Nature, Morality, and Justice

Noach

Gen. 6:9-11:32

Précis: The story of Noah (Hebrew: Noach) and the Flood appear in this parasha. Noah, called by God, builds the Ark and collects the animals. It rains for forty days and nights. Noah and his family are saved, and afterward leave the Ark, build an altar, and make sacrifices to God. God sets a rainbow as a promise not to destroy mankind again. Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and becomes drunk. An odd incident with sexual overtones takes place with his sons. The story of the Tower of Babel is included in this parasha, and it ends with a genealogy of the ancient peoples of the Bible, concluding with Abram.

Gen. 6:13 “The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness. When God saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth, God said to Noah, ‘I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.’”

             Mark Gary, writing in Torah from JTS (10/15/15) notes that these verses raise important questions about the relationship between the natural world, humanity’s morality, and God’s justice.

            At first, the story is simple: God is revealing his authority over nature to punish evil, while protecting the innocent (Noah and his family). This is a seminal Jewish belief, which we recite with the Shema every day: if we follow God’s law, the natural world will sustain us.  But if we don’t obey the mitzvot, the world will turn on us.

            Despite its significance, this is a troublesome theology, because it does not correspond with reality. It leads to fundamentalists blaming hurricanes or floods on sin. But it is not only modern folks who are troubled by this matter. Rashi saw the tale of Noah with more nuance. Rashi says, “Wherever you find sexual sin and idolatry, andralamousia [summary mass execution] comes to the world and kills good and bad [indiscriminately].” In other words, natural disasters do not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty; they ignore morality.

            Although Rashi concedes that natural disasters do not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty, he still insists that there is a connection between nature and morality. Rashi highlights the cause of the Flood as “sexual sin” such that there were no sexual borders relating to marriage, familial relationships, or even species. Such behavior is essentially narcissistic, and ignores the well-being of others.  In this light, Rashi sees the Flood as a Divine sentence resulting from the erasure of all moral borders.

            If there is a link between moral behavior and nature, it may be this: when we act only for ourselves and ignore the needs of others and future generations who will rely on our world, we bring humanity closer to the deluge.