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Parashat Noach – the terrible message behind the rainbow

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Noach  2022 Sermon for Lev Chadash

L’italiano segue l’inglese

The story of Noach begins at the end of last week’s sidra. His birth is recorded in a list of fathers and sons starting with Adam and his son Seth, and Noach is the tenth generation. His birth and naming stand out – We are told that “And Lamech lived a hundred eighty and two years, and begot a son. And he called his name Noah, saying: ‘This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which comes from the ground which the Eternal God has cursed.’ And Lamech lived after he begot Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years; and he died. {S} And Noah was five hundred years old; and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (5:28-32)

 Unusually in this genealogy we are given a reason for Noach’s name – something not done since the creation of Adam. And we are also given the names of each of his sons – unlike earlier generations which gives the name only of the  person in the generational link.

Only Lamech speaks of the need for comfort, and only Lamech mentions the difficulty of life outside of Eden, of the curse borne by humanity who will have to work hard to survive on unforgiving land.

And still in last week’s reading we find the strange story of non-human beings interacting with humanity – “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,  that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose. And the Eternal said: ‘My spirit shall not abide in human beings for ever, for he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.’  The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.”{P} (6:1-4)

Ten generations since the creation of human beings, there seems to have been some kind of crisis – the interbreeding of humanity with divine or semi-divine beings. And this occurs in the generation of  Noach. Then things get even worse: 

“And the Eternal saw that the wickedness of humanity was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually.  And God repented having  made humanity on the earth, and was grieved to the heart. And the Eternal said: ‘I will blot out humanity whom I have created from the face of the earth; both human, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repents Me that I have made them.’  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Eternal.  (6:5-8).

God repents the decision to create human beings. The verb used “vayenachem” sounds suspiciously close to the verb at the root of the name Noach – are we being nudged into seeing Noach as part of the plan to act on – or even to act out -God’s despair?

Curiously, this is the moment the sidra Bereishit ended. We await the next verses in the next weekly reading.

Parashat Noach begins in an echo with the previous sidra, giving the genealogy of Noach and his three sons. But any sense of continuity or stability disappears with the words “And the earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. And God said to Noach, ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth – Make an ark of gopher wood etc etc…..”(11-14)

In the ten generations of human transmission on the earth, the earth is ruined, filled with violence, corrupted, disgusting. In God’s eyes there is nothing worth saving. Creation has failed. Instead there is only חָמָס – a root meaning violence, cruelty, malice, wronging, oppression  and injustice. (It appears 60 times in the Hebrew bible)

Now we all know the story of what happens next. Noach doesn’t debate with God, doesn’t warn his neighbours, doesn’t speak at all in our text, just gets on with the job of building the boat, collecting the animals, watching the floods that come from both above and below the earth…. His silence is one of the most difficult parts of the story for me.

The whole episode ends with the floods receding, Noach and his family back on dry land. As soon as he descends he builds an altar and sacrifices some of the rescued clean animals to God, who smells the smoke of the sacrifice and says – rather cryptically I always feel – “..  ‘I will not again curse the ground any more for human’s sake; for the imagination of humanity’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remains seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.’ (8:21-22)

God then blesses Noach and his family, giving them the blessing that was given to the first human beings – be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth “פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֖וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃”  Then God says something which feels in contemporary times to be particularly painfully relevant “
 
“ And  fear( u’mora’achem) of you and the dread (cheet’chem) of you shall be upon every living thing of the earth , and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moves on the ground , and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they given and every living thing that moves shall be food for you”

This is the moment when the eating of animals seems to be given Divine permission. When Judaism left vegetarianism behind. One commentator (Don Yitzchak Abravanel 1437–1508) suggested  that Noach and his family may well have had concerns about the possibility of being overrun by wild life, some of which could have potentially attacked and harmed them.  So God offers both a “blessing” – that of animals fearing human beings in order to keep such harm away from them, and also permission to eat animals – effectively giving great power to humans over animals. It is a nice gloss on what I read as a chilling verse –  there will be no shared relationship possible between the animals and human beings – animals living on this planet are at the mercy of human activities, and as we are seeing today, animal populations are being wiped out as climate change takes hold. A recent report by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) tells us that “The world’s populations of wild mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish have declined by more than two-thirds on average since 1970” https://www.wwf.org.uk/our-reports/living-planet-report-2022

God makes a covenant with Noach and his descendants, and also with every living being on earth,  that never again will God destroy the earth by flood. The covenant is one sided – there is no obligation taken on by humanity or animals, only God establishes this covenant, only God is bound to it, and the sign of the covenant is not on earth but in the heavens – the rainbow.

We are used in modernity to seeing the rainbow as a benign if not actively beautiful symbol – a symbol of inclusion since all colours can be found in it. A symbol of comfort – in recent decades the idea of the “rainbow bridge” has taken root as a fantasy paradise for beloved pets to wait for their owners also to die and be reunited.  The rainbow is used to denote hope – particularly after a stormy and difficult time. The famous song from Wizard of Oz, “Somewhere over the rainbow” is seen by many as referring to the experience of Jews trapped by the Shoah – written by two Jewish immigrants to the USA it was published in 1939.

Earlier Jewish texts see the rainbow differently. The prophet Ezekiel, in Babylonian exile (6th Century BCE), had an ecstatic vision of God and compared the brightness of this vision to the appearance of a rainbow. (Ezekiel 1:28)  His vision led to the association of the rainbow with the divine glory, the immanence of God – that somehow the Shechinah dwelled within the rainbow. Because of this there is a tradition not to look at a rainbow for more than the glance necessary to say the blessing, not to tell others that a rainbow is in the sky. There is a belief that looking for too long at the rainbow will cause blindness (Chagigah 16a) because of God’s presence in it.

The rainbow in Jewish tradition is not unambiguously a happy sign. It is, as Rashi explains (9:14) a reminder of God’s anger, of God’s desire to destroy the world because of our behaviour in it. It is a sign more for God than for us – a reminder to God to control righteous anger, a sort of totem to hold on to for God to remember. And what is God remembering? Yes, the promise not to destroy the world through flood (though this is a particularly limited promise, nothing about fire/drought or pestilence), it is also God remembering that humanity is incapable of perfection, that God’s creation has a flaw within us that can never be erased – “the heart of humankind is evil from its youth” as the text puts it.

