Noach 2023: Jewish Unity
The mourning, fear and anxiety which we feel as individuals and a nation is profound—there is so much sadness and loss among our people. At the same time, the sense of profound unity in Israel, which has come in the blink of an eye, is pervasive and unprecedented in recent times. Like one person with one heart, everyone there has become a vital cell in a large organism—fighting, cooking food for soldiers, resettling families from the South, caring for children—the list goes on and on and on.
As I mentioned on Shabbat, we know from the book of Esther that Jewish unity, especially at times of crisis, is a path to salvation. As Queen Esther said when the Jews in her time were facing destruction, “Go and gather all the Jews together…and with that I will go to the King.”
In our parsha, Noach, the Torah describes another era of destruction, that of the flood (Bereishit 6:13):
"…כי מלאה הארץ חמס…והנני משחיתם…"
“...The land is filled with Hamas (violence)…and behold I will destroy them…”
In our parsha, God destroyed those who committed violence, but there was much collateral damage. The whole world, in fact, was destroyed, except for Noach. Afterward, God regrets this and vows never to do it again: “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the inclination of the human heart is evil from its youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.”
Ten Generations pass and another era of destruction comes, that of Sodom. Abraham argues with God, saying, “How can you kill the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be fifty innocent within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it?” Abraham bargains God down to 10 righteous, but no more. Why not? Isn’t it immoral for God to destroy even one righteous person along with the guilty of Sodom? Abraham rescues Lot, but what about the other potential eight righteous people in Sodom on whose behalf he did not argue?
The answer is that real evil must be destroyed. There are times when one must argue to save the righteous, but there is a limit. Each situation is a difficult calculation. Since the inclination of the human heart is evil and people will never be perfect there must be mercy, but also we can not tolerate a world of wickedness, such as the xenophobia of Sodom in which the innocent are killed just for being foreigners—there are limits to God’s mercy.
But even Sodom must involve argument, bargaining, analysis and calculation. The weighing of costs and benefits. How much collateral damage is worth the destruction of Sodom? Where are limits at which God’s punishment becomes unjust and we must say as Avraham does, “Will the judge of the world not do justice?” These are hard questions, but their difficulty does not absolve us of judging the wicked and punishing evil.
We in the diaspora are in the West but our hearts are in the East. We may feel helpless and worried about our friends and relatives in Israel. Other than supporting Israel in its battle against terrorism what can we do?
Though obvious, here are some thoughts:
Call people in Israel that you know and people here with children or relatives in Israel to check in
Study some extra Torah and give tzedakah
Our Jewish unity defeats our enemies so come to shul to be part of gathering Jews together
Don’t just invite your friends to your Shabbat table, think about who is new and might not feel included and who needs our unity
Speak well of other Jews; lashon hara, slander, separates us.
