Lekh Lekha & Noach: Why Leave?

The Israelites who follow Moshe (“Moses” in English) out of Egypt in the book of Exodus have a good reason to emigrate. The pharaoh has subjected the Israelite men to forced labor under harsh conditions, with no end in sight and no days off. No wonder they are willing to leave their homes, their plots of land, and their neighborhoods and head off for the unknown country of Canaan—especially since their God is on their side, and has afflicted Egypt with plagues so that they can take their families and their livestock with them.

A generation earlier, Moshe himself left Egypt and became a resident alien in Midian—until God ordered him to return to Egypt and rescue his people. Moshe also had a good reason to emigrate; he had killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating an Israelite man, and in Egypt he was wanted for murder.¹

Five centuries before that, in the book of Genesis, the ancestors of the Israelites—later known as Abraham and Sarah—leave Mesopotamia and head for the unknown country of Canaan. Their reason for emigrating is not as obvious. The Torah does not report that anyone oppressed them in Mesopotamia, or that they committed any rash deeds. So why do they leave?

Terach’s family emigrates from Ur to Charan

Avram, whom God later renamed Avraham (“Abraham” in English), is first introduced near the end of last week’s Torah portion, Noach (Genesis/Bereishit 6:9-11:32).

And these are the genealogies of Terach: Terach begot Avram, Nachor, and Haran,
and Haran begot Lot. And Haran died in the presence of his father Terach, in the land of his moledet, in Ur of the Casdim. And Avram and Nachor took wives for themselves. The name of Avram’s wife was Sarai … And Sarai was barren, she had no child. (Genesis 11:27-30)

moledet (מוֹלֶדֶת) = descendants, offspring; kin in general; birthplace. (From the root verb yalad, יָלַד = gave birth, procreated.)

Then Terach and his whole family leave Ur and head toward Canaan.

… and they set out together from Ur of the Casdim, to go to the land of Canaan. And they came as far as Charan, and they settled there. (Genesis 11:31)

A straight line from Ur to Canaan would cross a vast desert with no water sources. So the only realistic route to Canaan was U-shaped: north into the foothills of Anatolia, in the vicinity of Charan, and then southwest past Damascus to Canaan.

The distances between Ur, Charan, and Canaan are significant. From the lower Mesopotamian city of Ur, where Avram was born, to the upper Mesopotamian city of Charan is about 770 miles (1240 km). From Charan to Canaan is about 500 miles (800 km).

Terach dies in Charan, at age 205. Nachor and his wife stay there² when Avram, Sarai, and Lot pack up again and travel to Canaan. The Torah reports no war, famine, or oppression in either Ur or Charan. So why do Terach and his family emigrate?

Why does Terach leave Ur?

Perhaps Terach leaves for the sake of his eldest son. Avram turns out to be exceptional in his ability to converse with God. Perhaps Terach notices that Avram has an unusual talent, and is willing to uproot his whole family to foster it.

The Netziv wrote that Avram experienced “a heavenly illumination” in Ur, “and he saw the sanctity of the land [of Canaan] from afar”. This 19^th-century rabbi imagined Avram as so “immersed in Godly ideas” that his doting father had to manage the practical details of the journey.³

Chayim ibn Attar suggested that Terach was concerned that his beloved oldest son had no children, and emigrated in the hope that Avram would be blessed with a son in Canaan. “The Torah shows us that Abraham was so important in the eyes of the other members of his father’s household that they all joined in the migration in order to stay close to him.”⁴

Modern commentator Frymer-Kensky suggested: “The worship of YHWH may be the reason that Terah first left Mesopotamia to head for Canaan.”⁵ Although a famous midrash claims (with no evidence) that Terach sold idols,⁶ the Torah indicates that Terach’s whole family worshipped Y-H-V-H as their primary god. Not only does Avram hear from Y-H-V-H in Charan, but decades later, when he sends his head servant back to Charan, Nachor’s son Betueil and grandson Lavan both refer to their god as Y-H-V-H.⁷

Would adherence to Y-H-V-H be a problem in Ur, but not in Charan or Canaan? It seems unlikely. The primary god of Ur was the moon goddess Nanna, and the god of Charan was the moon god Sin. But people throughout Mesopotamia acknowledged multiple gods, as did people in Canaan. I suspect a family that worshipped an obscure god they called Y-H-V-H would not be discriminated against as long as they made no negative comments in public about their city’s chief god.

Avram’s family emigrates from Charan to Canaan

An instruction from God opens this week’s Torah portion, Lekh Lekha (Genesis 12:1-17:27).

And Y-H-V-H [God] said to Avram: “Go for yourself from your land, and from your moledet, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you!” (Genesis 12:1)

At this point Avram is still childless, so moledet means either “kin” or “birthplace”. Either the writer is confusing Charan and Ur, or Avram has settled down in Charan with his kin, and now considers it the area around Charan in northern Mesopotamia his homeland.

Next God promises Avram ample rewards if he obeys.

“And I will make a great nation of you, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great. Be a blessing! And I will bless those who wish blessing on you, and curse those who demean you. And all the clans of the earth will be blessed through you!” (Genesis 12:2-3)

The usual blessings in the Torah are health, long life, fertility, and prosperity.

And Avram went as Y-H-V-H had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Avram was seventy-five years old when he left from Charan. (Genesis 12:4) Presumably after Terach dies in Charan, Nachor and Milkah decide not to continue the journey to Canaan. But when Avram chooses to obey God’s instruction and go to the land God shows him (which may or may not be Canaan), his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot go with him.

Why do Avram, Sarai, and Lot leave Charan?

The Torah portion Lekh Lekha continues:

And Avram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, all their property that they had accumulated, and the persons whom they had acquired in Charan, and they went out to go to the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12:5)

Obviously Avram, Sarai, and Lot had prospered in Charan. They now own a lot of moveable property (livestock and household goods), and a number of servants. They are wealthy and comfortable. Yet instead of staying in Charan, these three decide to emigrate again. The only reason the Torah provides is God’s speech to Avram.

Since God promises Avram blessings and descendants if he goes, Avram and Sarai may decide to leave in the hope of having a son (although Avram is 75 and Sarah is 65).

Lot, however, may decide to go with them in the hope of inheriting his childless uncle Avram’s estate.

On the other hand, maybe Avram, Sarai, and/or Lot simply want to follow the guidance of Y-H-V-H, their god.

Then why does God want Avram to emigrate from Charan to another land? The easy answer is that God is laying the groundwork for what the writers of the book of Genesis already knew—that for centuries one branch of Avram’s descendants, the Israelites, ruled the land formerly known as Canaan.

But within the story in Genesis, other answers are possible. 21^st-century commentator Judy Klitsner posited that God wants to isolate Avram. “With the words lekh lekha, which can literally be translated as ‘go to yourself,’ God commands Abraham to leave behind everything that is familiar and to embark on a path that is uniquely his (Gen. 12:1). And in fact, throughout his trials, Abraham maintains his solitary stance, earning the title ‘Abraham the Ivri, Hebrew’ (14:13), a term that throughout the Bible suggests singularity and otherness.”⁸

Ivri (עִבְרִי) = member of the Hebrew ethnic group; one from the other side. (From the root verb avar, עָבַר = cross over, pass through.)

Other commentators have focused on God’s directive to go not to Canaan, but “to the land that I will show you”. Steinsaltz wrote: “That is how one follows God: without a destination and without an aim. … God says, ‘go forth,’ and one must get up and go, without knowing where one will arrive, without knowing one’s objective, and without knowing one’s aim.”⁹

And Buchdahl wrote: “We Jews were strangers at the birth of Judaism. … God did not permit Abraham and Sarah to begin Judaism within the comfort of their hometown. They had to become immigrants. They had to be the Other in order to create a religion of the Other. … As Jews, we know what it is to feel vulnerable and powerless. God chose the Jewish people to be archetypal strangers. … We are mandated by our tradition to remember, protect, and yes, love the stranger, because that’s who we are.”¹⁰

Some people, like the Israelites who leave Egypt, emigrate for the sake of their lives. They need to escape oppression, persecution, war, natural disasters, poverty. Other people, like Avram, emigrate for the sake of their souls. They might seek more education, a different culture, uncommon opportunities. Or they might even hear a divine call urging them to go for a reason they do not yet know.

But all emigrants have to leave their homes, and leave behind familiar people and things. And they risk arriving at the land they long for and learning that immigrants are not welcome. I continue to pray that someday all borders will be open, and all people will be kind to strangers.

Exodus 2:11-15.
See Genesis 22:20-24, 24:4.
19^th-century rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin (a.k.a. the Netziv), Ha-amek Davar, translation in www.sefaria.org.
18^th-century rabbi Chayim ibn Attar, Or Hachayim, translation in www.sefaria.org.
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible, Schocken Books, New York, 2002, p. 12.
Bereishit Rabbah, chapter 38.
Genesis 24:31, 24:50-51.
Judy Klitsner, Subversive Sequels in the Bible, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 2009, pp. 41-42.
Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, Talks on the Parasha, Koren Publishers, New Milford, CT, 2015, p. 27.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Heart of a Stranger, Viking, Penguin Random House, 2025, p. 310-311.

Noach: Consensus and Babble

A great flood drowns all humans and animals on earth except for those on the ark built by Noach (“Noah” in English). After the flood, Noach’s three sons and their wives are fruitful and multiply. In this week’s Torah portion, Noach (Genesis/Bereishit 6:9-11:32), their descendants eventually spread out and form nations all over the known world. But first they journey together, away from the mountain where the ark touched down after the flood, and settle on a plain in Shinar—another name for Babylonia.

And all the earth was of one language and one set of words. (Genesis 11:1)

Traditional commentators assumed that the language was Hebrew, and that “one set of words” means that the people were of one opinion, one mind.

After arriving at the fertile river plain,

Building the Tower of Babel, by James Tissot,
circa 1900

Then they said to one another: “Come on! Let’s make bricks, and let us burn them well [bake them hard]!” Bricks were to them like stone, and bitumen was to them like mortar. And they said: “Come on! Let’s build a city and a tower, its top in the heavens! And let us make ourselves a sheim, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth!” (Genesis 11:3-4)

sheim (שֵׁם) = name, reputation, fame.

The first problem with this plan is that the people decide (presumably by consensus) to live together in a single city, instead of following God’s command to Noach and his family:

“And you: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth!” (Genesis 9:1)

Geography alone would prevent a single city from filling the earth; oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges would separate people. But these like-minded people do not want to spread out and scatter.

