Every school child is familiar with the story of Noah and the Flood. God tired of the cruelty and immorality of humankind and vowed to destroy the entire species through a spectacular deluge. But God selected one righteous family, that of Noah, and saved them by instructing them to build an ark. Noah did so and saved himself, his family and representatives of all the different types of animals and birds.
When the flood waters receded, Noah, his family and his passengers began the long, gradual task of repopulating the planet. Conventionally, the tale of the flood is explained as reflecting God's intolerance of evil. Humanity became so corrupt and so violent that we ultimately disgusted God. Humanity exhausted God's limitless patience.
Even if we accept that perspective as the main point of the story, there is still something disquieting about the whole episode. Even assuming that every single human soul was wicked and cruel, why did God have to kill all those innocent animals? Why did fish get off the hook just because they knew how to swim? Couldn't some of the people have been given a good scare and then told to do better? Why did there have to be so much death? No matter how we read it, the flood seems unfair. And maybe that is precisely the point. Destruction, even when it comes from the God who is "slow to anger and abounding in kindness" bursts beyond any manageable or fair limitations. Even punishments, originally intended to be measured and reasonable, provoke unanticipated suffering and hardship.
Rashi (11th Century France) notes that "whenever you find immorality and idolatry, indiscriminate punishment comes upon the world and it kills good and bad alike." Such is the way of violence, that it invariably assumes a life of its own. Whatever may have been the intentions behind its initial use, violence strikes without attention to particular agendas or allegiance.
The violence launched by some in Northern Ireland against English domination is destroying that beautiful country. The Palestinian uprising is now turning against other Palestinians, although it was initially directed against Israelis. The occupation of Lebanon -- by various Lebanese and Syrian factions -- has decimated a once-thriving community, even though it may have been initially intended to centralize control.
The list of contemporary examples is as pathetic as it is endless. Once violence is initiated, there is no foretelling its sweep or its destruction. In the words of the Mekhilta: "However mighty the man, once the arrows leave his hand, he cannot make them come back . . . However mighty the man, once frenzy and power take hold, even his father, even his mother, and even his nearest kin he strikes as he moves in his wrath."
Perhaps the discomfort we feel with the Flood story -- with its epic devastation and its universal horror -- is precisely the response intended. By demonstrating that violence, even in the best of hands, soon escalates beyond all control or direction or justice, the Torah's story shows us to work toward a day when disputes are not resolved through force, when children are not taught through blows, when lovers don't express their rage through beatings, when nations do not wage bloody war.
We live, today, in a world wedded to violence and war. It need not be that way forever. At the end of the Flood, God provided a rainbow -- a multicolored symbol of peace, a sacred pledge to refrain from destruction. The rainbow is a reminder of the need to build coalitions with others. The rainbow is a call to confirm God's pledge, "not to doom the earth because of humanity . . . not [to] ever again destroy every living thing." Out of the horror of the Flood can emerge a new commitment to life and to peace. God has already spoken; have you?
Shabbat Shalom