Noah and Climate Change

In this week’s Torah portion called Noach, we read about the story of Noah and his ark of animals.  Most often, this story is presented as a child’s story, but it is truly nothing of the sort.  Sure, you can read it as animal tale.  But, at the core, it is a story of the near destruction of the world. Most of the earth’s living beings died during the flood.  Only Noah, his family and their animal menagerie survived.   

In the Noah story in Genesis, the word “earth” appears time and time again. Six times in just four verses.  The refrain that we keep reading, “The earth was corrupted.”  In other places in the Torah, when there is destruction, it is the people who do wrong.  Here, though, the earth itself that has been injured.  And, the result fits the crime.  There is an environmental disaster, a flood, that overpowers everything.

The parallels to the current global environmental crisis are uncanny.  According to rabbinic tradition, Noah takes 120 years to build the ark, first planting the trees and then waiting for them to grow.  He hoped that his actions would warn the people.  It would have been impossible to hide building an enormous zoo-boat.  This gave the people plenty of opportunity to ask questions and change their ways.  

These days, we have our warning.  Not in the form of a large wood ship, but in scientific report, monitoring and basic observation.   The climate is changing and we could make a difference.  We read in Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah: “See to it that you do not spoil and destroy the world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.”  Wise advice for this Shabbat when we think about Noah.