We have, as human beings, glossed the story of Noach and the rainbow covenant so that it has become unrecognisable. The story is told as a children’s story, every nursery has rainbows and toy figures or pictures of a charming colourful and unlikely ark with happy animals inside it. Many people still believe the idea that the rainbow contains 7 colours – seven, the symbol of perfection, a number with many different aspects – the seven Noachide Laws for example (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a),  seven sefirot of emotion in kabbalistic texts (the three others are of intellect), the seven days of the week, seven weeks between pesach and Shavuot, seventy years being a human lifespan. It just seems so right for the rainbow to have seven colours – yet even this is a gloss on reality. In fact there aren’t seven distinct bands, but multiple colours blending and shading into one another. The idea of seven comes from Isaac Newton in 1665. Until then it was accepted that there were 5 colours (Robert Boyle described them shortly before Newton – Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple), but because the number seven has a mystical meaning of perfection, Newton chose to define the rainbow as containing seven – adding the colour orange and splitting the colour purple into indigo and violet.

The story of Noach and of the Rainbow is a story that we have reworked away from its painful messages and instead made it as childlike and simplistic as possible, and the question for us is why has this story been so distorted in popular imagination?

The story begins with terrible violence and corruption, with a world that is not working, and a humanity barely worth saving. In just ten generations, creation has been traduced.

Then God creates an act of violence so terrible that creation is almost completely destroyed.

Then God realises that human beings are truly in the image of God – for where can we have got our destructive tendencies from if not from our divine creator? God sees that in creating humankind in the divine image God has created  complex and multivaried beings, they can be out of control, can make selfish and uncaring choices,  can exercise free will and choose to act against what is best for themselves or for others. God repents – though whether God repents for creating humanity or whether God repents for the flood caused in despair and anger is a moot point. God decides to let creation continue, and places in the sky a sign to remind God that this is the Creation God made.

The use of the rainbow as a sign of God responding to human beings is an extraordinary one. The text makes clear that this sign is a Keshet – the bow from a bow and arrow, an artefact for death and destruction, for hunting and for warfare. But this Keshet has two differences from the usual bow of an archer – it is pointed away from the earth so that any notional arrow would fly away into the heavens rather than damage the earth;  And it has no string – it has been “demilitarised”, an archer’s bow that cannot shoot, cannot cause any hurt. Nachmanides explains that orientation is like what happens when two nations who have been at war make overtures towards peace by pointing their bows away from each other. God is not only making peace after the violence of the flood, but commits to never acting so violently again while at the same time reminding us that this commitment comes from compassion towards us – that even though humanity has damaged the world God will show mercy towards us.

Far from being a cosy and comfortable image, the rainbow presents us with stunning clarity with the notion that an undeserving people yet has a compassionate God. The liturgical messages we have so recently spoken and heard in the Yamim Noraim have their roots in this story. We are deeply flawed, yet God is prepared to engage with us.

The blessing recited when we see a rainbow is an unusual one in that it has a triple phrasing – ““Blessed are You, Eternal, Sovereign of the universe, who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to Your covenant, and keeps to Your promise.” – the only time we find this structure among the blessings we make  (though there is a slight resonance with the blessing the priests were instructed to say to the people, the nesiat kapayim).

Why this threefold structure? We speak of God who remembers, who is faithful, who keeps the divine promise – it feels rather like desperate supplication – “please God, don’t just remember when you see the rainbow, but remember this is a commitment you made to us, a promise not to destroy us, as we know you could and as we fear we deserve”

The rainbow acts as a sign, a bridge in the heavens between us and God, a reminder to us of the fragility of our existence and a reminder to God of the divine commitment to a flawed creation. It tells us we live in a precarious world, that we are vulnerable and weak, that life and death are intimately connected. It tells us that we live in a complicated world, where the binary structures of good or bad, right or wrong, are not enough, but instead we must engage with the messiness and complexity of overlapping layers of colour within the pure lights of the universe. It tells us that God limits Godself for us to continue to live in the world, and that we need to step up and act as God’s agents in continuing the work of creation.

As Lamech names Noach he reminds us both of the hard labour we are destined to undertake to survive in this world, and he reminds us that there is comfort and rest in this world too. We live always on spectrums of experiences – between hard labour and relaxation, between doubt and certainty, between safety and danger –  nothing is ever either/or. The rainbow is a perfect expression of that complexity we all have to negotiate, created as the rain falls and the sun shines. Life isn’t ever simple, but we are here and we are obliged to get on and make our lives the best we can.

As we start the new cycle of reading Torah, that is the lesson to take forward. Life is messy and complicated but here we are, and here is God, and together we will continue the work of creation.

La storia di Noach inizia là dove finisce la sidrà della scorsa settimana. La sua nascita è registrata in un elenco di padri e figli, che inizia con Adamo e suo figlio Seth e di cui Noach rappresenta la decima generazione. La sua nascita e il suo nome spiccano, ci viene detto che: “Quando Lamech aveva centottantadue anni generò un figlio. Gli mise nome Noach (Noè), dicendo: ‘Questi ci consolerà nell nostro lavoro e nel travaglio delle nostre mani che ci vengono dalla terra che il Signore ha maledetto’. Lamech dopo aver generato Noè visse cinquecentonovantacinque anni e generò figli e figlie. Visse complessivamente settecentosettantasette anni; poi morì. Noè all’età di cinquecento anni generò Scem, Cham e Jèfeth”. (5:28-32)

          Insolitamente, in questa genealogia ci viene fornita una ragione per il nome di Noach, cosa in precedenza era avvenuta solo in occasione della creazione di Adamo. E abbiamo anche i nomi di ciascuno dei suoi figli, a differenza delle generazioni precedenti di cui abbiamo solo il nome della persona nel legame generazionale.

          Solo Lamech parla del bisogno di conforto, e solo Lamech menziona la difficoltà della vita al di fuori dell’Eden, la maledizione portata dall’umanità che dovrà lavorare sodo per sopravvivere su una terra spietata.