A 19^th-century rabbi known as the Netziv wrote that the people noticed that their opinions are not identical, but decided that as long as they stayed together they could enforce a single program—by punishing, or even executing, nonconformists. “Therefore they sought to ensure that no one would leave their society.”¹

But I figure that the people would ensure consensus through conversation and persuasion rather than by any violent means. After all, they would have passed down stories of the violence among humans that led to God’s decision to flood the earth.

According to Kli Yakar, a commentary from 1602, “there was concern lest we necessarily scatter from one another and brotherhood cease between us” and then “they would come to wars, as war is always common between inhabitants of one country and another.”²

So they build a big city—out of bricks, since the alluvial plain in Mesopotamia has few stones or trees. But why do they build a tower?

The purpose of the tower

One theory is that the tower is simply a landmark so shepherds and anyone else who wanders too far can find the way home.³ Saying that they want a tower with “its top in the heavens” is merely “an exaggeration describing that the Tower would be very tall. We find a similar exaggeration when Moses described the walls of Canaanite cities in Deuteronomy 1:28 as ‘reaching into heaven.’”⁴

But other commentators have taken the phrase literally, and concluded that the people had so much hubris they wanted the top of the tower to reach into God’s domain.⁵ Then if God tried to scatter them, through a flood or some other disaster, they would climb to the top of the tower and wage war against God.⁶

Alternatively, “Their goal was: we will go up and chop large windows and holes in heaven, so that the water will run out, in the hope that the Holy One will no longer bring the Flood upon us.”⁷ (In the first story in Genesis, God creates the earth and sky in between “the waters above” and “the waters below”. Near the beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Noach, God triggers the great flood when all the springs of the great subterranean waters burst open, and the windows of the heavens/skies opened (Genesis 7:11) so rain fell for 40 days and 40 nights.)

Modern scholars point out that since the people are building the tower in Shinar, a.k.a. Babylon, the author is poking fun at the brick ziggurats built in Babylonian cities and considered “the meeting point of heaven and earth”.⁸

Name or fame

But how can the tower make a sheim (name, reputation or fame) for the people of the city, when there are no other humans in the world who might wander by and discover it?

The 18^th-century commentary Or HaChayim explains: “The ‘name’ the Torah speaks of is the ‘name’ of the tower, i.e. its visibility from afar, its significance.”⁹ So God does not object to the tower, but to the city—because God had ordered the people to spread out.

But an earlier commentary, Kli Yakar, proposes that the people wanted fame as individuals, not as one community. “… each one will want to be a ruler and minister in this great city so that his name will spread throughout the world, and through this, disputes will multiply between them as mentioned.”¹⁰ So the desire for individual fame destroys the people’s peaceful unanimity.

And in the 19^th century, Hirsch came up with another solution: “They decided to create a structure that would be an everlasting monument to the power of the community and its preeminence over the individual.”¹¹ In his view, the community “may easily come to regard itself as the highest goal—as though the individual has value only through the community … the individual is expected to sacrifice his life, and the community is expected to renounce its allegiance to morality. Individuals, of course, weep at the loss of a loved one, but when the community builds its edifice of glory the toll in human life is deemed to be of no importance. … A nation’s ambition to make a name for itself and to magnify its national glory spells disaster for its moral mission.”¹²

What does God do?

And God came down to look at the city and the tower that the humans were building. (Genesis 11:5)

The God character in the book of Genesis is neither omnipresent nor omniscient. Sometimes there even seems to be more than one god.¹³

And God said: “Hey! One people, and one language for them all, and this is the start of their doings! And now they will not hold themselves back from anything that they consider doing. Come on! Let’s go down there, and navlah their language, so that no one will understand the language of his fellow!” (Genesis 11:6-7)

navlah (נָבְלָה) = let’s scramble, let’s mix, let’s mix up, let’s confuse. (A form of the verb balal, בָּלַל = scrambled, mixed, muddled, confused.

Does this mean that although the God character in this story is not omnipresent, omniscient, or singular, nevertheless this God (and perhaps a crew of subordinate gods) has the power to alter the language in human minds?

The next verse appears to explain how God, acting alone, scrambled their language without interfering with their minds:

Then Y-H-V-H scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11:8)

In the 12^th century, Ibn Ezra lists three possible interpretations of this verse: “Some say that the people building the tower started hating each other and each one invented a new language. Others say that the One who grants knowledge to man caused them to forget their language. In my opinion, they were first scattered.”¹⁴

Which is the cause and which is the effect?

The 13^th-century rabbi known as Radak maintained: “God did not scatter the people by physically depositing them in different parts of the earth. By mixing up their languages, the people themselves started moving away from one another, in accordance with their ability to understand one another, Seeing that they were unable to communicate with one another coherently, their building project had to be aborted at any rate.”¹⁵

Therefore its [the city’s] sheim was called Bavel, because there Y-H-V-H balal the language of all the earth, and from there, Y-H-V-H scattered them over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:9)

Bavel (בָּבֶל) = the Hebrew name for Babylon.

balal (בָּלַל) = scrambled, mixed, muddled, confused.

The story ends with a slur against Babylon; what a confused place!

Why does God do it?

A literal way to read the story of the Tower of Babel is that God orders Noach’s descendants to scatter and fill the earth; they refuse to do so because they want to stay together; and God punishes them by scattering them so far apart that their languages change and they can no longer communicate well enough to live in peace. Apparently God is more interested in population increase than in peace.

Another interpretation is that if everyone holds the same beliefs, including the same beliefs about God, then no one will seek deeper understanding. We will all follow tradition blindly, without questioning whether, for example, God is more interested in population increase than in peace. So God scattered the people in order to induce their descendants to question one another and develop better beliefs.

A third way to read the story is as a parable about permanence. After the flood, Noach’s descendants know about the death of their entire world. Despite God’s promise not to do it again, they are understandably afraid it might happen again. So the thousands of people in the extended family do not want to separate and scatter over the earth. They try to put down roots by building a city out of a permanent material, brick. And they build a tall tower to establish a name for themselves—either to create a monument that will outlast them, or to prevent the sky from flooding again, or to touch the eternal heavens above the ever-changing earth. But God will not let anything on earth endure forever, so they are scattered, and they give up on the project.

Today the earth is so full of human beings that our polluting activities have unbalanced the climate. And although we try to improve our communications, we do not share the same values, and there is always war in some part of the world.
Overall, human ethical beliefs have improved, but we still have a long way to go. Human beings are still afraid of dying without achieving anything permanent. And we are still confused.

We are still Noach’s descendants, the same species that tried to build the Tower of Babel. But instead of a tower, perhaps we can build a world that is a little better than the one we inherited.

19^th-century Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (a.k.a. the Netziv), Ha-amek Davar, translation in www.sefaria.org.
Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz, Kli Yakar, 1602, translation in www.sefaria.org.
E.g. 13^th-century rabbi David Kimchi (a.k.a. Radak); 18^th century rabbi Chayim ibn Attar, Or HaChayim. Translations in www.sefaria.org.
Radak, ibid.
E.g. Midrash Tanchuma, circa 500 – circa 800 CE.
Siftei HaChamim, 17^th century.
Tze-enah Ure-enah, a 17^th-century Yiddish commentary, translation in www.sefaria.org.
Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, URJ Press, 2008, reprinted in www.sefaria.org.
Or HaChayim, ibid.
Kli Yakar, ibid.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash: Sefer Bereshis, Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 2002, p. 266.
Hirsch, ibid., pp. 267-268.
See my post Bereishit: How Many Gods?
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, 12^th century, translation in www.sefaria.org.
Radak, ibid.

Bereishit & Noach: What Ruined the World?

On the sixth “day” of creation God creates land animals, including humans.

And God saw everything [God] had made, and hey! It was very good. And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)

But by the end of this first Torah portion in Genesis, Bereishit, something has gone wrong.

Then God saw that the evil of humankind was abundant on the earth, and all the shapes of the plans of its mind were only evil all the time. And God had second thoughts about making the human being on the earth, and [God’s] heart was distressed. And God thought: “I will wipe out the human that I created from upon the face of the earth—from humankind to beasts to creeping animals to flying animals in the sky—because I have had second thoughts about making them.” But Noach found favor in the eyes of God. (Genesis 6:5-8)

Noach (נֺחַ) = rest, resting-place; the personal name “Noah” in English.

Humans are generating so much evil that God wants to roll back creation to somewhere on the fifth “day” and start over again.

What kind of evil? The beginning of this week’s Torah portion, Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32), narrows it down a bit.

The earth had become ruined in front of God; the earth was filled with chamas. And God looked at the earth, and hey! It was ruined, because all basar had ruined its ways on the earth. And God said to Noach: “The end of all basar is coming before me! For the earth is filled with chamas because of them. So here I am, ruinging them along with the earth! Make for yourself an ark of gofer wood …” (Genesis 6:11-14)

chamas (חָמָס) = violence.

basar (בָּשָׂר) = soft tissue of a human or other animal, including skin, muscle, meat; animals in general. (See my post Bereishit & Noach: All Flesh.)

After giving instructions for building the ark, God tells Noach:“As for me, here I am bringing the flood waters over the earth, to ruin all basar with a breath of life in it under the skies.” (Genesis 6:17)

All flesh

In the Noach story, the phrase “all flesh” (kol basar) means all non-human land animals four times in order to emphasize that Noach and his family are saving a pair of every type of animal. “All flesh” means all land animals, including humans, eight times in the Noach story.¹ For example:

And all basar expired: the crawlers on the earth, birds and beasts, and all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all the human beings. Everything that breathed the air of life in its nostrils, out of all that were on dry land, died. (Genesis 7:21-22)

The portion Noach states at the beginning that all basar had “ruined its ways on the earth” (Genesis 6:12), and then God tells Noach: “the earth is filled with chamas because of them” (Genesis 6:13). It is reasonable to conclude that God floods the earth because all land animals, including humans, are ruining God’s creation through violence.

What kind of violence?

What kind of chamas has ruined the earth? Classic commentators suggested four answers²:

Robbery. For example, “There is a discussion between the sages as to the difference in meaning between the word: חמס (violence) and the word גזל (robbery) when used in the Holy Scriptures. According to Rabbi Chaninah, the difference is merely in the amount misappropriated by violent means.” (Chizkuni, in response to earlier commentary including Rashi).

