Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom. This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Noach, and of course this service honors the mitzvah of tza’ar ba’alei chayim - the commandment to forbid the suffering of animals. We praise Noah for his faith in God and his saving of the animals, and we say special prayers for our animals and their owners here at our pet memorial garden and bridge. However, this morning I wish to turn our attention to the next part of the parasha, after the flood. 

I have spoken before about how disappointing I find Noah’s behavior as a so-called righteous person, especially following the flood. I don’t love how he left the world to die without warning anyone, but the argument could be made that this was God’s will. And it’s clear our tradition frowns upon this, as this is one of the reasons given that Abraham is the “first Jew” and not Noah - because Abraham argued with God about wanton destruction and Noah didn’t. However, once the waters recede and Noah gets drunk in the vineyards, the text and the ancient rabbis act like this is normal and fine. Noah’s son Ham is punished for seeing his father’s nakedness, but whose fault is it that his father was naked where he could be seen?! 

October was Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Between the holidays, Family Shabbat, and the tragic anniversary we marked last week, it didn’t feel like there was space for our annual “Purple Shabbat”. But I want to touch on the possibility that Noah was an abuser, and consider what that may mean for us. Many years ago, I wrote a d’var Torah about how absent Noah’s wife is in the narrative (she doesn’t even get a name in the Torah!), especially after the waters recede. She is not mentioned once after the flood. After that service when I read that d’var Torah, a single dad approached me and said something to the effect of, “Having been married to an alcoholic, I have some ideas about where Noah’s wife was.” That comment has really stuck with me these years. Although we don’t see Noah doing anything other than getting drunk and taking off his clothes prematurely, the dynamic we get a hint of between him and his family certainly suggests that things were not copacetic. Of course they weren’t! These were all terribly traumatized people! We know that hurt people hurt people. It is possible to feel compassion for someone’s prior trauma and still condemn the abuse they perpetuate. We can - and should - recognize that alcoholism and addiction are diseases and still expect that our loved ones get help in managing that disease so that they don’t hurt people they love.

Noah’s wife disappears from the narrative. Does she simply wander off because she can’t stand to look at him anymore? Was she written out because our ancestors didn’t want to show the abuse she endured? Or written out simply because she was a woman and the men who wrote the Torah didn’t think she mattered? Is she buried in Noah’s fields, a la Secret Window? Noah’s children do not. We see how Ham is cursed, Shem and Japheth are blessed. We read their geneologies and recognize some of the nations that descended from them, the enemy nations that came from Ham and the nations our ancestors blended with more purposefully that came from Japheth. From Shem’s line comes Abraham and the Jewish people. If you read between the lines, you can see the generational trauma that has plagued these families since the beginning of time, if we were to take this narrative as fact. Which sons may have faced more abuse by Noah’s drunken hand and were cast out, who was elevated, how they continued to be in competition with each other as their families developed into tribes and nations. 

It’s time for everyone to go to therapy and work out this trauma. Although we are now thousands of years, thousands of miles, and many iterations of civilization away from these core families, I still see how many adults are walking around trying their best and have a lot of unresolved trauma, anger, insecurities. While JCADA - the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Violence - offers many resources for escaping an abusive home, JSSA - the Jewish Social Services Agency - offers many more resources for dealing with the logistical and emotional fall out for many other traumatic situations. The two organizations often work together when it comes to situations of domestic violence, but JSSA also offers all kinds of family services and mental health services. I will tell you that I have dealt with chronic or clinical depression my whole life, and have found therapy helpful at various points in my life, but there were certain issues that I thought were simply immutable parts of myself, that I was resigned to struggle with forever. About 5 years ago, JSSA offered a promo for DC-area rabbis for 12 free therapy sessions with one of their counselors. I have successfully overcome some of those supposedly immutable inner conflicts, and continue to meet with that counselor every other week or so, far past our initial 12 sessions. 

Whether you have an abusive partner or parent, or struggle with substance abuse or the co-dependency of loving an addict, or you’re just a human trying to survive in a dark and scary world, I feel strongly that therapy will help. It’s not for everyone forever, but it is a far too underutilized resource, and I believe everyone should at least meet with a counselor and have some kind of psychological evaluation, establish a relationship, so that in the inevitable event of an emotional crisis, you have a professional in your proverbial rolodex ready to meet with you and know some of your backstory already. Imagine what the post-deluvian world might have looked like if those resources had been available to Noah and his family. Imagine how much more peaceful and brighter the world might be if we all recognized that the mitzvah to care for animals included humanity, and the call to care for humanity included ourselves. 

May we all do the work of Tikkun Olam - repairing the world and ourselves. May we always find ways to keep our own heads above water, even if we feel like we are drowning. And may we all be an ark to one another in times of need. Amen and Shabbat Shalom.