          E ancora, nella lettura della scorsa settimana troviamo la strana storia di esseri non umani che interagiscono con l’umanità: “Quando gli uomini iniziarono a moltiplicarsi sulla faccia della terra ed erano nate loro delle figlie, i figli di Dio videro le figlie dell’uomo che erano belle e si presero delle mogli, fra tutte quelle che scelsero. Il Signore disse: ‘Il mio spirito non rimanga sempre perplesso nei riguardi dell’uomo considerando che è di carne; gli darò tempo centoventi anni’. I Nephilim (Giganti) erano sulla terra in quel tempo e, anche dopo che i figli di Dio si furono congiunti con le figlie dell’uomo, ne ebbero figli. Sono gli eroi dell’antichità, uomini famosi”. (6:1-4)

          Dieci generazioni dopo la creazione degli esseri umani, sembra che ci sia stata una sorta di crisi: l’incrocio dell’umanità con esseri divini o semi-divini. E questo avviene nella generazione di Noach, in seguito le cose peggiorano ulteriormente:

          “L’Eterno vide che la malvagità dell’uomo nella terra era grande, e che ogni creazione del pensiero dell’animo di lui era costantemente solo male. L’Eterno si pentì di aver fatto l’uomo sulla terra, e se ne addolorò in cuore. L’Eterno disse: ‘Distruggerò dalla faccia della terra l’uomo che ho creato; dall’uomo ai quadrupedi, ai rettili, agli uccelli del cielo, perché mi sono pentito di averli fatti.’ Ma Noè trovò grazia agli occhi dell’Eterno”. (6:5-8).

          Dio si pente della decisione di creare esseri umani. Il verbo usato, “vayenachem”, suona sospettosamente vicino al verbo che è alla radice del nome Noach: siamo stati spinti a vedere Noach come parte del piano di azione, o anche solo come oggetto della manifestazione della disperazione di Dio?

          Curiosamente, questo è il momento in cui la sidrà Bereshit termina. Attendiamo i prossimi versetti nella prossima lettura settimanale.

          La parashà Noach inizia in risonanza con la precedente sidrà, dando la genealogia di Noach e dei suoi tre figli. Ma ogni senso di continuità o stabilità scompare con le parole: “La terra era corrotta davanti a Dio, era piena di violenza. Dio vide che la terra era corrotta, che ogni creatura seguiva una via di corruzione sulla terra. Dio disse a Noach: ‘Ho decretato la fine di tutte le creature perché per esse la terra è piena di violenza; ed io le distruggerò con la terra stessa. – Fatti un’arca di legno di gopher… etc etc…” (11-14)

          Nelle dieci generazioni di trasmissione umana sulla terra, la terra è rovinata, riempita di violenza, corrotta, disgustosa. Agli occhi di Dio non c’è niente che valga la pena salvare. La creazione è fallita. C’è solo חָמָס – una radice che significa violenza, crudeltà, malizia, torto, oppressione e ingiustizia (appare sessanta volte nella Bibbia ebraica).

          Ora conosciamo tutti la storia di ciò che accadrà dopo. Noach non discute con Dio, non avverte i suoi vicini, nel nostro testo non parla affatto, si limita a fare il lavoro di costruire l’imbarcazione, raccogliere gli animali, guardare le inondazioni che provengono sia sopra che sotto la terra…. Il suo silenzio, per me, è una delle parti più difficili della storia.

          L’intero episodio si conclude con le inondazioni che si ritirano, Noach e la sua famiglia tornano sulla terraferma. Appena discende costruisce un altare e sacrifica a Dio alcuni degli animali permessi tratti in salvo. Dio fiuta il fumo del sacrificio e dice, secondo me, in modo piuttosto criptico:  “… Non maledirò più la terra a causa dell’uomo; poiché il pensiero dell’animo dell’uomo tende al male fin dalla fanciullezza; né più colpirò tutti i viventi, come ho fatto. Finché la terra sussisterà, non cesseranno semina e raccolto, freddo e caldo, estate e inverno, giorno e notte”. (8:21-22)

          Dio poi benedice Noach e la sua famiglia, dando loro la benedizione che fu data ai primi esseri umani: siate fecondi e moltiplicatevi e riempite la terra.

פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֖וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

          Successivamente Dio dice qualcosa che nei tempi contemporanei suona particolarmente e dolorosamente attuale “Tutte le bestie della terra e tutti volatili del cielo avranno spavento e paura di voi (u’mora’achem e chit’chem); con tutti gli animali che strisciano sulla terra e con tutti i pesci del mare sono dati in mano vostra. Ogni essere che è vivo vi servirà di cibo; come le verdure io vi do tutto”.

          Questo è il momento in cui il nutrirsi di animali sembra ricevere il permesso divino. Il momento in cui l’ebraismo si è lasciato alle spalle il vegetarianismo. Un commentatore (Don Yitzchak Abravanel 1437–1508) ha suggerito che Noach e la sua famiglia potrebbero aver avuto preoccupazioni sulla possibilità di essere invasi dagli animali selvatici, alcuni dei quali avrebbero potuto potenzialmente attaccarli e danneggiarli. Quindi Dio offre sia una “benedizione”, quella degli animali che temono gli esseri umani per tenere lontano da loro tale danno, sia il permesso di mangiare animali, dando effettivamente un grande potere agli esseri umani sugli animali. È una bella patinatura su quello che leggo come un verso agghiacciante: non ci sarà alcuna relazione condivisa possibile tra gli animali e gli esseri umani, gli animali che vivono su questo pianeta saranno alla mercé delle attività umane e, come stiamo vedendo oggi, le popolazioni animali saranno spazzate via quando il cambiamento climatico prenderà piede. Un recente rapporto del WWF (World Wildlife Fund) ci dice che “Le popolazioni mondiali di mammiferi selvatici, uccelli, anfibi, rettili e pesci sono diminuite in media di oltre due terzi dal 1970”

https://www.wwf. org.uk/our-reports/living-planet-report-2022

            Dio fa un patto con Noach e i suoi discendenti, e anche con ogni essere vivente sulla terra: che mai più Dio distruggerà la terra con il diluvio. Il patto è unilaterale: non vi è alcun obbligo assunto dall’umanità o dagli animali, solo Dio stabilisce questo patto, solo Dio è vincolato ad esso, e il segno del patto non è sulla terra ma nei cieli, l’arcobaleno.