I reject robbery as a candidate because although I can imagine one animal biting another in order to steal its stash of food, this kind of behavior is never mentioned in the Torah.

Idolatry. For example, “Ḥamas refers to idolatry, as it is stated [in Ezekiel 8:17—Is it so little for the house of Judah, doing the abominations that they do here, that] they filled the earth with ḥamas?” (Bereishit Rabbah 31:6).

I reject idolatry as a candidate for two reasons: 1) Ezekiel might have meant that the Judahites were violent in addition to committing abominations, and 2) Non-human animals exhibit no god-worshiping behavior, violent or otherwise.

Sexual misconduct. For example, “The dog would consort with the wolf, and the chicken would consort with the peacock.” (Bereishit Rabbah 28:8). “All flesh engaged in unnatural and perverted sexual acts.” (Ibn Ezra). “They raped women against their will.” (Chizkuni).

I reject this theory because no sexual violence or other sexual misconduct is mentioned in the Torah until after the flood.

Shedding innocent blood. For example, “Ḥamas refers to bloodshed, as it is stated: “[in Joel 4:19—Egypt shall be a desolation and Edom a desolate waste] due to the ḥamas against the children of Judah, that they shed innocent blood.” (Bereishit Rabbah 31:6).

Shedding innocent blood certainly counts as chamas, and too much of it might well make the God character conclude that the world is ruined. The quote from the book of Joel in Bereishit Rabbah refers to humans shedding the blood of other humans, but it is also possible that the word chamas applies to other kinds of bloodshed.

When God has second thoughts about the world, what innocent blood is being shed, and by whom? The Torah portions Bereishit and Noach support two different answers. In one, humans and some of the other animals are shedding the blood of innocent animals in order to eat them. In the other, evil humans are murdering innocent humans.

Carnivores versus herbivores

On the sixth “day” of creation, God tells the first humans:

“Hey! I give you all seed-bearing plants that are on the face of the whole earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruits; they shall be your food. And to all animals on the land, and all birds in the skies, and all crawlers on the ground that have the animating soul of life in them: all green plants for food.” (Genesis 1:29-30)

Thus God’s original plan is for all animals, including humans, to follow a vegan diet. No animals are created to be carnivores.

The next episode in the book of Genesis is an older creation story, in which the first living thing God creates is the human being. Then God plants the garden of Eden and transfers the androgynous human there. God gives it permission to eat fruit:

“From every tree of the garden you may certainly eat. But from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you should not eat from it …” (Genesis 2:16-17)

Then God makes animals and brings them to the human to name. The approved diet for these animals is not mentioned. Later, when God is about to banish the first two humans from Eden, along with the snake, God says that in the real world the snake will eat dust.

“On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.” (Genesis 3:14).

Eating dust might be an idiom, as in English, leaving the snake’s actual source of nutrition unspecified. But God does say what the man will eat after he is expelled from the garden of Eden:

“And your food will be the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread.” (Genesis 3:18-19)

Perhaps, over time, all flesh—humans and other predatory animals—ruin the world that God created by becoming carnivores. After all, eating meat, basar, requires the death of an animal—a violent act of bloodshed, since any animal struggles against its killer.

If this is the widespread chamas that is ruining the world, the flood makes sense as God’s solution. If all flesh were wiped out, God could repopulate the earth with creatures designed so they would stay vegetarian.

Yet after the flood is over, God decides to put up with the evil inclinations of humans. God specifically accepts the practice of eating meat, telling Noach and his sons:

“Fear and dread of you will be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the skies, in everything that crawls on the ground, and in every fish in the sea; into your hand I give them. Every crawler that is alive will be yours for eating; as with green plants, I give them all to you.” (Genesis 9:2-3)

The only caveats God makes are that humans must not drink an animal’s blood; and that neither a human nor a beast can shed human blood and get away with it.

Whoever sheds the blood of humankind, by humankind his blood must be shed.” (Genesis 9: 6)

Killing and eating animals is now an acceptable form of violence; but human murder is not.

Human versus human

After the expulsion from Eden and before God decides to flood the earth, there is another story about chamas—one in which the evil behavior is murder, not eating meat.

Adam and Eve’s first son, Cain, farms the soil, and their second son, Abel, tends a flock. This division of labor bothered some classic commentators, who tried to reconcile being a shepherd with following God’s instructions to eat only plants.

“The one who became the shepherd was interested in eating the dairy products obtainable from the sheep and goats. He was also in need of the wool of the sheep to make clothing. They restricted themselves to these vocations, seeing that God had not permitted the eating of meat but only grass, fruit of the trees, and bread …” (Radak)³

The Torah does not report that any of the first four humans eats a sheep or goat. But Abel does become the first human to kill an animal.

And Cain brought from the fruit of the ground an offering to God. And Abel, also he, brought from the firstborn of his flock and from their fattest. And God paid regard to Abel and to his offering. But to Cain and to his offering, [God] paid no regard. And Cain was very angry and his face fell. (Genesis 4:3-5)

In the Torah, every animal offering is butchered, and at least part of it is burned up into smoke, which God enjoys smelling. (See my post Pinchas: Aromatherapy.) Since God indicates approval of Abel’s offering in some way, we can conclude that God is not distressed when Abel kills an animal in his flock. Perhaps animal-killing is acceptable as an act of worship, even though eating its flesh is still unacceptable.⁴

Cain is so upset about God’s preference for Abel that he becomes the first human to commit murder. We can assume that the murder involves violent bloodshed, since God tells Cain:

“And now you will be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to take in the blood of your brother from your hand!” (Genesis 4:11)

Cain and Abel, 1624 print by Francesco Villamena, after Raphael

The next biblical reference to killing a fellow creature, human or beast, is when six generation later a man named Lemekh brags:

“I have killed a man for crushing me, and a boy for bruising me!” (Genesis 4:23)

Then (after a quick, unconnected story about lesser gods mating with human women to produce heroes) God sees that humankind has become evil, and all basar has filled the world with chamas.

One more indication that God does not object to humans killing beasts is that after the flood, Noah builds an altar, kills some extra animals, and burns them as offering to God. As in the story of Cain and Abel, God appreciates the animal offering.

And God smelled the soothing smell, and God said in [God’s] heart: Never again [will I] curse the ground on account of humankind, because the impulse of the human heart is evil from its youth. And never again [will I] strike down all life, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:20-21).

According to classic commentary, God decides that it is only natural for children to act on their bad impulses, but adults can learn to control these impulses and be good. Throughout the Torah, sacrificing animals to worship God is considered good behavior. God must think so, too, even before the flood. (See my post Noach: The Soother.)

“He ascribes merit to men because by their very creation they have an evil nature in their youthful days but not in their mature years.” (Ramban)⁵

After that, God explicitly gives Noah and his sons permission to eat meat—although presumably they will have to wait until the animals they saved on the ark have reproduced.

Why does God wipe out not only humankind, but all animals?

If the chamas that distresses God is carnivorous behavior, then why does God drown all the land animals, including herbivores? Is it too much work to create a plague that kills only the carnivorous species?

Similarly, if the kind of chamas that distresses God is human murder, then why does God make a flood that wipes out not only humankind, but also every land animal that is not on Noah’s ark?

The Talmud imagines God answering:

“Did I create domesticated animals and non-domesticated animals for any reason other than for man? Now that man sins and is sentenced to destruction, why do I need domesticated animals and non-domesticated animals?” (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108a)⁵

In other words, God drowns the other animals because they have no value apart from their usefulness to humans. After all, in the first creation story God tells the newly created humans:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subjugate it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the skies and over everything alive crawling on the land.” (Genesis 1:28)

In Genesis, non-human animals are clearly inferior to humans, and do not deserve the same respect. Therefore if a flood is the easiest way to wipe out the whole human population, the fact that it wipes out other animals as well is irrelevant to God—as long as enough are preserved on the ark to repopulate the world, and to be burned as offerings to God.

What is the chamas that makes God have second thoughts about creating the world? The book of Genesis provides evidence for both the theory that the world is ruined by carnivorous behavior, and the theory that the world is ruined by human murder. But God and humankind are made in the same “image”, and the death by violence of a fellow human usually causes the most despair in humans themselves.

Today, chamas (חָמָס) is the Hebrew spelling of the Arabic acronym Charakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”)—spelled “Hamas” in English. This group, founded in 1987, has been the de facto government of the Gaza strip since 2007. As I write this post, Hamas is engaged in a terrorist invasion of Israel marked by personal violence.

Since “the impulse of the human heart is evil from its youth”, what will it take for all of humanity to learn to reject violence?

Kol basar refers to all non-human animals in Genesis 6:19, 7:15, 7:16, and 8:17. Kol basar refers to all animals including humans in 6:12, 6:13, 6:17, 7:21, 9:11, 9:15 (twice), and 9:17. The phrase does not refer to all human flesh until Deuteronomy 5:23.
Translations of Chizkuni (13^th century) and Bereishit Rabbah (4^th-5^th century C.E.), are from www.sefaria.org.
Radak (Rabbi David Kimchi),13^th century; translation from www.sefaria.org. Also see Siftei Chakhamim, 17^th century, on Genesis 4:2.
Of course, it is also possible that the author of the story of Cain and Abel was unaware of the vegetarian diet commanded in the two creation stories. Scholars date the story of the six days of creation to the 6^th century B.C.E., and the subsequent stories in the Torah portion Bereishit to an earlier date.
Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 108a:20, William Davidson translation, www.sefaria.org.

Noach: Alienation

Humans are supposed to spread out over the whole earth; God makes that clear early in the book of Genesis/Bereishit. After creating humans, God tells them:

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subjugate it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over all the living things that crawl on the earth.” (Genesis/Bereishit 1:28)

Perhaps God expects humans to be good stewards of God’s creation; after all, God makes humandkind “in God’s image.”¹ But they fail. Nine generations later, in the time of Noah, God observes “that the evil of humankind is abundant on the earth” (Genesis 6:5) and “the earth is filled with violence because of them …” (Genesis 6:13)

So God floods the whole world in this week’s Torah portion, Noach², and life begins over again with the passenger’s on Noah’s ark, including his three sons and their wives.

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1)

All bird and land animals will fear humankind, God adds. And the rules have changed: now humans are allowed to kill and eat other animals, but anyone who kills a human being must be killed in turn.

