From the time of Noah to the contemporary world

I preface these comments with a cautionary note. One cannot equate what we see as a meaning or a translation of a word in the Chumash/Tanach with modern use of the same term. A classic example is reference to “chashmal” in the vision of the prophet Yechezkel that is read as the haftarah of the first day of Shavuot. Modern Hebrew – whose instigators sought to adapt ancient terminology to modern day linguistic needs – related that term to “electricity” which clearly was not its meaning in the time of the prophet. But it was so adopted in a belief that there was similarity between the glow seen by the prophet and that sometimes associated with electricity as we know it today.

However as per Chassidic lore, “living with the times” means living with the weekly Torah reading. And as we make the 10 generation move from the Creation narrative of parashat Bereshit to the story of Noach, one word jumps out at us. At the very beginning of the parashah, we read in Bereshit 6:11: “and the earth had become corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with ‘chamas’.” 

“Chamas” is variously translated as “gezel” (a word for robbery) or as transgression of sexual mores. Both interpretations refer to lack of respect for behavioural and social boundaries – treated by God at the time as the ultimate reason that the society of the era could not continue to exist. Frankly – and again I emphasise that we need to beware of use of words outside their original context – Hamas of today as the ultimate horrific entity of our generation as evidenced throughout the last three years, (and even earlier) is exactly guilty of that crime. As an interesting aside one might note that the Targum Onkelos – the basic Aramaic translation of Torah that appears in almost every Chumash beside the basic text and (that once widely was, and in certain communities still is, read aloud in conjunction with the Torah reading) translates “chamas” as “chatufin” – presumably meaning snatching in the sense of robbery, but in fact is the word so often used in our time regarding those kidnapped by Hamas. 

The answer to the crime of “chamas” as per the Chumash was total obliteration. How that can be applied to our issues today is a moot question whose costs/benefits need careful consideration, and at least for the moment would appear to be in abeyance.

So much for the well-known story at the beginning of the parasha.

But as we move to the aftermath of the story we strike a more optimistic note.

As Noah and his family leave the ark together with all the animals, God promises that for all future time there will never again be such “an upheaval destroying the natural order” (the more correct translation of “mabul” than simply “flood”). “For all the days of the earth the seasons of sowing and harvesting, and cold and warmth, and summer and winter and day night will not cease.” (Bereshit 8:27)

And then comes the sign of a covenant between God and mankind. “My bow I have placed in the cloud and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Myself and the earth … And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will see it to remember the everlasting covenant … between Myself and all flesh that is on the earth.” (I might add that remembrance of Noach is one of the key introductory themes of the Zichronot (remembering) section of the Amidah of Rosh Hashanah where we seek that to secure our future God remember his promises of old.)

All of which leads to a question as to the actual significance of the rainbow itself – a natural phenomenon – in this context.

What is a rainbow? When white sunlight passes through the prism of rainwater, the seven colours are revealed in all their glory. 

“Ohr – light” represents Torah, eternity, symbolised in Kabbalastic thought by the number 10. 

“Geshem – rain” symbolises gashmiyut, the physical, which at least in earlier thinking was composed of four elements – earth, water, air and fire. When light passes through water (rain), we see entrenched in the physical world the number seven. In so much of our theory and practice the number seven symbolises holiness even in the physical world. Think of all the sevens in Jewish practice starting with the holy seventh day – Shabbat – and all practices bringing seven into the mundane, whether it be the seven circuits under the chuppah, binding the tefillin onto the arm with seven “rings”, the seven days of festivals etc. There are literally hundreds of sevens across the Tanach and rabbinical pronouncements. The world is not purely a product of physical elements and a physical way of life. That would indeed be a recipe for unholiness. Seven and all it represents – holiness amidst the physical mundane – is intrinsic to the world in which we live – and the world that we work towards making.

On the Yamim Noraim we prayed that God should make “memshelet zadon – the rule of evil” pass from the earth. May the coming years be such that all evil – even contemporary Hamas and what it represents – should cease to exist, allowing the world as a whole to (hopefully) breathe a sigh of relief while we celebrate “Am Israel chai”.

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi

Yossi Aron OAM is the AJN’s religious affairs editor