            Nella modernità siamo abituati a vedere l’arcobaleno come un simbolo benigno, se non decisamente di bellezza, un simbolo di inclusione poiché in esso si possono trovare tutti i colori. Un simbolo di consolazione: negli ultimi decenni l’idea del “ponte arcobaleno” ha preso piede come un paradiso fantastico per gli amati animali domestici che aspettano che anche i loro proprietari muoiano e si riuniscano. L’arcobaleno è usato per denotare la speranza, in particolare dopo un periodo tempestoso e difficile. La famosa canzone del Mago di Oz, “Somewhere over the rainbow”, è vista da molti come un riferimento all’esperienza degli ebrei intrappolati dalla Shoà: scritta da due ebrei immigrati negli Stati Uniti, (Harold Arlen e E.Y. Harburg. N.d.T.) è stata pubblicata nel 1939.

            I primi testi ebraici vedono l’arcobaleno in modo diverso. Il profeta Ezechiele, nell’esilio babilonese (VI secolo a.E.v), ebbe una visione estatica di Dio e paragonò la luminosità di questa visione all’apparizione di un arcobaleno (Ezechiele 1:28). La sua visione portò all’associazione dell’arcobaleno con la gloria divina, con l’immanenza di Dio: in qualche modo la Shechinà dimorava all’interno dell’arcobaleno. Per questo c’è una tradizione di non guardare un arcobaleno per più del tempo necessario per dire la benedizione, di non dire agli altri che un arcobaleno è nel cielo. C’è la convinzione che guardare troppo a lungo l’arcobaleno causerà cecità (Chagigà 16a) a causa della presenza di Dio in esso.

            L’arcobaleno nella tradizione ebraica non è inequivocabilmente un segno felice. È, come spiega Rashi (9:14), un promemoria della rabbia di Dio, del desiderio di Dio di distruggere il mondo a causa del nostro comportamento in esso. È un segno più per Dio che per noi: un promemoria a Dio per controllare la giusta rabbia, una sorta di totem a cui aggrapparsi perché Dio lo ricordi. E cosa sta ricordando Dio? Sì, la promessa di non distruggere il mondo attraverso l’alluvione (sebbene questa sia una promessa particolarmente limitata, non si parla di fuoco, siccità o pestilenza), e Dio ricorda anche che l’umanità è incapace di perfezione, che la creazione di Dio ha un difetto dentro di noi che non può mai essere cancellato: “il cuore dell’umanità è malvagio fin dalla sua fanciullezza”, come dice il testo.

            Come esseri umani, abbiamo imbellito la storia di Noach e del patto dell’arcobaleno in modo da farla diventare irriconoscibile. La storia è raccontata come una favola per bambini, ogni scuola materna ha arcobaleni e figure giocattolo o immagini di un’affascinante arca colorata e improbabile con animali felici al suo interno. Molte persone credono ancora all’idea che l’arcobaleno contenga sette colori. Sette, il simbolo della perfezione, un numero con molti aspetti diversi: per esempio le sette Leggi Noachidi (Talmud Sanhedrin 56a), le sette Sefirot legate alle emozioni nei testi cabalistici (le altre tre sono di intelletto), i sette giorni della settimana, le sette settimane tra Pesach e Shavuot, i settanta anni di una vita umana. Sembra giusto che l’arcobaleno abbia sette colori, eppure anche questo è come una patina sulla realtà. Non ci sono sette bande distinte, ma più colori che si fondono e sfumano l’uno nell’altro. L’idea del sette viene da Isaac Newton nel 1665. Fino ad allora era accettato che esistessero 5 colori (Robert Boyle li descrisse poco prima di Newton: rosso, giallo, verde, blu, viola), ma poiché il numero sette ha un significato mistico di perfezione, Newton scelse di definire che l’arcobaleno ne contenesse sette, aggiungendo il colore arancione e suddividendo il colore viola in indaco e viola.

            La storia di Noach e dell’Arcobaleno è una storia che abbiamo rielaborato allontanandola dai suoi messaggi dolorosi e rendendola invece il più infantile e semplicistica possibile, e la domanda per noi è: perché questa storia è stata così distorta nell’immaginazione popolare?

            La storia inizia con una terribile violenza e corruzione, con un mondo che non funziona e un’umanità che a malapena vale la pena salvare. In sole dieci generazioni, la creazione è stata tradita.

            Allora Dio crea un atto di violenza così terribile che la creazione viene quasi completamente distrutta.

            Dio si rende conto che gli esseri umani sono veramente a immagine di Dio, perché da dove possiamo aver avuto le nostre tendenze distruttive se non dal nostro divino creatore? Dio vede che nel creare l’umanità a immagine divina Dio ha creato esseri complessi e variati: possono andare fuori controllo, possono fare scelte egoistiche e indifferenti, possono esercitare il libero arbitrio e scegliere di agire contro ciò che è meglio per se stessi o per gli altri. Dio si pente, anche se, che Dio si penta per aver creato l’umanità o se Dio si penta per il diluvio causato dalla disperazione e dalla rabbia è un punto controverso. Dio decide di lasciare che la creazione continui e pone nel cielo un segno per ricordare a Dio che questa è la Creazione che Dio ha fatto.

            L’uso dell’arcobaleno come segno di Dio che risponde agli esseri umani è straordinario. Il testo chiarisce che questo segno è un Keshet: un arco, parte del binomio arco e freccia, manufatti per la morte e la distruzione, per la caccia e per la guerra. Ma questo Keshet ha due differenze rispetto al solito arco di un arciere: è puntato lontano dalla terra in modo che qualsiasi freccia immaginaria voli via nei cieli piuttosto che danneggiare la terra; E non ha corda: è stato “smilitarizzato”, un arco da arciere che non può scagliare, non può causare alcun male. Nachmanide spiega che l’orientamento è come quello che si verifica quando due nazioni che sono state in guerra fanno aperture verso la pace puntando l’arco lontano l’una dall’altra. Dio non sta solo facendo la pace dopo la violenza del diluvio, ma si impegna a non agire mai più così violentemente, ricordandoci allo stesso tempo che questo impegno viene dalla compassione verso di noi, che anche se l’umanità ha danneggiato il mondo, Dio mostrerà misericordia verso di noi.