“Whoever sheds the blood of humankind,

by humankind his blood must be shed,

Because in the image of God

[God] made humankind.

And you must be fruitful and multiply. Swarm over the earth and multiply on it!” (Genesis 9:6-7)

In other words, it is a sin or crime to kill a fellow human being, because we all have some divine characteristics. And God still wants humans to fill up the earth.

Noah’s descendants do multiply, and eventually they scatter. His grandchildren and great-grandchildren become the ancestors of people who establish separate countries all over the Ancient Near East, including Canaan, Egypt, Kush, Akkad, Aram, and Bavel—the Hebrew name for “Babylon” in English. But then they modify God’s prohibition against killing fellow human beings. The separate ethnic groups become alienated from each other and make war in order to seize their neighbors’ lands. Later in the Torah, killing in battle is not considered murder.

However, this week’s Torah portion describes a brief period when all human beings cooperate and live together in harmony. This occurs when Noah’s descendants move away from the ark and settle together in Shinar, a biblical name for the Mesopotamian valley of the lower Tigris and Euphrates.

Everyone on earth had one language and one set of words. And it was as they journeyed from the east that they found a broad valley in the land of Shinar, and they settled sham. (Genesis 11:1-2)

sham (שָׁם) = there.

If only some of the humans had stayed in Shinar and the rest had journeyed on, God might have been satisfied. But all the humans on earth settle there, and began making bricks.

And they said: Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves a sheim, lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:4)

sheim (שֵׁם) = name, fame, reputation. (Also the name of Noah’s oldest son, from whom Abraham is descended.)

Tower of Babel, by Pieter Breugel the Elder, 1563

These people do not want to scatter over the earth. Since no dissent is reported, we can assume that they are a functional social group and they prefer to stay together. They probably have leaders, but not a king. (In Genesis 10:8-10 one of Noah’s descendants, Nimrod, is called a mighty hunter and the king of Shinar when its chief cities were Bavel, Erekh, Akkad, and Kalneih. But this seems to refer to a later period of history than the time when people build the first city after the Flood.)³

Noah’s early descendants succeed in building a city and a tall tower, activities that, in the absence of a king with a police force, require a high level of willing cooperation.⁴ A city makes it easy for people to engage in more activities together, take advantage of a greater division of labor, and get help in emergencies, but the reason for building a tower is not as obvious. Three reasons commentators have proposed are:

Noah’s early descendants are afraid that God will decide to wipe out the human race again. Instead of preventing divine destruction by obeying all of God’s wishes, these people build a watchtower so they can see their enemy, God, approaching and take steps.⁵
They build the tower all the way up to the heavens in order to wage war against God there, with the help of an idol they plan to place at the top.⁶
The tower is merely a landmark that shepherds can see from far away, so they can easily guide their flocks home.⁷

All three reasons confirm the unity of the people. So why are they worried about being “scattered over the face of the whole earth” when they are so good at living together? The only reason must be that they know scattering is God’s agenda.

And why do they believe that making themselves a sheim will keep them together?

In Biblical Hebrew, sheim means “name”, “fame”, or “reputation”. Since they are the only human beings in the world, they do not need a name for themselves beyond “human”.⁸ And while certain individuals might become famous, the people as a whole cannot do so because there is no other group of beings to compare themselves with—except perhaps gods or angels. (See my post Bereishit: How Many Gods).

Then does sheim mean reputation? The people as a whole might want to establish a good reputation with God so that God would forgive them for not scattering over the earth. Did they hope that building the city with the tower would impress God?

Maybe what they really want is a sham rather than a sheim. Although the two words do not share a root verb, their spelling is identical in a Torah scroll: שם. For more than two thousand years, Torah scrolls have had no vowel pointing. The vowel points that distinguish sheim (שֵׁם) from sham (שָׁם) in books were only added when the Masoretes codified the Hebrew Bible during the 7^th to 12^th centuries C.E.

Maybe in the original oral version, a few thousand years ago, the humans said:

Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make ourselves sham (“there”), lest we be scattered over the face of the whole earth.

All the humans in the world cooperate to make themselves a place in the world, their home.

They cooperate with each other, but not with God.

And God went down to look at the city and the tower that the children of the human had built. And God said: “Hey! One people and one language for all of them, and this is how they have begun to act? So now nothing that they plan to do will be impossible! Come, let us go down there and let us scramble their language, so that a man cannot understand the language of his neighbor.”⁹ (Genesis 11:6-7)

The best way to make the collaborative, cooperative people scatter is to turn them into strangers, aliens who cannot even understand each other. Then they will no longer want to work together.

Then God scattered them from there over the surface of all the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore He called its name Bavel, because there God scrambled the language of all the earth, and from there God scattered them over all the surface of the earth.¹⁰ (Genesis 11:8-9)

What if it were true that if all humans on earth could understand each other, nothing we planned to do would be impossible?

Would we stop killing each other? Would we finally become good stewards of the earth?

Genesis 1:27.
“Noah” in English is Noach (נֺחַ or נוֹחַ) in Hebrew. The word means “rest” or “resting place”.
The Talmud, written in the 5^th century C.E., long after the book of Genesis, claimed that Nimrod was king over the people who built the Tower of Babel (Talmud Bavli, Chullin 89a).
The popular myth that the builders of the Tower of Babel valued a brick above a human life appears in Sefer HaYashar, Genesis, Noach 14 (first published in 1625).
E.g. 14^th-century Rabbeinu Bachya, 17^th-century Siftei Chakhamim.
E.g. Midrash Tanchuma, written no later than 800 C.E., Siftei Chakhamim.
E.g. Radak (12-13^th-century rabbi David Kimchi), Rabbeinu Bachya.
adam (אָדָם) = human, humankind.
For commentary on why God suddenly switches to the first person plural, “us”, see last week’s post: Bereishit: How Many Gods?
This folk etymology connects the name of the city and region of Bavel (בָּבֶל) with the verb for “scramble”, balal (בָּלַל). However, the name Bavel probably comes from the Sumerian place-name Babilim, which meant “Gate of God”.

Book of Genesis: Inbreeding

Why is there so much inbreeding in the book of Genesis/Bereishit? After the first two Torah portions, most of the major characters are descended from Abraham’s father, Terach, through multiple lines. The branches of their family tree keep growing together again.

Noach

The Torah does not say how many wives Terach has, but it does name four of his children at the end of the Torah portion Noach. He has three sons: Avram (whom God renames Abraham), Nachor, and Haran.¹ He also has a daughter named Sarai (whom God renames Sarah).² While they are all living in the southern Mesopotamian city of Ur, Avram and Nachor marry their own relatives.

Avram and Nachor took wives for themselves. The name of Avram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nachor’s wife was Milkah, the daughter of Haran … (Genesis 11:29)

In other words, Avram marries his half-sister, Terach’s daughter, and Nachor marries his niece, Terach’s granddaughter.

Terach leaves Ur and heads toward Canaan with some of his family members. Halfway there they stop and settle in the town of Charan, where Terach dies.³

Thanks to archeology, we know that Charan was an actual city where the main road north from Ur met the main road that went southwest to Canaan. Both Charan and Ur were dedicated to the moon-god Nannar. The residents of those two cities worshiped many other gods as well, in temples stocked with idols. They also kept terafim, figurines of lesser gods, to protect their households.

Terach would probably acknowledge Nannar, but his primary god might be a different deity. In last week’s Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, both Betueil (son of Nachor and Milkah) and Betueil’s son Lavan use the same four-letter name of God that Avram uses (commonly represented in Roman letters as Y-H-W-H).⁴ Later in Genesis, Lavan says “Y-H-W-H” has blessed him, and he makes a vow in the name of “the god of Nachor”.⁵ But he is not a monotheist; he also owns terafim.⁶

Lekh-Lekha and Vayeira

Does Terach hear the voice of God, Y-H-W-H? The Torah is silent.⁷ But it is conceivable that he starts traveling toward Canaan because he hears the same voice in Ur that his son Avram hears in Charan:

“Go for yourself, away from your land and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

For Avram, that land turns out to be Canaan.

Avram hears God’s voice many more times in the portions Lekh-Lekha and Vayeira. On five occasions God promises him that his descendants will inherit the land of Canaan.⁸ God informs him that first those descendants will be enslaved in another land for 400 years.⁹ God demands circumcision for every male in his household and all of his future descendants, alters the names of Avram and Sarai, and promises that Sarai (now Sarah) will have a son at age 90.¹⁰ Avram (now Abraham) talks God into agreeing not to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah if there are even ten innocent people living there.¹¹ When Sarah demands that Abraham cast out his first son, Ishmael, along with Ishmael’s mother, God tells him to do what Sarah says.¹²

Sarah Hears and Laughs, by James J.J. Tissot

Terach’s daughter Sarah also hears God’s voice. When three men who turn out to be angels visit in the Torah portion Vayeira, she overhears one of them say that she will have a child the following year. Sarah, who is 89, laughs silently. Then she hears God asking Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh?”

And Sarah lied, saying: “I did not laugh,” because she was afraid. But [God] said: “No, for you did laugh.” (Genesis 18:15)

Abraham and Sarah do have a son. Isaac is probably 26 when his father hears God order him to sacrifice that son on an altar. God calls him off at the last minute, and Abraham goes home alone.¹³ Then he gets news from Charan: Nachor and Milkah (Abraham’s brother and niece) had a son named Betueil, and Betueil now has a daughter named Rebecca.¹⁴

Chayei Sarah

Abraham arranges a marriage for Isaac fourteen years later, in the Torah portion Chayei Sarah. He insists that Isaac must marry one of his relatives back in the Aramaean town of Charan. He adds the condition that the bride must be willing to move to Canaan, because he wants Isaac to stay in Canaan.

Why does he reject the idea of simply getting Isaac a Canaanite wife?

In last week’s post I proposed that Abraham worries Isaac might stray in his religion, after the trauma of being bound as a sacrifice to his father’s god. (See Chayei Sarah: Arranged Marriage.) Since his extended family in Charan worships Y-H-W-H (among others)¹⁵, a wife from that branch of the family would not tempt Isaac away from serving the God of Abraham.

But there is another possible reason for marrying Isaac to one of his relatives. Perhaps Abraham believes his covenant with God can be best continued through the generations if as many of his descendants as possible can hear God’s voice. For that, more inbreeding might help.

Rebecca may be exactly the young woman Abraham has in mind as a bride for Isaac. After all, she is descended from Terach through both Nachor and Milkah. She agrees to go to Canaan, and marries Isaac.

