Sermon Parashat Noah

This sermon was delivered at Menorah Synagogue, Manchester, on 9th October 2010.

Classical rabbinic literature often employs parables, the so-called mashal, as a literary tool to illustrate a central message. Today I want to play a little with this literary technique; however, rather than telling a mashal of a king and his servants, I want to share a midrash with you, which in this sermon will take the place of the parable. I will try to recall the midrash slowly, as a parable is told, to give you time to look beyond it, to find your own meaning in it, to uncover its central message, which we should hear today in the 21st century and I encourage you to share your thoughts with us.

In today’s Torah portion we read God’s instruction to Noah to "Make yourself an ark of cedarwood" (Gen. 6:14). In Midrash Tanhuma (Noah 5), Rav Huna explores this commandment in more detail wondering why God should have chosen such a slow growing tree as the cedar for the material of the ark. And so he says in the name of Rav Yose: For one hundred and twenty years, the Holy One kept warning the generation of the flood in the hope that they would resolve to repent. When they did not repent, God said to Noah, "Make yourself an ark of cedarwood." Noah proceeded to plant cedars thereby attracting the attention of his neighbours. When they asked, "Why these cedars?" he would reply, "The Holy One is about to bring a flood upon the world, and God told me to make an ark, that I and my family might escape." But instead of listening to what Noah was saying, his neighbours mocked and ridiculed him. In the meantime, he watered the cedars, which kept growing.

When asked again, "What are you doing?" he gave them the same reply, but his neighbours just continued to ridicule him. Finally he cut the cedars down, and, as he sawed them into planks, he was again asked, "What are you doing?" He replied, "What I said I would do, build an ark to save myself and my family for God will bring a flood upon the world" thereby continuing to warn his neighbours. When they did not repent even then, the Holy One brought the flood upon them.

I believe we are the next generation of the flood – tragically and far too often, quite literally. Maybe we haven’t been given 120 years warning but since the late 1980s, for more than twenty years, we have been warned about the devastating effects that man-made greenhouse gases have on our climate. At first it was just a few scientists ringing the alarm bells, but I think we have long passed the mark of seeing Noah plant and water his cedars. Watching the news, reading newspapers, we cannot avoid to see the warning signals that nature is sending us – the floods and storms that cost thousands, even hundred thousands of lives, whether in New Orleans or Pakistan.

We can see the cedars growing and Noah’s warning is shouted out: "The Holy One is about to bring a flood upon the world, and God told me to make an ark, that I and my family might escape." But mostly, we are not listening. And sometimes, we are even ridiculing.

But just like in the midrash, in our mashal, it is not too late to change our ways. The final flood has not yet arrived. We can all, each and everyone of us, as individuals and as a community make a difference. Tomorrow will be the 10th October 2010 – 10/10/10; on that day the 10:10 campaign will be making another push to reach out to more people and I encourage you to join in. The idea of the campaign is that each individual will make a commitment to reducing his or her carbon footprint by 10% during the next year. Over 90,000 (actually 94,095) individuals and 3,500 businesses have already signed up. Be one of them! There are many ways how you can achieve reducing your carbon footprint by 10%: you can make sure that the food, which you buy, is produced locally, you can cut down on your meat consumption; maybe you can reduce the amount of car and air travel, or if you dream big you can improve the insulation of your home to avoid excessive heat loss during the winter.

Let us not watch Noah sawing the cedars into planks! Stop watching and start acting!

Shabbat Shalom.