Last week, I drove our twenty-year-old daughter to the University of Maryland. Along the way, we stopped to see my parents. We pulled into the driveway, just like I had done hundreds of times before. Because the weather was nice, my father was standing outside watching us pull up, just as he had done hundreds of times before. We stepped out of the car and then everything was different. This was the first time we had seen them in nine months. We put on a mask. Rather than walking into the house, my daughter and I walked around to the backyard and stepped onto their porch. With masks on, we sat down about 10 feet apart. We didn’t hug, we didn’t kiss. We looked at each other, we spoke. On one hand, the conversation that my daughter and I had with my parents was similar to the hundreds of conversations that I have had with them since I became a parent. There was a reassuring order to the conversation. However because of the masks, and the social distancing we were reminded of the chaos in which we live. For the next 7 hours, we drove through some of the most beautiful autumn foliage imaginable. Indeed I was reminded of the order of the season. I was driving to a University campus in the fall. Normally, I would be driving in order to visit my daughter at Univerity. Now however I was dropping her off. Normally when I drop my daughter off at school, we unload the car, bring her stuff to her room, go to the store and pick up some essentials and take her out for a meal. I was reminded just how far removed from normal we are instead being near chaos. We arrived at her apartment building, her friends met us with masks on. We put our masks on and then I unloaded the car, brought her stuff into the lobby, walked outside with my daughter. We took off our masks and then I hugged her and kissed her goodbye.
This Shabbat, we read from Parshat Noach. Comprised of two distinct narratives; both deal with the theology of chaos and confused boundaries. First, we read the story of Noach, God’s disenchantment with Creation and mankind’s behavior, the instructions for building Teva (the Ark), the Flood as punishment for mankind’s unethical behavior, the covenant made between God and Noach and the resulting offering to God, and then an odd story about Noach’s drunkenness and one’s sons inappropriate behavior. The second distinct narrative is also about chaos and confused boundaries. This time mankind confuses boundaries and trying to build a tower up to the heavens. The result is that God scatters mankind across the earth by making mankind speak numerous languages and making communication difficult.
While both narratives can conceivably stand alone. Yet both narratives are related. As manifested in the previous Parsha, God is a God of creation and order. For God to destroy, Order must be removed and Chaos must become introduced and entrenched. Meivi et HaMabul Mayim AL HaAretz L’Shacheit Kol Basar Asher Bo Ruach Chayim Mitachat HaShamayim Kol Asher Ba’Aretz Yigvah – I will bring the flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, in which is the breath of life from under heaven, and everything that is on earth shall die. Certainly, there must be other kinds of floods besides water, otherwise, we do not need to be told that this particular flood is one that involves water. The message is that God will punish creation by instituting chaos for a period of time. Later in Chapter 11, as mankind begins building a tower up to heaven God becomes disappointed again. Vayomer Adoshem Hain Am Echad V’Safah Achat L’Chulam V’zeh Hachilam La’Asot V’aAtah Lo Yibatzeir Mei’hem Kol Asher Yazmu La’Asot – Behold the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have schemed to do. Hava Neirdah V’Navlah Sham Sfatam Sher lo Yishmu Ish Sfat Rei’eihu – Come let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand on another’s speech. Instead of the flood of water, God created the flood of language. Instead of confused and blurred boundaries of heaven and earth, God created a confusion of cacophony.
The flood of chaos and the struggle to handle chaos is part of our human condition. The first narrative, the Noach narrative, teaches that chaos is now part of creation and in a sense a type of punishment. The second narrative, the Tower of Bavel, teaches us that chaos is part of everyday human life. It is part of our task as human beings as we struggle to elevate ourselves from the animal aspect of our existence to the spiritual aspect of our existence that we create order from chaos. To do so is a Godly endeavor. To do so allows us to transcend the physical world. In any case, my departure was hurried and chaotic. In a matter of minutes, I was on my way driving north from Maryland heading back to Toronto facing two weeks of quarantine, two weeks of altering family responsibilities and schedules. In a sense, I drove back north facing two weeks of a different sort of chaos.
Peace,
Rav Yitz
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