Toledot

In Toledot, this week’s Torah portion, Rebecca is alarmed by her pregnancy; it feels as though a wrestling match is taking place in her womb.

And she went to inquire of God. And God said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will branch off from your belly. One people will be mightier than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” (Genesis 25:22-23)

The text does not say where Rebecca goes to inquire of God; some commentary suggests that she consults an oracle. But the text does say that God speaks directly to her, and it uses the name Y-H-V-H. The voice of God is correct; Rebecca has twins, Esau and Jacob, who eventually found two peoples in the Torah: the Edomites and the Israelites.

Rebecca’s husband Isaac, who is descended from Terach through both Abraham and Sarah, also hears God’s voice.

And God appeared to him that night and said: “I am the god of Abraham, your father. Don’t be afraid, because I am with you, and I will bless you and increase your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.” (Genesis 26:24)

Jacob proves more intelligent and more patient than his twin brother Esau.¹⁷ The Torah does not say whether his parents realize that Jacob is the better candidate to carry on the covenant with God. Isaac fumbles his delivery of the blessing of Abraham, Esau is enraged at the result, and Rebecca tells Jacob to flee to her brother Lavan’s house in Charan. Then she tells Isaac that she is disgusted with the Hittite women Esau married, and she could not bear it if Jacob also married one of the local women.

Isaac calls in Jacob. Rebecca has not told him where to send Jacob for a bride, but Isaac decides to continue Abraham’s family breeding program.

And he said to him: “Do not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan! Rise, go to Padan Aram, to the house of Betueil, your mother’s father, and take yourself a wife from there, from the daughters of Lavan, your mother’s brother.” (Genesis 28:1-2)

Thus he orders Jacob to marry one of his first cousins, who also carries more than the usual share of Terach’s blood (or genes).

Vayeitzei

As soon as Jacob leaves home he, too, hears the voice of God. In next week’s Torah portion, Vayeitzei, he dreams of God’s angelic messengers ascending and descending between heaven and earth, and then sees God standing over him. God confirms that the blessing of descendants who will inherit Canaan has gone from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.

And [God] said: “I am God [Y-H-V-H], the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land which you are lying on I will give to you and to your descendants.” (Genesis 28:13).

Jacob marries both of Lavan’s daughters, and their eight sons (plus Jacob’s four sons with Lavan’s daughters’ servants) become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Being able to hear God is not a unique trait of Terach’s descendants. Before the Flood, God converses with Adam and Eve, Cain, and Noah. After the flood, God speaks twice to Hagar the Egyptian and once to Avimelekh of Gerar.¹⁸ But most of God’s words in the Genesis are addressed to Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, and Jacob, all inbred descendants of Terach.¹⁹

There is no record in the Torah of God speaking to any of Jacob’s children. Perhaps a few of them would be able to hear God’s voice, but God chooses to be “with” them without words. It may be enough for God that all the inbreeding among Terach’s descendants results in the genesis of the Israelite people. The next time God speaks in the Torah is in the book of Exodus when God needs a prophet to bring the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan, and chooses Moses.²⁰

In the Torah, God is one of the characters, and converses with some of the human characters. Is this only a literary device to make the stories juicier? Or does it also reflect some deeper truth?

When individuals today claim to have heard God’s voice, how can we tell whether they have heard an external power of the universe, or a hidden part of their own minds?

Is there a difference?

Genesis 11:26-27.
Genesis 20:12 (unless Abraham is lying).
Genesis 11:31.
Genesis 24:50-51.
Genesis 30:27 and 31:51-53.
Genesis 31:19.
In a 5^th century C.E. story attributed to Rabbi Chiya, Terach made idols for a living, and Abraham mocks them (Bereishit Rabbah, 38:13). This fable enhanced Abraham’s reputation with a Jewish audience, but the Hebrew Bible itself never mentions idols in connection with Terach.
Genesis 12:7, 13:14-17, 15:1-7, 15:17-21, 17:1-8.
Genesis 15:13-16.
Genesis 17:9-22.
Genesis 18:20-33.
Genesis 21:9-13.
Genesis 22:1-2, 22:11-19.
Genesis 22:20-23.
Joshua 24:2.
Genesis 25:27-28.
See Genesis 25:29-34, in which Esau can only think about eating, but Jacob cooks stew ahead of time and is prepared to bargain for Esau’s birthright.
Hagar hears God in Genesis 16:7-13 and 21:17-18. Avimelekh hears God in a dream in Genesis 20:3-7.
Lavan, Rebecca’s brother, also hears God in a dream (Genesis 31:24).
Exodus 3:1-4:23.

Noach: Responses to Trauma

When I finished the first draft of my book about moral psychology in Genesis, I realized that examining why most of the characters do the wrong thing was not enough. I needed an ongoing argument about why humans find it so hard to take the high road out of Eden. Now I am doing more research and rewriting my book.

Meanwhile, here is an essay from my first version. The Torah portion this week is Noach (the Hebrew for “Noah”). Many people know about the flood and Noah’s ark, but not everyone knows what Noah did after the waters dried up and he let the animals out.

Drinking and Incest

Noah begins by following all of God’s directions; then he sees God drown all life on land. After the devastation of the worldwide flood, one might expect Noah’s first crop to be a plant that can produce food in a single growing season. Instead, the Torah says:

And Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank some of the wine, and he became drunk … (Genesis 9:20-21)

Noah has to plan his drunkenness. A grapevine cutting or rootstock must grow for about two years before it produces any grapes. After that Noah has to wait while the grapes he crushes ferment into wine.

The Torah does not report Noah’s feelings, but he might be haunted by the deaths of everyone he knew outside his own immediate family. (God told him to take only seven humans with him in the ark: his wife, his three sons, and his sons’ wives.) Noah might have nightmares about children drowning. He might even question the morality of his own behavior, and feel guilty for not trying to change God’s mind about flooding the world.

Noah’s attempt to escape into an altered state of consciousness, or unconsciousness, is understandable. But his drunkenness subverts his ability to defend himself against incest.

Noah and Cham, mosaic, Basilica di San Marco, Venice, circa 1215

And [Noah] drank some of the wine, and he became drunk, and vayitgal in the middle of his tent. And Cham, the father of Canaan, saw the ervah of his father and he told his two brothers outside. (Genesis 9:20-22)

vayitgal (וַיִּתְגַּל) = he uncovered himself, exposed himself. (The hitpael form of the verb galah, גָּלָה = uncover, reveal.)

ervah (עֶרְוָה) = nakedness.

A modern reader might wonder what is so bad about lying down naked in the privacy of your own tent—even if one of your sons barges in and sees you. But in the Torah, to “uncover the nakedness” of someone is a euphemism for a sexual act. The fifteen incest laws in the book of Leviticus use the same words for “uncover” and “nakedness” as the passage above. The first law covers any kind of incest:

Nobody may come close to any blood-relation of his flesh legalot ervah. I am God. (Genesis 18:6)

legalot (לְגַלּוֹת) = to uncover. (A piel form of the verb galah.)

The next law begins as if it is prohibiting a son from copulating with his father, then corrects itself to a heterosexual formula:

The ervah of your father, or the ervah of your mother lo tegaleih; she is your mother, lo tegaleih her ervah. (Leviticus 18:7)

lo tegaleih (לֺא תְגַלֵּה) = you must not uncover. (lo = not + a piel form of the verb galah.)

The incest laws are phrased in terms of a male perpetrator “uncovering” a passive female. Noah is not entirely a passive victim; the Torah says he uncovers himself. Only then does his son Cham take advantage of the opportunity.

Then Cham tells his brothers what just happened—an indication that his motive is to degrade his father in their eyes, not to seek sexual satisfaction outside his marriage.

Modern scholars have pointed out that this story of incest provides propaganda that denigrates both Egypt and Canaan, which are listed as descendants of Cham right after the Noah story.¹ Similarly, the introduction to first list of incest laws in Leviticus is:

You must not do as it is done in the land of Egypt, where you dwelt; and you must not do as it is done in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You must not follow their decrees. (Leviticus 18:3)

When Noah wakes up and realizes what happened, he lashes out and curses “his youngest son”, who is called Canaan rather than Cham in the actual curse (probably an interpolation from another source):

Cursed be Canaan!

A slave of slaves

He will be to his brothers. (Genesis 9:25)

Neither Noah nor his son Cham have learned anything from Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s protector?” The whole human race after the flood consists of eight individuals in the same family. They all count as brothers, for ethical purposes, and the story of Cain and Abel makes it clear that each one is responsible for protecting the others. But Noah abandons responsibility for his family by deliberately drinking himself into a stupor, and Cham takes advantage of a chance to demean his father.

Neglect

Noah pursues his own escape from trauma through inebriation, but he does not pay attention to the effects of trauma on his family. Perhaps on his good days he offers a few words of comfort to his wife, his sons, his daughters-in-law. But he either does not notice or does not address Cham’s anger. Trapped in his own misery, Noah drinks and carelessly exposes himself.

Maybe he undresses because it is hot inside his tent. (Cham, חָם = hot.) But then his hot-headed son named Cham comes in.

Noah’s feeling of guilty despair is understandable. But his self-absorption subverts his ability to recognize and address his son Cham’s problem.

Abuse

While Noah is guilty of neglect, Cham is guilty of abuse. Forcing a sexual act that the “partner” would avoid if he were sober is unethical because the perpetrator does not treat the victim as a fellow human being with rights and feelings. Most human cultures also maintain that incest is unethical. After the deed, Cham publicly dishonors his father, another ethical failure.²

What makes it hard for him to do the right thing and protect Noah instead of raping and degrading him? Cham is hot with anger that the world was destroyed, just as Cain was hot with anger that his offering was not accepted. Neither man can take out his anger on the actual perpetrator, God. So just as Cain vents his anger on Abel, Cham vents his anger on Noah. He can blame his father for following directions and enabling God to drown the world.

Cham’s angry resentment prevents him from feeling empathy for the old man. It also prevents him from stopping to think about whether raping and telling is good or evil.

