Shabbat Gathering: What Noah's wife knew.
Dear Chevrei, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:
Zoom
Meeting ID: 883 8469 4181
Password: 822665
Phone: +1 312 626 6799
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Here we go.
This week’s Torah portion is Noah, which is a portion that has most often been made into a children’s story with a happy ending about a rainbow. Even a lite look into the portion reveals a PG-13 (maybe even NC-17) story that asks more questions than it answers. There are semi-divine creatures that are having sex with humans and, among other sexual shenanigans, this makes G!d cross. There’s also a bevy of important characters who go unnamed in the story: Noah’s wife, for example. Surely she’s an important character in the story, but no one knows her name. And there are other mysteries such as why didn’t the lions eat the other animals on the ark. Mysteries up0n mysteries.
In our tradition, there’s a well established practice of trying to sort out these mysteries and answer them. The writings that fill in these mysteries are called midrash and they aren’t limited to what the rabbis of old came up with. People are constantly writing new midrash. For this week’s Torah portion, I turned to RitualWell and found this poem that describes what Noah’s wife might have thought about her husband, the ark, and the flood.
Noah’s Wife Talks Back
by Eve Lyons
I don’t know what he was thinking.
He comes home one evening,
announces we have to pack up all our belongings,
all our animals, all our family
build an ark.
He said God spoke to him
I said, Why now?
The world has gotten dark
The world has fallen into violence
The world has succumbed to hatred and fear.
I said, It has been that way for years
So why now?
Why give up now?
Why walk out on the world,
Why destroy everything
rather than start the hard work
trying to repair it?
He didn’t listen.
They never listen, these men.
They build, they argue, they fight
They destroy and argue some more.
Then they take their toys and go home.
I don’t know whether I’m talking about God
or my husband.
Some days
they’re indistinguishable.
In the end, God came around
to seeing it my way:
As soon as the flood waters receded
as soon as the earth dried
as soon as the rainbow appeared
God pledged never to do it again.
But it was too late
for my neighbors, my friends, my city.
Wayward and disturbed perhaps
it was my home.
And may it be for all of us a blessing.
See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!
All my love,
brian.
PS
The shock of the tragic events in Israel / Palestine hasn't faded very much at all. But some sane voices are beginning to be raised for what should happen next, a ceasefire. One of these voices is from the Jewish group IfNotNow. Here's an op-ed from The Forward that speaks to me.
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