Think.
With an open mind

You can watch a recording of this sermon on our YouTube channel.

How much water is inside a tear
Zoe Klein

How much water is inside a tear, 
And how long does it take to dry them?
As long as there is misery and fear
In the people who continue to cry them.
How much water is inside a flood 
And how long does it take to recede?
As long as it takes to restore hope 
To the people in desperate need.
How much water is inside a storm 
And how long does it take to clear?
As long as it takes to rebuild a home 
And restore everything that is dear.
How much water is inside a city 
When a levee suddenly breaks?
As many as are the tears that are cried 
When so many million hearts break.

The timing of this week’s Torah portion, Noach, could not be more poignant. The devastating flash floods that engulfed swathes of Spain and has already been known to have claimed over 200 lives, was a stark reminder of the power of nature, including its seeming arbitrary nature.

We are quick to note the immense damage that humanity has brought to the environment and we do. The concretisation of the earth, especially around areas with potential to magnify flows of water is naive at best. We all recognise the global neglect of the environment, first through ignorance, then with realisation, inertia and even hubris. The moral of the Tower of Babel may be seen as a warning of the consequence of hubris.

Zoe Klein, also gave in commentary about the Tower, an alternative narrative:

This is the generation that follows the devastating Flood. Perhaps the members of that generation were building a tower to make war upon the heavens. But didn’t they deserve to be angry? They knew that in an instant the individual can be swept away. They remembered it.

The blood of an entire generation cried to them from the bitter and sopping ground. The earth was a grave, and so they built a ladder out of it.

This is no tower, God! It is a lighthouse, tall as the heavens so that it cannot be drowned by Your billows and breakers, set to guide the arks that we will build ourselves next, our vain attempt to avoid your death sentence. Can you blame us?

So much for promises never to destroy all of creation, we do not want the seemingly capricious destruction even of parts of creation. We pray for God to cause, morid ha’geshem – the rain to fall – in its due season, nicely, not like this.

We live in a world where destruction is a reality, whether wrought by human hand or forces we struggle to understand, or understand yet are powerless to amend. Yet found in fear, is also awe. The Hebrew root allowing for the translation of both definitions. And so we find in nature awful, fearsome power and sublime beauty. We find in humanity terrible evil, violence and corruption and loving kindness and care.

In amongst wanton human destruction, there is also found human kindness and love.

Today, my dear friend, Rabbi Oded Mazor and a group from Kol HaNeshama went as part of a mission with Rabbis for Human Rights, to harvest olives, with a Palestinian family in the village of Hussam, near Beth Lehem.

He wrote to me, “There was simple and deep joy in doing together, seeing the product of the full bags of olives, and knowing we joined forces and souls, even for a short while. The timing, he writes, as we move in time into a new Hebrew and Muslim month, and as we will read the story of Noach, the flood, the dove and the olive branch – gave us some sense of hope that is beyond us.

How much water is inside a flood 
And how long does it take to recede?
As long as it takes to restore hope 
To the people in desperate need.

May our faith, always bring us hope; and may we always be counted among the people who bring hope.

In such a way may we fulfil Rabbi Oded’s greeting to us:

May this be a peaceful Shabbat.

P.S. We are blessed by the presence in The Ark this evening of our member, Lara, a resident of Valencia, who arrived to see her mother this afternoon; and Ark Supporter, Yossi Catalan in Zaragossa. Also by our friend Marco Antônio Barbosa. Our thoughts are very much with you, your families and friends.