Revenge

Then Noah becomes guilty of uttering the curse against Cham (or Canaan). A father’s blessing or curse has power in the book of Genesis. By cursing Cham/Canaan, Noah dooms him and his descendants to enslavement—and also introduces slavery into the reborn world.³

Until this point, Noah has been submissive, following God’s instructions without question, making no effort to save any human or animal God has not mentioned, and figuring out that the extra animals God ordered could be used in a burnt offering to appease God.⁴

The Torah does not give us a clue about Noah’s attitude toward his own family until he wakes and realizes what Cham has done. Then he lashes out with a curse, an act of revenge for his humiliation. He does not stop to mull over the long-term effects of his curse.⁵

Kindness

Naturally the trauma of witnessing mass destruction can breed negative emotions including guilt, despair, and anger. These emotions can all subvert our ability to make good moral choices, especially if, like Cain, we do not recognize them as beasts crouching outside our doors.

Noah’s Drunkenness, by James J.J. Tissot, 1902

Yet Cham’s brothers Sheim and Yefet, who also witnessed the destruction of their world, choose a modest act of kindness after Cham tells them about Noah’s shame.

And Sheim and Yefet took a cloak and placed it over their shoulders and walked backward, and they covered the erveh of their father, [which] they did not see. (Genesis 9:23)

Even when we suffer from trauma, we owe it to our family members to stop ourselves from hurting them, and find acts of kindness we can do instead.

Genesis 10:6.
Dishonoring a parent was serious wrongdoing in ancient Israelite culture. The ten commandments require honoring parents in both Exodus 20:12 and Deuteronomy 5:16, and Leviticus 20:9 says anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible, Schocken Books, New York, 2002, p. 205.
Genesis 7:23, 8:20-21.
For the author of this part of Noah’s story, the curse probably served as a justification for the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites many centuries later.

Noach: The Flood and the Holocaust

Since we toured Terezin three weeks ago, I have been haunted by the idea of genocide. How could Hitler and his government decide that a whole “race” of people, including even the children, was irredeemable and should be exterminated like vermin?

I can understand wanting a particular individual to die. Twice in my own life I hated a person who seemed fixated on doing things that ruined my life or the life of someone I loved, and I could not think of any way to escape. I wished that individual were dead. I could not feel empathy. At least I was lucky enough to have the moral sense and common sense not to act out of my fear and hatred.

But I cannot imagine what it would be like to hate a whole category of people, millions of strangers I had never even met, human beings with virtues and failings and desires and moments of kindness and insight. What would it be like to hate them all, to believe they do not deserve respect, and to cooperate in a program to persecute and murder them?

What would it be like to feel the blanket fear and hatred that many Christians felt for Jews from the Middle Ages through the 19^th century? That Nazis and their supporters felt for Jews during the 1930’s and 1940’s? That some Americans and Europeans feel for immigrants today?

Then I came to this week’s Torah portion, Noach. How could the God-character in this mythic story decide that only Noah and his immediate family were worth saving, while the rest of the human species was irredeemable and should be exterminated?

So I wrote a new post this week, about final solutions and how they failed.

The Flood: Not a Final Solution

And God saw how the wickedness of humankind on the earth was abundant, and how all the forms of [human] designs were only wicked all the time. And God regretted that [God] had made humankind on the earth, and [God’s] heart became saddened.” (Genesis 6:5)

This expression of regret at the end of the first Torah portion, Bereishit, launches the story of Noah and the ark in the next portion, Noach. The God-character notices that although Noah is good enough, humans in general have become violent and destructive.

And God saw the earth, and hey! Nishchatah, because all flesh hishchit on the earth. And God said to Noah: “The end of all flesh is coming before me, because the earth is filled with violence on account of them, so hey! Here I am, mashchitam along with the earth. Make for yourself an ark … (Genesis/Bereishit 6:12-14)

nishchatah (נִשְׁחָתָה) = it had been ruined, destroyed. (A form of the verb shachat, שָׁחַת = lay waste, ruin, inflict calamity and death.)

hischit (הִשִׁית) = has inflicted ruin. (Another form of the verb shachat.)

mashchitam (מַשְׁחִיתָם) = destroying them. (Another form of the verb shachat.)

The divine answer to the violent destruction perpetrated by the human species is to drown the perpetrators—and all the other land animals—and start again. After the flood is over, Noah sacrifices the extra animals that God told him to bring on board. The God-character smells the smoke of the offering and has a second change of heart.

And God smelled the soothing odor, and God thought: “Never again will I curse the land because of humankind, since the forms of its mind are wicked from its youth. And never again will I strike down all life, as I have done.” (Genesis 8:21)

Then God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants, promising never to flood the whole world again. Next the God-character blesses Noah and his sons, confirms that they will rule over all other animals, and changes the rules about killing. In the Garden of Eden, God declared that all creatures that move on the land or fly in the sky, including humans, could eat only seed-bearing plants and trees (Genesis 1:29-30, 2:16). Now God permits the consumption of meat.

Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat, like green vegetation; I have given you everything. However, flesh with the living soul in it, its blood, you must not eat. (Genesis 9:3-4)

This new rule indicates that part of the destruction and violence that prompted the flood consisted of carnivorous behavior, by humans and by other animals. God decides to compromise and let humans kill and eat animals, as long as they respect the animals’ souls by not eating their blood.¹

The other reason for the flood appears to be that humans were killing other humans. God warned Cain to resist this impulse in vain. (Genesis 4:6-12) After the flood God puts the warning a different way.

Whoever sheds human blood, by a human shall his blood be shed; because [God] made humankind in the image of God. (Genesis 9:6)

Perhaps the God-character hopes that humans would improve if they were allowed a limited measure of violence concerning other animals, and allowed to execute anyone convicted of murder. God also reminds Noah and his family that murder is prohibited because humankind was made in the image of God.

With the right guidance, the God-character now believes, humans can learn to avoid the worst behavior. Although humans have evil impulses, they are not all bad. Since God gives humankind another chance, God probably sees that good impulses are also part of human nature.

It is a start. As the book of Genesis continues, God gives humans more rules to follow, and notices more humans who are virtuous.

Unfortunately, when people in power “play God” they often act more like the God-character who drowns the world than the God-character who tries to help humans improve.

The Holocaust: An Attempt at a Final Solution

Pinkas Synagogue, Prague (photo by Melissa Carpenter)

In Prague, nobody forgets what happened 60 years ago. In the train station I saw a memorial to Jewish parents forced to leave their children and board trains for concentration camps when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939. On the way to Wenceslaus Square my husband and I passed a former Jewish bank that the gestapo used to interrogate and torture Czech Jews from 1939 to 1945.

One of the six synagogues in the old Jewish quarter of the city, the Pinkas Synagogue, is now a Holocaust memorial, its walls covered with the names of about 78,000 Czech Jews who perished.

At the Museum of Decorative Arts we saw personal treasures, from paintings to teacups, that Jews had packed in their suitcases when the Nazis forced them to abandon their homes. When the Jews arrived at Terezin or another holding camp, the gestapo went through their suitcases and confiscated everything of value. The Nazis kept records, so the exhibit identified the original owners of the items.

On a clear day in October we toured Terezin (renamed Theresienstadt by the Nazis), about 60 km (37 miles) from Prague. On the way the bus passed potato, cabbage, and mustard fields. The mustard was blooming yellow.

The bus drove through an entrance gap in the outer walls: a brick berm covered with grass, a narrow moat, and a second brick and grass berm. The Hapsburg emperor Joseph II built these fortifications in 1784 to turn a country village into a military base. Inside the outer walls he added barracks and stables for a cavalry unit. The Hapsburgs also built a prison next door, encircled by a similar fortification. When Germany captured Czechoslovakia in 1939, the new rulers continued to use the large fort as an army base and confine political prisoners in the small fort. Then Adolph Eichmann, who was in charge of the logistics for mass deportations of Jews to concentration and extermination camps, picked Terezin for another purpose.

The “Final Solution” that the top Nazi administrators agreed on in January of 1942 was genocide: extinction of the entire “race” of Jews. There were so many Jews, in all the territory Germany had conquered, that Eichmann had to do it in stages. The first stage was to remove Jews from their homes and transport them to collection centers like Terezin.

At Terezin, Jews had enough uncertainty about their future to put up with SS orders and restrictions, hoping that the Allies would soon win the war, hoping that when groups of residents were loaded on trains bound for Auschwitz and other camps their lives would be bearable. They did not know their families and friends were going to extermination camps.

On our tour of Terezin, we saw the former barracks where old Jews were assigned to unheated stables and attics, so that they would die quickly by freezing in the winter or by heat stroke in the summer. We saw drawings by Jewish children and drawings by Jewish professional artists, including depictions of gaunt residents waiting in line for thin soup ladled out from a barrel. We saw the cemetery, where every morning hearses brought bodies to be dissected, cremated, and buried. We saw the railroad tracks where newcomers arrived at Terezin and where Terezin residents were herded into cattle cars bound for extermination camps.

Hitler’s government had two cold-blooded reasons to persecute Jews. One was to confiscate Jewish wealth (everything from money and property to the gold fillings in their teeth) in order to fund the German war of conquest. The other was to feed the myth of Aryan superiority and inspire enough hatred so the German population would be willing to go to war, put up with wartime deprivations, and keep the Fuhrer in power. Escalating the hatred meant escalating the persecution, and eventually murder, of the people chosen as scapegoats.

Hitler revived hatred of Jews in the first place not just by reviling them, but by blaming them for unemployment, poverty, and crime. Today some of the political parties in the United States and Europe blame immigrants for unemployment, poverty, and crime.

The God-character in the Torah portion Noach is right about humankind: the forms of its mind are wicked from its youth. (Genesis 8:21) And the most wicked designs come not from the scapegoats, but from the oppressors.

May all humans realize that there is never a “final solution”, that mass murder only increases the evil in the world. And may we all accept that human nature is a mixture of good and bad, so the best course of action is to encourage good deeds, by education and by example. Then we will become the image of God after the Flood, the wiser, more mature God-character with a better understanding of human nature.

—

For more on the prohibition against eating blood, see my post Re-eih & Acharei Mot: The Soul in the Blood.

Eikev, Va-etchannan, & Noach: Who Built It?

Five Kings of Midian Slain by Israel, 1728

The Israelites are camped on the east bank of the Jordan River, ready and willing to cross over and do to the native populations of Canaan what they have already done to the Amorites and Midianites east of the Jordan: burn all their towns, kill all their men, and take over all their land—with God’s explicit approval and assistance.¹

I will explore the evolution of and biblical justifications for this ethnic cleansing in next week’s post, Re-eih: Ownership. This week, let’s look at how Moses says the Israelites should act after their conquest.

