Meanwhile, Noah was a faithful tool in this drama, but he was not so great at all. The genuinely great ones argue with fate—especially when fate threatens human life.
God hones in on Noah and tells him “the end of all flesh is before me” and God is going to wipe out every form of life on the planet. Not a particular nation, tribe, city, or subdivision. Everybody is going down. Noah, build an ark.
What is Noah’s response to this astonishing report? Nothing. No protest, no debate. Basically, it’s “What are the measurements of the craft, what kind of wood should I use?” Noah just listens to a divine blueprint involving gopher wood, pitch, and the precise number of cubits. Oh, and there’s to be a single window. And a large side door. Get going, man. The rain is coming. And God also declares he is making “a covenant” with Noah—only his family and the saved wildlife will survive and that’s the deal.
The Bible tells us bluntly: “Thus Noah did.” Good man follows instructions, but this is not a candidate for induction into the Hall of Greatness. It clearly took Noah and his offspring a significant amount of time to construct the big boat. This was done out in the open sunlight, and it can be presumed that passers-by noticed all the busy work ongoing, heard the mallets and saws being used, not to mention the long procession of paired giraffes, elephants, apes, goats, cows, cheetahs, boa constrictors, possums, turkeys, alligators, geese, squirrels, peacocks, and warthogs making their way onto the platform.
Even the rabbinic commentary on this episode lambasts Noah for not reaching out to a single person, warning them to change their ways, repent, or at least seek higher ground! Nor are the more progressive biblical sages particularly impressed with Noah’s absolute, wordless compliance with God’s horrific intentions. Maybe the man just focused on “the covenant” God offered him and chose to be utterly selfish and thoroughly ordinary.
Not so with Moses, a flawed man like anybody else except when it came to looking out for others before saving his own skin. Atop Mt. Sinai, alone and literally burning in the light of God’s countenance, about to receive the Ten Commandments, Moses gets a real twist in the conversation with the Almighty: “Get thee down, for thy people which thou brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.”
Moses listens as God excoriates the Hebrews below for ditching all their jewelry and gold and building “a molten calf,” which amounts to an abominable idol-god. They are praying to this golden calf and offering it sacrifices. I’ve seen it, Moses, and these people are nothing but a bunch of ungrateful, stiff-necked hacks! The Bible makes it quite clear that God is in a livid meltdown and he’s out to kill again.
“Now, therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them. And I will make of thee a great nation.”
In other words: Don’t try to talk me out of this; I need to vent my spleen; I need to wipe these flunkies out. And then God throws in the same “covenant” deal to Moses that he offered Noah. Basically, God will start all over again with Moses as the progenitor. Although in this case, God is killing Hebrews exclusively, not dunking the whole Earth and the entirety of creation.
How does Moses react? First of all, he reacts. Completely disregarding the offer of his own lineal covenant, Moses responds: “Why are you so furious with your people that you freed from Egypt with such great authority and a mighty hand? What will the Egyptians say? That you freed them just to destroy them?” And then, with unabashed chutzpah, Moses actually challenges God: “Turn from your fierce wrath and repent of this evil against your people.”
Whenever you pray (and it doesn’t matter where you pray), aren’t you negotiating with God? It’s important to know that Moses—who had a pretty successful career as a rabbi and civil rights leader—regularly contended with God about what Moses thought was right. Even if what God was doling out appeared wrong. This is what you can believe: A relationship with God is not about simply acquiescing to heaven. It’s about arguing with fate and eternity and angels and even with God. Sometimes religion helps us to accomplish this, especially when it’s not skewed by the arrogance and self-importance of its leaders or the dogmas of its liturgies. All of these kinds of things are readily serviced by our understandable fears and insecurities, and sometimes preachers and cultists feed off them.
Religion should not take advantage of us. It should take us home. And the way home is discovered along the path of a vibrant and, yes, contentious spirituality. You can look this up in the Bible.
It turns out that Moses completely convinces God to spare the Hebrews. By lowering the temperature on top of that mountain, by exhibiting some spiritual muscle, Moses saved religion for that day.
THE RULES SOMETIMES GET IN THE WAY
“The Bible was not given to angels.”
—THE TALMUD
WHAT THE ANCIENT RABBIS meant by this insightful declaration, this expression in favor of human intellect and creativity, is simple: Scripture (Torah in Hebrew) wasn’t meant for implementation in heaven; it only works in the imperfect world of human life. That means even scripture has to bend to the ebb and flow of our tough and vital experiences as people. Just like us, the characters in the Bible are confronted by many unforeseen circumstances: They fight with their kids; they fall in love; they bury their dead; and they struggle through faith crises. And they didn’t have any divinity books to consult. They managed on their own wits, savvy, and spirits.
Look out into the crowd you walk through in the mall or on a downtown street; the folks you pass are just like the people in the Bible, they are strangers with stories.
In another Talmudic gem, the sages wrote: “If all you have is Torah, then you don’t even have Torah.” How intuitive and wonderful is that? In other words, if all you do is proclaim and stay locked in the writ, then you’ve missed the point and you’ve lost the writ. Therefore, scripture (according to its most zealous advocates and interpreters) doesn’t fly unless it’s carried aloft and adjusts to the winds and whims of our existences as human persons. We have to adapt to hard situations and sudden calamities. People die in Florida but their cemetery plots are back home in Connecticut. Their survivors are not (this applies to the Jewish community that has traditionally required burial within twenty-four hours) going to achieve interment by the next day. But that does not mean the dead are going to be forgotten.
And now comes the starry-eyed couple who wants to celebrate their wedding ceremony on a Saturday evening. If traditional Jewish observance is at play, then they would not be able to enjoy their feast until 10:00 P.M. or later during the spring and summer months after a 9:00 or 9:30 P.M. nuptial because they can’t have it until the Jewish Sabbath is completely over. That means at least three stars are visible in the evening sky. Really? Are we more stuck on such literalism than we are moved by love?
We need to bend outmoded laws, given the new modalities. Not to discard the laws. And certainly not to wantonly dispose of meaningful rituals. They enrich both the joyous and bittersweet milestone moments. But they should not devour such moments. The Bible was written long before refrigeration and sanitary standards modified the strict urgency of dietary laws and before mechanized and jet transportation altered our demographic relationship with these edicts.
The old laws should still make you think about what you put in your mouth, what we all should do to conserve good harvesting soil, clean air, and a fair distribution of food to a planet plagued with hungry children. If you are Jewish and keep kosher or you are Christian and don’t consume meat on Fridays or Muslim and don’t eat pork, that’s truly commendable. It just needs to be more than