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Parashat Noah
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg
In
the Women’s Torah Commentary, feminist scholar Tikvah Frymer-Kensky writes that
the biblical flood is not primarily a punishment but “a means of getting rid of
the thoroughly polluted world and starting again with a well-washed one.” Throughout
our parasha, we find the Hebrew root “macha,” which means “to erase.” God wants
to start over again with a clean slate.
But
the thing is, God doesn’t really start over with a clean slate. Yes, the
polluted world is “thoroughly washed,” and all that has life-breath on the earth
is killed off. But God preserves the source of the pollution by piling Noah and
his family and representatives of all creatures into the Ark. God admits that the “the devisings
of the human mind are evil from his youth,” yet God doesn’t completely rid the
earth of us. God could have decided to completely erase and truly start over,
but God doesn’t do this.
Instead,
God preserves humanity in the same form that God originally created us. The new
element that God introduces is a new covenant – a pact with humanity that God
will never again destroy the world with a flood, and that humans will be held
accountable for their propensity for violence and their spilling of innocent
blood. Does being created in God’s image mean that humans will necessarily have
that propensity for violence? Has God become more self-aware about God’s
propensity for violence?
I
look forward to swimming in the deep waters of this text with you tomorrow!
Shabbat
Shalom
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