In last week’s Torah portion, Va-etchannan, Moses warns the Israelites not to feel entitled after they have taken everything the Canaanites own.

And it will happen when God, your God, brings you into the land that was sworn to your forefathers … cities great and good that lo vanita, and houses filled with everything good that you did not fill, stone-hewn cisterns that you did not hew out of stone, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. And you will eat and you will be satisfied. Guard yourself, lest you forget God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. (Deuteronomy/Devarim 6:10-12)

lo vanita you did not build. lo (לֺא) = not + banita (בָּנִיתָ) = you built. (A form of the verb banah, בָּנָה = built, constructed, fortified, rebuilt; built up a family.)

Once the Israelites own everything the previous inhabitants built and planted, they will have an easy head start in their new life. But Moses does not tell the Israelites to be grateful for the labor of generations of Canaanites. He only warns them not to forget that everything they own is a gift from God.

This week’s Torah portion, Eikev, takes the idea of God’s gift farther.

Guard yourself lest you forget God, your God, and fail to guard [God’s] commandments and laws and decrees, which I, myself, am commanding you this day—lest you eat and you are satisfied, and tivneh good houses, and you dwell in them; and your herds and flocks increase, and silver and gold increases for you, and everything that is yours increases; and then your heart is arrogant and you forget God, your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. (Deuteronomy 8:11-14)

tivneh (תִּבְנֶה) = you build, fortify, build up. (Another form of the verb banah.)

Here Moses points out that even if the Israelites do build their own houses and bring in their own livestock, wealth in the land they have conquered is not guaranteed. What you build yourself, as well as what you take from someone else, is a gift from God.

In general, the Hebrew Bible uses the verb “create” (bara, בָּרָא) for what God does, and “build” (banah, בָּנָה) for what humans do, using materials God created.² People in the bible build many things just to improve their lives, including houses, towns, walls, and livestock pens. But sometimes humans build for the sake of their own self-importance, and sometimes they build to honor God.

Building a name

After the story of Noah and the flood, the humans on earth figure out how to make bricks and mortar them with bitumen.

Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1563

And they said: “Come, nivneh for ourselves a city and a tower [with] its head in the heavens, and we will make for ourselves a name, lest we scatter over the face of all the earth.” And God went down to look at the city and the tower than the descendants of the human banu. (Genesis 11:4-5)

nivneh (נִבִנֶה) = let us build.

banu (בָּנוּ) = they built.

Noah’s descendants start to build a single city for the whole human population, with a tower that intrudes on God’s realm, the heavens. They want to make a “name” or reputation for themselves. (Since there are no other humans, perhaps that want a reputation among creatures in the heavens.) God takes them seriously, believing that humankind is indeed capable of doing too much. So God decides to scatter them—just what the city-builders fear most—so that they will develop different languages and become mutually incomprehensible.

And [God] scattered them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off libanot the city. Therefore it was called by the name Bavel, because there God confused the lips of the whole earth … (Genesis 11:8)

libanot (לִבְנֺת) = building.

Bavel (בָּבֶל) = Babylon.³

Building a city can be problematic in the Torah. The building of the city and tower of Bavel is portrayed as an exercise in arrogance. In Egypt, the Israelites are forced to build two brick storage-cities for Pharaoh, Pitom and Rameses.⁴ Later, King Solomon embarks on building projects in the cities of Jerusalem, Megiddo, Chatzor, and Gazer, all using the forced labor of the remaining natives of Canaan.⁵ Building a city, palace, or fortress means that the some human beings are likely to lord it over others.

In the Torah portion Va-etchannan, Moses warns the Israelites not to feel self-important when they are living in cities and towns that the natives had already built. After all, they could not kill or drive away those natives without God’s help.

In the Torah portion Eikev, Moses reminds the Israelites not to let their prosperity in their “promised land” make them arrogant, and not to forget that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt.

Building for God

Living in cities built by other people leads to egotism. But other kinds of building are for the sake of God.

First Temple reconstruction in Bible Museum, Amsterdam

Noah builds the ark at God’s command, but after the flood has receded he builds an altar for animal sacrifices to God on his own initiative.⁶ It is the first of many altars men build to worship God. In the book of Exodus, all the Israelites, men and women, cooperate to build the portable tent-sanctuary for God. In the first book of Kings, King Solomon enslaves native Canaanites to build his own palace and several fortresses, but he uses the same forced labor to build the first temple for God in Jerusalem.

The bible praises those who build altars and sanctuaries for God, just as it criticizes those who forget their debt to God when they build or take over cities. But what about the overlords’ dependence on people they defeated and enslaved? The bible considers only the Israelite point of view. No gratitude for the labor of non-Israelites is required.

I pray that all of us today may recognize that nobody becomes wealthy without help. Nobody builds something without the raw materials this world provides, and nobody builds something without the present or past work of other human beings.

As Moses reminds us, may we be grateful to what is not human (whether we call it God or nature) for everything we have, even the air we breathe. And as Moses fails to remind us, may we also be grateful for the labor of other human beings—even if we consider them Canaanites.

—

Numbers 21:21-25, 21:33-35, and 31:1-12.
One exception is when God uses the side of the human protype, adam, to “build” a female counterpart (Genesis 2:22), although in Genesis 1:27 and 5:2 God “creates” female and male humans. Psalms 69, 78, and 102 refer poetically to God as the builder of Tzion or the cities of Judah. Another exception is when Joshua tells the Josephites to “create” farmland for themselves by clear-cutting forests in the hill-country (Joshua 17:15-18), although they will only be using materials God created, i.e. trees, fire, and dirt.
The name Bavel comes from the Babylonian god Beil, but the Torah might also be alluding to the sound of foreign languages the Israelites encountered during their enforced exile in Babylonia in the 6^th century BCE.
Exodus 1:11.
1 Kings 9:15-20.
Although both Cain and Abel make offerings to God, the first altar mentioned in the Torah is built by Noah after the flood (Genesis 8:20).

Pinchas: Aromatherapy

The God-character in the Torah often lashes out in fits of rage. Sometimes this anthropomorphic “God” kills offensive individuals, and sometimes “He” wipes out hundreds or thousands of people, the innocent with the guilty.

from Treasures of the Bible, Northrop, 1894

Moses succeeds in talking God down into relative calmness after the Israelites worship the golden calf in the book of Exodus/Shemot,¹ and twice more in the book of Numbers/Bemidbar.² But the smell of aromatic smoke is an even more effective way to soothe the God-character.

This week’s Torah portion, Pinchas, ends with a schedule of offerings to be burned on the altar. God begins the list by telling Moses:

“Command the Israelites, and you shall say to them: You must pay attention to my offerings, my food—to my fire-offering of my reyach nichoach—to offer [it] to me at its appointed time.” (Numbers 28:1-2)

reyach (רֵיחַ) = scent, odor, fragrance, aroma. (From the same root as ruach, רוּחַ= wind, spirit, mood.)

nichoach (נִחֺחַ) = soothing, calming. (From the root verb nuach, נוּחַ = rest, settle down in peace and quiet.)

reyach nichoach (רֵיחַ נִחֺחַ) = soothing scent.

The phrase reyach nichoach appears ten more times in the schedule of animal and grain offerings that follows.³ Although the God-character no doubt appreciates the sacrifice of potential human food and the pouring of libations, the scent of the smoke is a key element.

The First Soothing Smoke

The smoke from burned offerings first reaches God as a reyach nichoach in Genesis/Bereishit, after the God-character has become so upset by the violence and corruption of humans (and perhaps other carnivores) that He decides to destroy all life on earth.⁴ God makes an exception only for the obedient Noah and the other occupants of his ark.

After the flood recedes, God tells Noah to empty out the ark. Then Noah finally does something on his own initiative, building an altar and burning up some extra animals he brought along as an offering to God—perhaps in imitation of Abel, whose animal offering God turned toward.⁵ (See my post Noach: The Soother.)

And God smelled the reyach nichoach, and God said in His heart: I will never again draw back to doom the earth on account of the human, for the impulse of the human heart is bad in its youth … (Genesis/Bereishit, 8:21)

The clouds of smoke probably remind God of Abel’s grateful sacrifice of sheep, before humankind turned bad. Reassured, God concludes that at least some adults want to serve Him.

The phrase reyach nichoach appears again three times in the book of Exodus,⁶ seventeen times in Leviticus, and eighteen times in Numbers, always in descriptions of animal and grain offerings to God.

Korach

The God-character’s temper flares again in the next Torah portion, Korach, which begins with two simultaneous coups against Moses and Aaron.

God deals with the Reuvenite leaders by making the earth swallow them and their families, and with Korach’s 250 Levites by burning them up in a conflagration. The next day the remaining Israelites complain about all the deaths, and God tells Moses:

“Take yourselves out from the midst of this community, and I will consume them in an instant!” (Numbers/Bemidbar 17:10)

Once again, God wants to annihilate the entire Israelite people—and presumably start over again with only Moses and Aaron and their families. This time Moses tells Aaron to stop the plague by taking his incense pan out into the community.

Aaron took it, as Moses had spoken, and he ran into the middle of the congregation, and hey!—the pestilence had already started among the people! He put on the incense and he made atonement over the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the pestilence was stopped. (Numbers 17:12-13)

The God-character has already killed 14,700 people when Aaron’s incense checks His rage.

At the end of the portion Korach, God instructs the Israelites to offer the firstborn of every cow, ewe, and nanny goat at the altar, “… and you shall burn-into-smoke their fat as a fire-offering for reyach nichoach for God.” (Numbers 18:17)

Pinchas

At the end of last week’s Torah portion, Balak, the Israelites join the local Moabite Midianites in worshiping their god Baal-Peor. When a Reuvenite man brings a Midianite princess (possibly a priestess of Baal-Peor) right into God’s tent-sanctuary to copulate, the God-character’s fury boils over. Aaron’s grandson Pinchas dashes into the tent chamber and stabs a spear through the copulating couple.⁷

And the pestilence was stopped from over the Israelites. And the deaths in the pestilence were 24,000. (Numbers 25:8-9)

The God-character rewards Pinchas, but remains angry in this week’s Torah portion, Pinchas. God orders Moses to attack and kill all the Midianites who worship Baal-Peor—an order carried out in next week’s portion, Mattot.⁸ After addressing several other matters, God remembers the soothing scent of smoke in Numbers 28:1-2 (above).