            Lungi dall’essere un’immagine accogliente e confortevole, l’arcobaleno ci presenta con straordinaria chiarezza l’idea che un popolo immeritevole ha ancora un Dio compassionevole. I messaggi liturgici che abbiamo pronunciato e ascoltato di recente durante gli Yamim Noraim, i giorni solenni, hanno le loro radici in questa storia. Siamo profondamente imperfetti, eppure Dio è pronto a impegnarsi con noi.

            La benedizione recitata quando vediamo un arcobaleno è insolita in quanto ha una triplice frase: “Benedetto sei tu, Eterno, Sovrano dell’universo, che ricordi il patto, sei fedele al tuo patto e mantieni la tua promessa.” E’ l’unica volta che troviamo questa struttura tra le benedizioni che facciamo (sebbene vi sia una leggera risonanza con la benedizione che i sacerdoti sono stati istruiti a dire al popolo, nesiat kapayim).

            Perché questa triplice struttura? Parliamo di Dio che ricorda, che è fedele, che mantiene la promessa divina, sembra quasi una supplica disperata: “ti prego Dio, non solo ricorda quando vedi l’arcobaleno, ma ricorda che questo è un impegno che hai preso con noi, una promessa di non distruggerci, come sappiamo che potresti e come temiamo di meritare”.

            L’arcobaleno funge da segno, un ponte nei cieli tra noi e Dio, un promemoria per noi della fragilità della nostra esistenza e un promemoria a Dio dell’impegno divino per una creazione imperfetta. Ci dice che viviamo in un mondo precario, che siamo vulnerabili e deboli, che la vita e la morte sono intimamente connesse. Ci dice che viviamo in un mondo complicato, in cui le strutture binarie di buono o cattivo, giusto o sbagliato, non sono sufficienti, ma dobbiamo invece confrontarci con il disordine e la complessità degli strati di colore sovrapposti all’interno delle luci pure dell’universo. Ci dice che Dio limita Dio stesso affinché noi continuiamo a vivere nel mondo e che dobbiamo fare un passo avanti e agire come agenti di Dio nel continuare l’opera della creazione.

            Quando Lamech nomina Noach, ricorda anche a noi il duro lavoro che siamo destinati a intraprendere per sopravvivere in questo mondo, e ricorda a noi che ci sono anche conforto e riposo in questo mondo. Viviamo sempre una gamma di esperienze:  spaziando tra duro lavoro e relax, tra dubbio e certezza, tra sicurezza e pericolo, niente è mai solo una cosa o l’altra. L’arcobaleno è un’espressione perfetta di quella complessità che tutti dobbiamo negoziare, creata quando la pioggia cade e il sole splende. La vita non è mai semplice, ma noi ci siamo e siamo obbligati ad andare avanti e rendere la nostra vita il meglio che possiamo.

            Così iniziamo il nuovo ciclo di lettura della Torà, questa è la lezione da portare avanti. La vita è disordinata e complicata ma eccoci qui, ed ecco Dio, e insieme continueremo l’opera della creazione.

Traduzione dall’inglese di Eva Mangialajo Rantzer

Toledot: the family ties that bind a people together

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 Jewish history is told in terms of Jewish family. We chart our progress through the generations, marvelling at how we are able to adapt and to change, to move countries and to begin again, yet never having to begin at the beginning – we take with us the wisdom and the tradition of our ancestors to support and nourish us as we add our own experiences and our own lives to the chain.

We are part of an eternal covenant.  Since Abraham’s first encounter with God that set him off on his journey as an Ivri (one who passes over into a new place), and since the encounter at Sinai when the whole Jewish people – (including all who were yet to be born and all who would willingly join with us) – we have been a family with a powerful tradition that has enabled us to retain our identity despite huge shifts in geography, language, autonomy, and cultural expression.  Whenever one tries to dissect and define Jewish identity, there is immediately a problem that no absolute characterization can be agreed upon – there are secular and religious Jews, culinary and cultural Jews, Sephardim, Ashkenazim, Italkit and Romaniot;  there are Jews who passionately believe in a personal God and others who are passionately agnostic. What binds us is the notion of peoplehood – specifically that of toledot – of family.

The word itself comes from the root to give birth, yet we first find it early on in the book of Genesis when God is creating the world: –  אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם:  בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים–אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם.:

“These are the generations (toledot) of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Eternal God made earth and heavens.  (Gen 2:4). 

The term is clearly much more than the physical giving birth – it has to do with developments, with outcomes, with the next stage, and virtually every time it is found in the book of Genesis it has a transitional function, introducing the new and concluding the story of the old.  In the ten passages in which the word is used in Genesis, each time there is an important liminal point –a break but at the same time a kind of continuation.   So for example we have the toledot of the creation of the world which is then left to run, the toledot of Adam whose sons bring chaos into the world, the toledot of Noah, upon whom rest the hopes of mending the world, of the three sons of Noah who are the founding ancestors of the known world, and then the specific genealogy of Shem from whom we descend and which takes us to Abraham. Then we have the generations (toledot) of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Isaac, of Esau and finally of Jacob.

I find it deeply interesting that the bible gives us the generations not only of the line from whom we ourselves descend, but also of those who are connected to us but who are no longer “of” us.  The recording of the other genealogical threads reminds us of what is truly important:- that there is family and family, connections and bonds, and some are closer and others less so, but we are ultimately all one humanity even when our stories and our lineages diverge.

The story today begins with the toledot of Isaac, but is really interested in the fate of his younger son Jacob.  And it is Jacob, shortly to be renamed Israel on account of his own encounter with God, who is the ancestor from whom we generate our own history. In this sidra Jacob is given two blessings by his father: the first is the blessing of the first-born that his father had intended for Esau, the second is given to him as he departed for Paddan Aram to find a wife for himself and to begin a new life. One blessing was about the recognition and importance of the ancestral tradition of covenant, the other was about striking out into new territory. One was concerned with material well being, the other about spiritual direction and the future of the Jewish people.

