The earth became corrupt before God; the earth was filled with lawlessness… God said to Noah, ‘I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark…” (B’reysheet / Genesis 6:11-14)
With these ominous words the story of the flood begins to unfold. To better understand the divine decree and its enduring message we need to go back a few verses into the end of last week’s Torah portion. In B’reysheet / Genesis 6:3 the text expresses God’s frustration at the behavior of human beings: “My breath shall not abide in man forever, since he is but flesh; let the days allowed him be 120 years.”
Intriguingly, Targum Onkelos, an ancient Aramaic translation of the Torah (Early 2nd-century CE), tried to understand God’s reasoning and intent by offering an interpretive translation of the verse. Onkelos writes, “And God said this evil generation shall not endure before Me forever; for they are flesh, and their deeds are evil. I will grant them an extension of 120 years, to see if they repent.”
Rashi, the great medieval French biblical commentator (1040-1105), picked up on the Aramaic translation stating, “God instructed Noah to begin building his ark long before the onset of the flood in the hope that people would ask him its purpose and be moved to repent.”
Understood through this strand of interpretation, it was never God’s desire to destroy the earth. People would see Noah building this ark and ask him, “Why?” Noah would warn them that God has given up on humankind and intends to destroy the world. The people, in turn, would be given an opportunity to change their ways, to work to rehabilitate society, to work to repair the world they had damaged, and then God would rescind the decree against them. We, like Onkelos, and like Rashi, know they didn’t and what happened next!
The enduring message is thus clear. We always have the chance to change, to heed the warnings addressed to us, and to re-direct our actions. Today, we know that we are depleting our natural resources and polluting the environment. We have been warned of humankind’s significant impact on global warming and what might happen if we do nothing.
While there are those who refuse to accept scientific evidence of human harm to the environment, there are many more who are investing time and money in alternative energy sources and “green” technology. Learning to live a more ecologically balanced lifestyle can only be good for us and the world we live in.
The message of these ancient sages is that it was ultimately not God who destroyed the world but humankind through their collective inaction to the threat that stood before them and unwillingness to change their behavior. The teaching of Onkelos and Rashi challenges us to respond to God’s disappointment over our treatment of creation differently than the generation of the flood and bring about a better outcome.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
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