The World and How It Works

This week’s Torah Portion is Noach, or Noah, and the Flood. Because of the corruption of humankind, God brings a flood to destroy all life except Noah, the righteous man, his family, and the animals in the ark. This quasi history, mostly parable teaches us about the principles of life and how our world works. It gives us answers to some of our most heart wrenching questions: why is the world so imperfect? Why are there disasters, disease, tragedy. Why do we have good days and bad days? We may not like the answers, but this portion does at least seek to give us some insight into these questions.
Originally there was no disease and few natural disasters. The parable says that we lived to unimaginably advanced ages. Methuseleh we are told, lived 969 years. Noah lived 950 years. There were no checks on human corruption. The world became worse and worse. Like a financial system with inadequate regulation, the system, which is all of a unity, could not sustain that amount of greed, selfishness, untruth, rapaciousness, impurity, and crime. So God put in place a new system: a system of automatic regulation. God would sweep away the old system. In this new system the maximum life span was 120 years. Under the new system human imperfection that led to selfish or sinful acts, would be worked out and expiated little by little, constantly, in small and large ways. No one person would be allowed to accumulate too much of a burden of negativity. Less worthy acts would be taken care of in the course of a life. God would constantly communicate with us through the circumstances in our lives, letting us know how we are doing. We would not have to ask, as former Mayor Ed Koch did, “How am I doing?” We would be able to take an honest look at our lives and know how we are doing because of, what is called by Rabbi Noson Weisz, the feedback loop: we do something good and are blessed; we miss the mark and do something less worthy and are sent a correction. But it’s not always so clear when and why the negative things occur, or why terrible things happen to people who seem to be virtuous. We may ask: why in the story of the flood did so many have to perish? Why the animals, why the plants? The story teaches us that what we do affects everything else. We are all connected to all existence, all being, and to God. When we choose only for ourselves, God is hurt, and the world cannot continue in that pattern. Rashi comments on the first verse of the portion: These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man; perfect in his generations; Noah walked with God. Rashi says the offspring of the righteous are good deeds. Our sages agreed that the more righteous deeds a person does, the clearer is the correspondence between what happens to that person and their deeds. The sages knew this because they each experienced it in their lives.
But this story teaches us not only how our world is constituted but also about our power to promote goodness. When we do our part we need not be overwhelmed by destructive forces. We participate in our own salvation by choosing that which helps the world to be a better place. As our sages taught, the evil impulse and the good impulse, the yetzer hara and the yetzer hatov, are both within us. It is up to us to broaden the good impulse for our own good and the good of the world. A prophet of God reported God’s words: “The world at times is like an open wound that needs to be mended with the thread of Love. The needle is intention and the thread is kept alive with prayer.” It is up to us to pour the balm of love upon that which is wounded and to be of those who repair what is rent; to be menders and not destroyers. It is also up to us to communicate with God when we are in need. The Eternal God hears us and knows our intention, sending us blessings and allowing us to live even when we fall down, judging us in mercy and helping us to improve. May we be worthy of the power for good given to us and the faith and respect for us that has been accorded to us by, in the words of God through the prophet, “God of the Pure Light.” Our world is beautiful, and we can have an enormous effect on our lives and also on the world. The system works in our favor. God wants to bless us. May each of us broaden the goodness within us, the Godliness within us, and experience how much blessing we may create.