What becomes clear is the inextricable link between past and future, that to try to have one without the other is to misunderstand the nature of Jewish identity.  And what becomes clear too is that each new generation has to find their journey and their meaning for themselves, building upon what has been given to them by their parents and grandparents, but creating something new as well, to pass on to their children and grandchildren.

Our history really is about toledot – the concluding of the story of one generation and the new story of the next loosely threaded onto it.  With each new generation there is always going to be change, but at the same time we know that the fundamental blessings continue down the years, and that while some of the paths seem to disappear over the horizon and out of our sight, that is only to be expected and accommodated.

We do the best we can in our own generation, and we trust the ones who come after us to have their own encounter to add to the richness that is passed on.  Isaac cannot ever have expected the boy he named from youth as Ya’akov – the bent one, the one who clung to the heel of his brother, the one who delayed – to become Yisrael, the one who struggles with God and overcomes.

 

Elisheva: challenging the patriarchal structure with her mixed feelings. Parashat Va’era

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Early in the sidra is a partial genealogy, which leads us rapidly to the Levitical line. A genealogy of the Levites takes us from Levi through Kohat to Amram father of Aaron and Moses. Unusually, three women are named in this genealogy:

Amram married Yocheved the sister of his father, and she gave birth to Aaron and Moses (Miriam is not mentioned here).

Aaron married Elisheva, the daughter of Amminadav, the sister of Nachshon; and she bore him Nadav and Avihu, Eleazar and Itamar.

Eleazar Aaron’s son took him one of the daughters of Putiel to wife; and she bore him Pinchas.

It is unusual for the wives to be named in these genealogies and so we must explore this further to see what Torah is trying to tell us.   Amram and Yocheved are nephew and aunt –both descendants of Levi, so Aaron and Moses are, so to speak, doubly Levitical.

It is not clear who Putiel is – he appears only here. Nor do we know how many daughters he had, or the names of any of them.

But Elisheva is given a much fuller ‘yichus’ – she is the daughter of Amminadav, the sister of Nachshon and we know from later in bible that her tribe therefore is that of Judah.  Not much is known of Amminadav, but Nachshon features further in text and tradition.  We learn in the book of Numbers that under God’s instruction, Nachshon ben Amminadav was appointed by Moses as ‘Nasi’, leader/prince of the Tribe of Judah (Num. 1:7), to stand with Moses and to help him lead the people.  We can also see that through Boaz he will be a direct ancestor to King David; and curiously he sits exactly half way in the biblical genealogy that leads directly from Judah to David.

Because of his descent from Judah and his many regal descendants, Nachshon is praised in the rabbinic literature. Most famously – even though the biblical text does not mention him there – he is said to have shown real faith at the Reed Sea. The Israelites having left Egypt after the final plague, found themselves trapped. In front of them was the water and behind them the furious pursuing army. They complained bitterly to Moses asking why he had brought them there only to die in the wilderness.  And while they were standing there, each one angrily refusing to go further, and while Moses was praying to God for help, Nachshon ben Amminadav jumped into the water and when it reached his nostrils, the waters parted. (BT Sotah 36a; Mechilta Beshalach)

This is the brother of Elisheva, a man apparently of great qualities – and as Elisheva is introduced to us as his sister – an unnecessary addition in the generational genealogy- it is assumed that something else is being alluded to here beyond the blood relationship. Elisheva brings into the Priestly line that will descend from her and Aaron the qualities of leadership embodied by her own family which will provide the Royal line.

Elisheva will give birth to the four sons of Aaron, two of whom, Nadav and Avihu, will suffer a terrible and violent death shortly after being inducted into the priesthood. The other two will continue the hereditary line of the Cohanim – the Jewish priests.   She is, with Aaron, the root of the priestly tradition. And she also brings together the two formal leadership roles within the biblical tradition – she brings the royal line of Judah which is already generations old, (Judah having been blessed by Jacob on his deathbed as being the Royal line), together with the brand new line of hereditary priesthood.

Elisheva is understood in tradition to be a woman who had reason for great pride and joy by virtue of her relationships to male leaders:  The Talmud (Zevachim 102a) tells us that on the day of the inauguration of the Mishkan “Elisheva had five additional joys over other daughters of Israel. She was the sister-in-law of the king (Moses), the wife of the High Priest (Aaron), her son (Elazar) was the segan (deputy high priest), her grandson (Pinchas) was anointed for war, and her brother (Nachshon) was a prince of the tribe of Judah [and the first of the twelve tribal leaders to make a gift offering for the inauguration]  One can add to this list that it was Betzalel ben Hur her nephew  of the tribe of Judah, who was the architect appointed by God to build the Mishkan.

Talmud however goes on to note “yet she was bereaved of her two sons”

I find this extraordinary. The Talmudic text is well aware that Elisheva, like Aaron, is bereaved of two of her adult children in a moment – destroyed when beginning their work as priests, but offering strange fire before God. We don’t really understand what happened here – were they drunk? Idolatrous? Inefficient?  Improperly dressed? – but we do understand that they die instantly. And we also understand that while a male response is described to these deaths, (Moses speaks to Aaron about God’s demands for the priesthood, Aaron is silent, Mishael and Elzaphan the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron are instructed to bring the bodies out of the mishkan and put them outside the camp, Elazar and Itamar are instructed about their priestly duties, along with Aaron…) Nothing is said about the response of Elisheva, the mother of the dead boys.

Aaron is famously silent – we are told this and it is understood that he is able to accept that the greater good of the priesthood is more important than the individual fates of his two sons. But his enigmatic silence is at painful odds with the complete erasure of the response of Elisheva. I cannot for a moment imagine that she would have taken the deaths quite so phlegmatically.

In the Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 20:2) we see the situation from the viewpoint of Elisheva. “Elisheva, the daughter of Amminadav, did not enjoy happiness in this world. True, she witnessed the five crowns [attained by her male relatives] in one day…but when her sons entered to offer incense and were burnt, her joy was changed to mourning.”

