Rabbi Howard Morrison

The story of Noah is one that is familiar to us. Humanity regresses to the point that God regrets having created humanity and brings about a flood to wipe out the entire world, with the exception of Noah, his family, and the animals he brings into the Ark. When Noah leaves the Ark after the flood and is ready to go about rebuilding the world, God makes a covenant with him that God will never destroy the world again. The sign of the covenant is a rainbow.

The commentators struggle to understand the sin or level of corruption that prompted God to bring the flood. In a verse with eerie resonance in light of Israel's war with Hamas (Hezbollah and Iran), the Torah records: "The earth became corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with lawlessness-Hamas (Genesis 6:11)." The Biblical scholar Nahum Sarna, the author of 'Understanding Genesis,' explains, "It may be deduced that Hamas here refers predominantly to arrogant disregard for the sanctity and inviolability of human life." This definition and understanding of the word "Hamas" certainly ring true over the past year.

In light of this, we have an obligation and moral responsibility to respond when the world is overcome by Hamas. We must express shock and outrage upon learning of such wanton displays of violence, hatred, and moral depravity. The IDF, in harmony with Torah values, has an absolute responsibility to wage battle and destroy Hamas and its evil counterparts including Hezbollah, and other publicly identified terror groups. 

The Talmud already asks and answers what should one do when Hamas-violence is coming your way? "If someone rises up to attack you, rise up and attack them first (Sanhedrin 72a)." 

After reading the story of the flood and the violence that humans perpetrate on one another, one could ask the question, "Why did God save Noah and his family? Why not destroy humanity altogether? " Perhaps God's hope was that humanity would change its ways after Noah. God explicitly gave Noah a law forbidding pre-meditated bloodshed, "Whoever sheds human blood, by human hands shall that one's blood be shed, for in the image of God was humankind created (Genesis 9:6)."

Can humanity change? Can humanity overcome its natural tendency towards cruelty and violence? That is the Torah's lesson in today's portion of Noah. A new humanity can be born without cruelty and violence in their hearts. Unfortunately, it has not come true in our lifetimes. We can only pray and work for the day when hatred and brutality will disappear from the face of the earth.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison