Noah 1993

Stories in the Book of Bereishis are not just stories.  They teach us values. We learn how we are to balance different values in life by reading the so-called simple stories of the Book of Genesis.  These are stories which talk about the deepest things in life, and they are portrayed in the simplest terms.  Many times people feel that the stories in the Book of Bereishis are meant for children in primary grades to make arts and crafts projects about, but this is not so.  These stories that are told here contain ideas and concepts which still have not been accepted throughout the whole world and which the whole world is still fighting about, and which even in our own country there are election initiatives which directly contradict the teachings of the Torah and which can lead to a corruption of mankind. In fact, if we will look carefully at the story of Noah we will see that it speaks about different things, which at" first glance, seem inconsequential, but which, if we look at them later, they are very, very important. We first talk about, for example, a simple point, how when it talks about the clean animals it says, "From all the Mimalsnyou should take seven seven, a man and his mate, and from the animals which are nod clean, you should take two, a man and his mate." The rabbis comment and say, why this circumlocution? Why do we talk about here an animal that is not clean? Why don't we just say an unclean animal, an animal which is Tomay, and the rabbis say because many times we have to speak in euphemisms. 

We have to speak in circumlocutions so that the full emotional impact of what we are saying does not destroy the person to whom we are talking to.  For example, at the turn of the century there was a terrible disease called consumption, but after the turn of the century we do not hear about that disease anymore.  It seems that the doctors cured it, but they really did not cure it; they just changed its name and called it TB.  Now if you tell a person that he has TB he says, "Well, that is too bad but I will get over it," while if you told a person he had consumption at the turn of the century he would die from fright. The same thing is true today with other diseases, like, for example, cancer has a forest that is very hard for many people to take, so we talk about an encological problem.  Or even in mundane matters.  I remember when I was growing up we talked about lavatories; now we talk about restrooms.  The emotional force of a word does not catch up for a little bit.  When the emotional force catches up with it then we change to a new word, so we can look at things objectively without our emotions entering into it and destroying all objectivity. Here, too, the Torah is teaching us that very point.  Later on, too, we learn something very important. We learn how after the flood was over G-d said, "I will not continue to curse anymore the ground because of man because the heart of man is bad from his youth..." It is interesting to note in the Torah portion before G-d said He brought the flood because all the imagination of the thoughts of his heart are only bad all day.  Here we see the same reason, but once it is being used for good and once it is being used for bad.  In other words, G-d said He was going to destroy the world because man's imaginings, man's creativity seems to be bent on only doing evil and not doing good.  On the other hand« here He says that He is not going to destroy the world anymore because man is who he is and, therefore, I have to learn to live with him and I have to learn to teach him and give him more changes, because, after all, you cannot change a person overnight.  He still has potential, so, therefore, I will not destroy him anymore.  That's why He uses the word "from his youth" because as a youth he still is not mature enough to know how to handle all these great impulses which are throbbing within him, but with education, with the giving of the Torah, etc. he will learn how to handle all these things.

We see this later on, too, when Moshe Rabbeinu talks to G-d and pleads with Him not to destroy the Jewish people after they worshipped the golden calf.  He said, "G-d, you know that they are a stiff-necked people." G-d had originally told Moshe He was going to destroy the people because they are a stiff-necked people and they are already worshipping idols just 40 days after receiving the Ten Commandments, but Moshe turns it around and says, "G-d, You know they are a stiff-necked people. Give them a chance.  They have only had the Ten Commandments for 40 days.  Let them learn it.  Let them study it, and I am sure that they are going to come around. After all, You cannot expect instant compliance.  You have to give them a chance to learn it,11 So we see that the same argument that they are a stiff-necked people can be used to destroy them or can be used to save them.  That, of course, is something very important, because man has within him the capacity to use words to either harm or to use words to do a great deal of good. That is why is says here in the Parsha of Noah that the earth itself became destroyed because man has the power to destroy even nature if he does not take care of how he handles different things. We see today that there are all sorts of words being used incorrectly.  For example, there is something called the right to die. Mobody has a right to die. We are all going to die.  It is inevitable that we are all going to die. Nobody is going to live 120 years. We are all going to die. What does it mean a right to die? What does a right mean anyway? According to the Torah, a right means those things which reflect out of an image.  For example, in this Torah portion we learn about t the seven commandments of Noah.  The seven commandments of Noah all the peoples of the world have to observe, and if they observe them then we will have peace and harmony and fellowship and we will have a world which can really become a paradise, but, unfortunately, many people do not want to observe the seven commandments of Noah.  One of them is very clear. It says, "Whoever sheds the blood of a man by another man his blood shall be shed, because in the image of G-d is man made." In other words, if a man spills the blood of another man his blood shall be spilled.  Murder is prohibited and we have the right to exist because G-d gave us that right to exist. 

Today a right is defined differently. A right is defined as something that I either need or want.  Therefore, since I have a need then, therefore, I have a right. Whoever said that a right has anything to do with a need? or desire? People think now that they have a right to commit suicide.  Where do they have a right to commit suicide? They did not give themselves life.  Therefore, they cannot take life. What's more, it is now on the California ballot and other states' ballots that people should be able to assist people to die.  This, of course, flies in the face of what we learn here in the Torah portion Noah.  What's more, we have other words.  For example, we have the word choice, to choose, or we have the word consent and we have the word even duty. What are we talking about? We say that if I have the right to choose something, if I can choose something I should be able to have the right to choose something, especially if somebody else consents.  Is that really so? After all, what happens if a father and daughter both choose to have sex together and they both consent?  Is that correct?  Is that right? What happens if somebody says they should eat my flesh after I die? Maybe they would even consent that they should be murdered now so they could eat their flesh because if they eat their flesh they believe that they will somehow be saved or have a wonderful high experience, and the person consents to it.  Is that allowed? Can a person consent to be murdered by somebody else?  So we see that just because you consent to something, that it is okay.  Here we have this philosophy that if two adults consent, then it is all right, anything you want to do is all right.  So you mean it is all right to have incest?  It is all right to kill another human being who consents to be killed, who chooses to be killed? Now, of course, we know that many times doctors make mistakes.  There is even an incident in Colorado that was widely reported how a woman received a notice from a laboratory that she had a very deadly cancer and went home and took some pills and died of an overdose.  A few days later the lab called back and said they made a mistake, that she did not have this disease. Anyway, even if she had this disease it was not debilitating yet.  She was not in any great pain yet, so what is the problem? Why did she want to take her life at that particular time? Nobody has a right to die.  We are all going to die, and certainly people do not have a right to assist other people to die.  What's  more, we have this whole concept about sanctity of life.  Sanctity of life, true, is based upon a principle of the Torah that we should not stand by when a person's blood is being shed and we should do everything we possibly can to save them. What happens if a person becomes a vegetable and their mind is not working at all, they have no brain? Are you supposed to keep them in a vegetative state? Obviously not.  The Torah does not require that.  If life, itself, has no meaning , if there is no brain there, so, therefore, if a person is completely brainstem dead then obviously you can turn off the machines, but the problem here is that people try to jump from acting passively to acting actively.  In the Torah we also know that many times, too, we are not supposed to do anything which will prevent death from coming if death is inevitable and the person had already lost his brain. So we see that many concepts are falsified by people assuming rights when there are not rights, or people assuming sanctity when there is no sanctity.  People have to realize that especially in our society which seems to feel that anytime a person has the potential to choose something he should be able to choose something.  Can I be able to choose to murder other people? Can I be able to choose to have sex with a daughter? Can I be able to shoot somebody who tells me that I should shoot them?  In fact, there was a person who used to earn his living by having himself shot in his hand and his leg and 6 weeks later; after it would heal, and after he received a certain amount of money he would do it again.  That is 1Q0$> prohibited by Jewish law.  It is what it says right here, that a person who spills the blood of another man, his own blood should be spilled.  Our rights spring because we are created in the image of G-d, and, therefore, we have rights.  We have rights as a human being who has dignity and has self-respect and we are also only stewards of our body.  We are not the masters of our body.  We cannot do anything with our body that we want to do with our body.  Yes, the world can become corrupted.  We can destroy ourselves because we all know that many times people will claim that they are assisting doing something that a person says that he wants, even though it brings evil to the person, kills the person, destroys that part of the image of G-d which is still in that person, so we must be very careful how we use words. The rabbis tell us and ask a question.  It says in this Torah portion how the animals that are not clean shall be two by two.  The rabbis ask, why do we use circumlocutions, euphemisms, elegant language, but we know that throughout the Torah several hundred times the word Tomeh, unclean, is used. 

The answer they give is that when you are talking about precise Halachic terms, when you are talking about real cases then you use real terms.  You do not use circumlocutions.  That is only for polite society so people should not feel the full emotional force of your words, but when we are talking real problems you use the words.  You have to have complete clarity. You cannot obfuscate the situation by using words which do not fit, words which give you the general idea but not the full force. When we are dealing with real problems, when we are dealing with matters of life and death we have to use the weal words.  Therefore, it is wrong to talk about a right to die.  It is wrong to talk about the sanctity of life and use them in the context In which they have been used in our political discussions today.  What we must do is to remember, that each of us has been given life by G-d and G-d can take it.  Many times we should not prevent G-d from taking it, but we can never actively do anything which is going to cause our death to come sooner or the death of another person to come sooner.  Let us all hope that we will all realize this so that the world will live according to the principles that are enunciated in the beautiful stories of the Book of Bereishis so that mankind will truly come to a situation where he can perfect himself and perfect the world and bring the Mashiach quickly in our day.  Amen.