The Midrash not only allows her mourning, it accepts that the deaths of her sons affected her profoundly so that even the achievements of her other male relatives would not give her any happiness.  Mourning as a parent is all-consuming. It is not ever something that one can recover fro;  the best that can happen is that joy can once again be experienced tinged with sadness, with an awareness that life is incomplete and will remain so.

Elisheva, the woman who brings together the lines of power and leadership – monarchy and priesthood, who is the foremother therefore of all those who have to care for the people, who have to lead it thoughtfully and in is best interest; Elisheva, matriarch and founding spirit of all the leaders whose job is to serve, to provide security, to be thoughtful about the impact of their decisions in the wider world –  brings not only the qualities of power that leadership needs, she brings another quality – the awareness of incompleteness and imperfection that we must live with.

It is a truism that peace/shalom is never fully here – the most we have is an absence of conflict and we must work to stop such conflict breaking out and gaining ascendancy. Our hope for each other uses the prefix le – leshalom, TOWARDS shalom, rather than b’shalom –IN/WITH peace because we are constantly striving towards it – we only reach our individual shalom when we are dead, as the biblical language confirms.  It is also true that every joy we have in life is good but it is temporary and it is always susceptible to change. We live in a world of uncertainty and entropy, change will happen and we must be able to cope with it.

Elisheva had so much in life – she came from a successful and value driven family, she married into another one, she had children and grandchildren, she features (albeit briefly) in bible. But as the midrash tells us, she did not enjoy happiness in this world, she lived in the liminal space where the pain of her mourning, and her awareness of the continuing fragility of the lives of those we love can  tinge, if not overshadow all happiness.

At a Jewish wedding there is a tradition to break a glass at the end of the ceremony. There are many reasons given – to scare away demons who may be lurking and to remember the destruction of the Temple  are two of the most famous, but the most likely is to remind everyone in the room that joy is transitory and good times must be enjoyed when we encounter them.

Life is hard and we shall all encounter a mixture of good and bad, of ease and difficulty, of problems and effortlessness as we go through it.  We will all meet difficulties, many of us will face fear and anxiety, some of us will have to deal with tragedy. We cannot allow fear or pain or sadness to overwhelm us but neither must we suppress the realities that they exist.

Elisheva encountered both extreme highs and lows of life. Bible is silent on her way of dealing with it, but rabbinic tradition uses her as a model, in the full knowledge that the people it is writing for would also face good times and bad, and needed to find resilience beyond that of blind faith. Elisheva lives on after the tragedy of the deaths of her sons, she continues to experience joy and sadness, she is able to experience both but neither of them can be untouched by the other. She is a human being who copes with life.

The name Elisheva can mean either “my God has sworn an oath” or it can mean “my God has satisfied”. What is the oath that is sworn? That God will remain our God through the ages, through good times and bad. And in what way is Elisheva ‘satisfied’? She has had a lot of good in her life, which enables her to deal also with the bad.

We learn from Elisheva that we can both enjoy life and mourn for what we no longer have, or might never have. We must live with the mingling of light and dark, knowing that each will tinge the other but each must be lived through. We learn that holding a constant sense that we are still connected to God, even in the dark times, even when may be afraid or sad or even angry with God, will help us through our lives.

No one gets away with a life that has no loss and no pain. No one escapes pain – it is an elemental human condition and closely allied to the ability to love. The men around Elisheva take refuge in their status, but Elisheva stands out, a scion of the royal line, the mother of priests. She may appear to have everything, but what matters can be taken away in a heartbeat and then the “everything” shows what it truly is – momentary, material, and irrelevant. Elisheva reminds us that relationships not only underpin our lives, they provide connection and the place to be ourselves. Everything else will pass.

Naamah, wife of Noah, sings as she goes about her work. Her voice calls to us as the world is remade

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The first thing we learn about Noah is his genealogy  as the generations that separate him from Adam are listed – he is the tenth generation since the creation of humanity and ten is a powerful symbolic number in bible. (Gen5)

The second thing we learn about Noah is a connection between him and the ur-ancestors Adam and Eve, with the verbal root ayin-tzaddi-beit, (the noun itz’von – hard work/ creative work being used earlier for Eve and then for Adam and then not used again in Hebrew Bible)

The third thing we learn is that his name, Noah, meaning ‘rest’ or ‘repose’, but midrashically stretched to mean ‘comfort’ is somehow the counter to the idea of itz’von, that this one,  Noah, y’nachameinu – will comfort us – in our work (ma’asei) and the creative work of our hands (itz’von yadeinu), from the ground which the Eternal has cursed (Gen 5:29)  This is the first time that a name has been explained in bible since the first couple were named.

And the fourth thing we learn is that unlike his nine ancestors, Noah waited a long, long time before having children.  Five times longer than the usual delay – he was 500 years old before fathering a child.

The text has signalled that this man, the tenth generation of human beings, is notable. In some way he is born to mitigate the sheer hard work of creative exertion that has been the lot of human beings since leaving Eden.  And indeed he does alter the course of human history, becoming himself the ur-ancestor for the post-flood generations. And he is a late starter.

Why does Noah wait to have his children? One midrash tells us that God had made him impotent for the first 500 years in order not to have older children at the time of the flood which took place in his 600th year. (Gen Rabbah 26:2). Had his children been wicked they would have been killed alongside the rest of humanity, had they been righteous they would have had to make arks of their own, so the midrash places them at the cusp of adulthood – hence the delay in their births.

A much later commentary (Sefer haYashar) suggests another reason – that Noah knew that he would be bringing children into a corrupt world and chose not to do so. God had to remind him of his duty to find a wife and to have children, and to take that wife into the future in order that more children might  be born after the end of the flood.

I would like to add a third explanation – that just as the child of Sarah was to be the chosen heir to Abraham, so too does the saved remnant of humanity need to be the child of a particular woman.  For the text signals something very powerful about the mother of Shem, Ham and Japhet – she appears five separate times in the bible, and yet her name is omitted from the text.

In all but one of her appearances she is listed after Noah and his sons, and before the wives of the sons, but in the penultimate verse God tells Noah to “Go forth from the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons’ wives with you” but they actually leave in a different order –Noah, his sons, his wife and their wives.