Maybe the God-character finally realizes He has a quick temper and an anger management problem. If the Israelites soothed Him with a reyach nichoach at regular intervals, He might stay calmer.

God requests two daily offerings, plus additional offerings every seventh day (Shabbat), every new moon, and on six special occasions during the year (now called Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret). The daily offerings and the additional offerings on the new moon, Pesach, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Shemini Atzeret are all labeled as either “a reyach nichoach, a fire-offering for God” or “a fire-offering of reyach nichoach for God”.

Smoke and the gods

Why does the God-character in the Torah calm down when He smells the smoke of an animal, grain, or incense offering?

The book of Ezekiel provides a clue. Three times in Ezekiel, God complains that Israelites at home and in exile are flocking to foreign altars and giving mere idols a reyach nichoach.⁹

Moabite altars in “Bilam”
by James Tissot

Burning animals at altars for local gods was standard religious practice in ancient Canaan and Mesopotamia. The epic of Gilgamesh includes a story in which Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian equivalent of Noah, emerges from his boat after the flood and offers a sacrifice to the gods. When he lights a fire of myrtle, cane, and cedar wood, the odor reaches the nostrils of the gods and gives them pleasure.¹⁰

Since many humans enjoy aromatic smoke from incense or from a barbecue, it is natural to assume an anthropomorphic god enjoys it, too. Just as an angry king about to punish someone might be appeased by a delightful gift, an angry anthropomorphic god might be appeased by a gift of fragrant smoke. Since the God of Israel and the gods of Canaanites and Mesopotamians were envisioned as living in the sky, smoke was one of the few gifts that would be sure to reach them.

Have we discarded the idea of an anthropomorphic god today? Not entirely. Both atheists and theists often think of God as a super-human being living in a “heaven” coexistent with our world. Atheists prove that this super-being cannot exist, while most religious people explain that an anthropomorphic god is either one manifestation of the real God, or a helpful image in our own minds, not to be confused with the real God.

There are still some fundamentalists who believe in the angry, punishing God portrayed so often in the Hebrew Bible and inherited by Christianity and Islam. The rest of us tend to view God as either loving (a helpful anthropomorphic image), or without emotion (because God is not really a super-human).

Yet we sometimes find ourselves disturbed by our own irrational anger, and the impulsive actions we commit as a result. We do not want to be made in the image of the angry, temperamental God-character. What can we do to become calmer human beings?

Smoking is not the best answer. But making regular offerings to God could be. Jews no longer burn animals on an altar to soothe God’s temper, thank God! But we are asked to pray at the appointed times listed in Pinchas: daily, weekly, monthly, and on annual holy days. I have found that when I pray thoughtfully, searching out inner meanings of some words and adding my own heartfelt longings, my prayer soothes my own spirit and lifts my soul closer to God.

May everyone who needs the blessing of calmness find a good way to receive it.

Moses talks God out of annihilating the Israelites and starting over again with only Moses’ descendants in Exodus 32:9-14 and 32:25-35. See my post Ki Tissa: Fighting or Singing? God may be testing Moses to see whether he will argue for the Israelites; but on the other hand, God does kill an untold number of them with a plague, even after the Levites have slain 3,000 guilty people.
In Numbers 14:11-35 (Shelach-Lekha) God threatens to wipe out all the Israelites because they do not trust God to help them conquer Canaan and refuse to cross the border. Moses talks God down, and God makes them wait 40 years instead. God’s next threat to annihilate all the Israelites is in Korach, reviewed above.
Numbers 28:2, 6, 8, 13, 24, 27 and 29:2, 6, 8, 13, 36.
Genesis 6:11-13, 6:17.
Genesis 4:3-5.
Exodus 29:18, 29:25, and 29:41.
See my posts Balak & Pinchas: How to Stop a Plague, Part 1 and Balak: Carnal Appetites.
See my post Mattot: Killing the Innocent.
Ezekiel 6:13, 16:19, 20:28. In Ezekiel 20:41, God says that when all Israelites restrict themselves to serving their own God on the holy mountain of Israel, then God will accept the people themselves as a reyach nichoach.
Gilgamesh tablet 11, part 4.

Noach: Noah’s Wife

a Torah monologue by Maggidah Melissa Carpenter

It all started with sheep. When I was a girl, people kept sheep to shear for wool and to milk for making cheese. My mother used to say, “On the sixth day, God gave the humans and animals plants for food. Nothing but plants!”¹

I used to argue, “Then why did God make mothers that give milk?” And I ate cheese on my lentils. I still do.

Lamech and His Two Wives
by William Blake, 1795

Those were the good days. Then some man named Lemech went crazy, and there was a fight, and two men died. Lemech was the second murderer in the world. He boasted about what he’d done, so I could understand why God didn’t give him a mark of protection, like Cain. What I could not understand was why God didn’t speak.

After that fight, it seemed like young men had shorter tempers and bigger appetites. One year they came back from the sheep-shearing missing two sheep. There was blood on the fleeces. Blood in their beards. Soon they were bringing back whole sheepskins, and legs to cook. The first time I saw a man bite into a roasted leg, I had nightmares for a week.

Nobody stopped them. My mother tried, but she was a small woman, and they knocked her down. After that she walked with a limp. My father kept going out with the other shepherds. And when they brought back lambs, some of the women ate the tender meat. In a few years almost everybody was eating lamb. Even the lions.

The young men came home sometimes with cuts and gouges from the shearing knives. They were fighting.

“Chamas,²” my mother whispered. Violence. Cruelty.

Lots of men came after me once my figure filled out. I carried my own knife to keep them away, since we had no laws.

Some years later I made friends with Lemech’s youngest son, Noach. His mother had died by then, and his father had gone for good. Noach traded barley and grapes in the marketplace, along with the little wooden boxes he made. He stayed away from the other end of the market. Said he didn’t like the taste of meat, and sheep gave him a rash.

One day he invited me up the hill to see the house he’d built. It was a big empty wooden house with four bedrooms. Noach said we could put a bed in the room I liked best.

“What about the other rooms?”

He looked down. “Maybe we’ll have children.”

“Yes,” I said.

We had three sons, and I raised them to be vegetarians. Once Cham, our youngest, came home with a nasty knife wound, but at least none of my sons ever brought home meat. All three married good women. Our house was full.

One day when Noach came home from the fields he was shivering. He said: “God spoke to me.”

“What!”

“I was just hoeing, out in the field, and God spoke to me. Inside my body.”

“Are you sure it was God?”

“Yes. God said I have to build a box. A giant box. Waterproof. Divided up into compartments. And then I have to collect animals. Two of every kind of animal in the world. And put them in the box. And four pairs of humans: you and me, and our sons and their wives.”

“Why?”

“Because God is disappointed in the human race. Because of all our violence, our chamas. God wants to start all over again. So he’s going to send a flood that will wipe out the whole earth. Except for the survivors in the floating box. The ark.”

“But Noach, what about children? And the more peaceful animals? Isn’t God more—selective?”

“I guess not. And I can’t argue with God. I’ve got to start building a box.”

He did. It dwarfed our house. Sometimes folks wandered by and jeered at him, but my husband only told them one thing, over and over again. “God said to build an ark, because the earth is filled with chamas, so he’s going to send a flood to wipe out all flesh. That’s what God said.”³

Nobody listened to Noach.

He finished the ark, and packed several compartments with seeds and farming tools, and grain to feed everybody. Even the lions. He sent off our sons and their wives to collect pairs of animals from around the world. Then he asked me to get the sheep. He told me that now God wanted seven rams and seven ewes, so he could make slaughter-sacrifices for God after the flood.⁴

“What? I thought God didn’t like chamas! Why would God want us to save animals only to kill them?”

“I dunno. I can’t argue with God.”

“Then go get the sheep yourself, Noach.”

“I can’t. Sheep give me a rash.”

“I thought—I thought that was just an excuse. I thought you were a good man, different from all the others.”

Noach looked miserable. He backed up and stood in the shadow of the ark. “God wants seven cattle, too, and seven goats, and some extra birds. I’ll take care of those.”

And I knew I had to get the sheep. My only other choice was to drown.

God gave us seven days to load all the animals. When the rain started our son Cham balked and argued, but in the end he followed his wife inside the ark, and we sealed the door. I remember when the ark shifted and began to float. We all cheered. Then we heard people hammering on the outside of the door, and I felt bad.

We spent all our waking time feeding the animals. The rain stopped after 40 days, but the flood went on for months. Then the ark grated against something. We climbed the ladder and peered out the window in the roof. The sky was blue. So was the water, rippling in the wind. Tiny islands of bare rock stuck out of the water. I realized they were mountaintops.

When the water finally dried up, we saw lots of mud where we could plant seeds. We wait for Noach to lead us out of the ark, but he just kept shoveling grain into the animals’ stalls. Until one morning he finally called us together and said: “God said to go out, and let out the animals, to be fruitful and multiply.”

We started to cheer, but Noach looked so glum that the cheer failed. I wondered if my husband had delayed leaving the ark because he was not looking forward to the animal sacrifice.

Noach held back the sheep and cattle and goats and birds that he said God wanted sacrificed. I stood with my hands on my hips and watched him build a platform out of stones. I think it was an altar, though I’d never seen one before.

He got our sons to hold the animals while he slit their throats. Then he burned them. A new, clean world, and my husband goes and sends up a column of greasy black smoke. Behind it a rainbow appeared. Noach’s face and hands broke out in a rash.

We ploughed a big field of mud farther down the mountain, and we discovered that some debris from the flood had settled into the mud. Pottery, blankets, dead animals. Human bodies. When I ploughed up a dead child, I lay down on the dirt and cried the rest of the day.

I don’t get it. If all our chamas made God regret creating the world, why did God do so much chamas to destroy it?

I liked God’s first creation better.

—

And God said: “Hey, I give to you all seed-bearing green plants that are on the face of all the earth, and all the trees that have seed-bearing fruit; they shall be food for you. And to all animals of the land and to all birds of the heavens and to all crawlers on the earth that have the soul of life: all greens, green plants, for food.” And it was so. And God saw all that “he” had made, and hey! Very good. And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:29-31)
chamas (חָמָס) = violence, lawlessness, cruelty. The first occurrence of this word is in the Torah portion Noach: The earth was corrupt in front of the Elohim, and it was chamas. (Genesis 6:11)
Genesis 6:13, 6:17.
Genesis 7:2.