everything else. Our trust. After all, a flood (like this one) is not exactly a gentle merging, but forced, impatient, far too powerful to understand. And with this display of power we step back. We get frightened. Sometimes devestation is too close and vivid. It cuts too deep. Perhaps we need to focus on the ark, on the beings saved, on the rainbow. The question remains, how can we love an exquisite light if it becomes a torrent? How can we love God if we have a reason not to believe or if our very belief gives us reason to be frightened? Sometimes we look for ways to escape. We decide to replace God with something that goes down easy and yes, gentle. In Noah’s case, he replaces his soul with spirits. His son sees him naked and drunk. He forfeits his very integrity.

Finally, what can we do? Even after generations pass, we suffer the losses. We can’t forget. We feel the need to protect ourselves, respond. We need to reflect the light back to God as perhaps an offering up, a type of sacrifice. We try to be God, to encase ourselves, to build a tower to reach the divine and make ourselves a name so we will not be scattered over the face of the earth. The problem is we build upon our stuff. This is our money, our nuclear weapons, our space program. This is our fancy car, our pretense of spirituality, our idols, our industrial military complex. This is our stuff, not God’s stuff. And how silly that tower looks next to the power of the flood. How ridiculous Israel can look (with its vast weaponry) next to the miracle of those saved during the Holocaust. These weapons are not the light itself. The name can’t do everything…the tower can’t do everything. No wonder God (with little effort) stops the tower by creating many languages. It’s almost a joke. Our words get scattered over the face of the earth in disconnection; we create that which we fear most.

Have you ever looked at someone and only seen the light in his face, the glow, the neshama? Have you ever stepped back in awe? At that moment the name is gone and you are with God because we are blessed. We have the ability to offer up a spark of the divine, the light between day and between night, the stuff that comes down during the eternal flood, that saves one man during any and all devestation. And that moment we can do it. That moment the gates of our heart open and light floods in and out. Given tragedies, death, crises, all we don’t know, we don’t need to fear and build towers or cities or big houses. We just need to be in our blessing, to give, to gently offer up and give, to see the light in one man’s face, to be in love with God in such a deep way we build upon it high and solid and strong.

So, may we all have patience with the force of God. May we see the rainbow every moment and know that this is how to be gentle. May we offer up God’s stuff, not our own. May we love light and see it in every face, in ourselves. And, as one, may we flood God with our smile and be at peace in the great radiance of divine consciousness.