Apocalypse...Survivors...The Story of Noah

At the end of last week's parasha, we learned that G-d became pained with His creation of human beings and decided that he would dissolve them from upon the face of the Earth because of their wickedness. Upon having made that decision, however, He also discovered that Noah had found grace in His eyes.

What could have possibly made G-d so disenchanted with humankind? According to the Torah, it was that the Earth had been corrupted. The phrase "corrupted" is believed to refer to the fact that individuals engaged in sexual immorality, robbery, violence, and idolatry. No matter what the exact actions of those individuals were, I think it is obvious that a decision to destroy one's own creation indicates extreme outrage with the results of one's labor.

The story of the creation of the Ark, the upcoming flood, and G-d's plan to rescue two of every living thing on Earth is a story that even very young children know. Noah, the only righteous man of his generation, is chosen to fulfill G-d's will by making the ark. The Rabbis commented that the construction of the Ark actually occupied Noah for 120 years. Can you imagine watching a fellow citizen making a huge boat, large enough to house two of every animal on Earth, and not asking that individual why he was engaged in such activity especially if he pursued it for 120 years? Certainly your curiosity would have been aroused. The Rabbis felt that 120 years was long enough for others to inquire about the activity and to find out from Noah that a flood would come to destroy them if they did not change their evil ways. Since there was no change in their behaviors and G-d did not reconsider His decision in that period of time, Noah's contemporaries obviously did not heed his warning.

When I was young, I never gave much thought to how Noah must have felt after having warned his contemporaries. It couldn't have felt very good knowing that he and his family would be the only survivors of a plan designed to wipe out all of humanity. He certainly realized that if the plan went through as G-d had told him, he and his family would have no others with which to commune and rebuild life.

"It was Elie Weisel who offered a poignant insight about Noah. Weisel called Noah the first "survivor." The world had experienced a Holocaust, and Noah was reluctant to walk out of the ark because he knew that the entire world was one giant graveyard for all the people he had known--and he just couldn't face it." (jewishlearning.com) Look at what Noah did in chapter 9: verses 20-21 after he and his family had survived. He planted a vineyard. Did he do that because he couldn't deal with the idea of being the "survivor". Did he desire to turn to the produce of the vine so he could dull his emotions with wine? We all know individuals who have survived a catastrophic event, a war, a deadly disease, who have questioned why they survived. Not everyone handles their lot with gratitude. Often there are feelings of guilt, feelings of "why me?", "why am I still here?" The guilt that often accompanies having survived often wreaks havoc on an individual's mental health. Survival can be a painful ordeal.

This is the part of the story that is often left out of our childhood renditions. As children we were not told that he became drunk and that his nakedness was discovered by his son, As children we did not think about what it was like for Noah to witness the destruction of life as he knew it and to have to rebuild life for himself and his children. We did not think about the fact that even a righteous individual could find such solitude disturbing.

Perhaps, the story of Noah needs to be looked at from many different perspectives. Why would individuals not respond to a warning of an upcoming destruction especially if they had a long period of time prior to that destruction to integrate the message into their psyches? Why would they not change their ways? Is that any different than what is happening now when when we hear messages about the effects of humankind on global warming. It's one thing to know that the polar icecaps melt naturally, but it is another thing to know that we are accelerating the process and that in 200 years rather than millions of years we can expect to find coastal cities covered by sea water.

How can we respond to individuals who have survived a catastrophy and aid them in their readjustment to life? What can we do to ease their pain? Will we react as Noah's son did, laughing at his maladjustment rather than showing compassion? Will we reach out to those who are struggling with the idea of having survived, or will we merely leave them alone to deal with their vulnerability?

Noah leaves us with as many questions as it leaves us with answers.

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