It feels like a moment has been missed. That moment is in need of revisiting and the wife of Noah in need of being rescued from her erasure.

The midrash tells us that the wife of Noah had a name, she was called Naamah.  How do they know? Because we know of a Naamah, the daughter of Lamech and Zillah, and sister of Tubal Cain – she is the only single woman listed in these early genealogies (and the other two women are the two wives of Lamech) and so must be of some importance, though the text does not tell us what.  Her name may give us another clue to her special abilities- the root primarily means to be pleasant, but it also has the connotation of melody and of singing. Naamah, whose brothers are each named for an aspect of human activity (the children of Lamech’s other wife, Adah are Jubal, the founder of the music of harp and pipe, and Jabal the patron of tent dwellers and cattle raisers, while her full brother Tubal Cain is the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron)is not given a role in the text – but surely her pleasant and calm singing voice forms a backdrop to the story much as the singing of a niggun helps us to focus on our own prayer.

Maybe this is her downfall – the musicality of a woman’s voice has certainly become something to fear for some rabbis and commentators.  Maybe her name had to be erased from the text lest her singing lead us to really notice her, make us ask why Noah waited so long to marry her and have children with her, make us wonder what qualities she had that would lead her to being effectively the second Eve, the mother of all living after the flood.

And there is something else that makes the modern feminist want to winkle out more about this unnamed but significant woman – the later midrash and the mystical literature choose to take her name (pleasant/lovely/musical) and transform her into the feared seductress of men, the woman who married the fallen angel Shamadon and who mothered the most fearful demon of all, Ashmodeus, the king of the demonic world. Whenever a woman is trashed in rabbinic literature, called a seducer, a demon, a killer of babies, a prostitute or a witch– there we know we can find a woman whose strength of mind, whose scholarship, whose sense of self is powerful and outspoken. We find a strong woman who scares a certain kind of weak man. Lilith the first wife of Adam who chose not to be secondary to him; Eve whose actions led to the curse of ceaseless work;  Deborah likened to a wasp who moves from being a judge in biblical text to a teacher of established laws as commentaries take over; Huldah described as an irritant, a hornet; Beruriah the scholarly wife of Rabbi Meir whose end was to be seduced by one of his students and so committed suicide…..

A woman’s voice is her sexuality, and takes her from her assigned role of quiet service to others, to one of power and of public awareness. No wonder poor Naamah was hidden in the text, no wonder that even when God said she should leave the ark immediately after Noah and before her sons and their families, when it came to it she was described as having left after her sons, relegated to the status of secondary character  yet again.  Midrash goes on to trash her further, calling her an idolatrous woman who used her voice to sing to idols (Genesis Rabbah 23) The statement by Abba b. Kahana, that Naamah gained her name (pleasant) because her conduct was pleasing to God is rapidly overturned in majority opinion and recorded texts. She is other, she is frightening, and she is the mother of the demon king. Let’s keep her quiet, unassuming, disappeared….

The role of women beyond child bearing and rearing is sometimes frustratingly alarming to the rabbinic world view. Naamah has adult children who themselves are married – her role is apparently fulfilled, we learn of no further children of Noah after the flood, so what else should she be doing? No doubt she knew, but we can only guess.

There she is, the descendant of Cain, bringing his descendants back into play in the world, providing a sort of redemption to the first biblical murder and fratricide.

There she is, the new mother of all living, as everyone now will descend from her and Noah, bringing to fruition the promise made on the birth and naming of Noah, “’This shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which comes from the ground which the Eternal has cursed.”

There she is, released from the burden of Eve, having finished with the work of childbirth and instead supervising the recreation of the post-diluvian world while her drunken husband passed authority to their sons.

There she is, the singer, whose voice echoes the voice of God as the world is once again put back together after the chaos of the flood.

Abba bar Kahana, the 3rd century amora and one of the greatest exponents of aggadah tells us that she was called Naamah (pleasant) because her conduct was pleasing to God. This teaching has been overlaid and overturned in tradition, the idea being apparently too awful for some rabbinic teachers to contemplate. Her conduct was pleasing to God. God noticed her. She was the woman destined to be the mother of all who live since the flood. About time her voice is heard again, singing as she goes about her work.

Parashat Shemot: the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing it.

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ottenstein cemetery

Picture of Jewish Cemetery, Ottenstein: Rothschild family cemetery

 

One of the signs of reaching middle age is an interest in family history, as the past begins to assume an importance it didn’t have before and we want to know more about from where we came in order to pass on a strong link to the next generations.
    The book of Exodus begins with a brief genealogy and also retells the foundational story of the family as the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob are given to us once more, along with a reminder that this one man had 70 immediate descendants – 70 being a combination of two perfect numbers (7 and 10) and so showing a completeness to his life as a patriarch.
    But as quickly as the people of Israel increased and multiplied in Egypt, tragedy struck, a new king arose who saw them not as an asset to the community but as a threat, and so organised the legalised oppression of these people. Apparently determined not to be destroyed by this subjugation the Israelites continued to have many children and the pharaoh’s response was to take his cruelty down to the newborn children, by having every male child murdered at birth.  Yet the Hebrew midwives who were instructed to do this disobeyed, and playing upon the stereotype of the Israelite women being different from local women, told Pharaoh that they could not kill the newborn boys as they were born so quickly. And so the oppression was taken from the hands of the officials and given into the hands of the people – every boy born to the Hebrews should be thrown into the river.
      As a family history it is painful reading. Even though we know the ending, (for here we are about three millennia later still thriving), to know what our early family had to endure is excruciating. I reacently read  the memoirs of another family member, Ephraim Rothschild who lived in the Hannover area and who wrote his family history over the five years from his 85th to his 90th birthday in 1898. The stories of illness and early deaths, of capriciously unjust authorities, of marriages and children and movements to different villages to escape limitations on numbers of Jews, of legal restrictions and consequent struggles to find ways of making a good living and educating one’s children – it is an insight into a world that I can only say I am grateful not to have been born into. And yet as I read about graduates of the Jacobson school being taken into his employment, and his doubt about what would become of the descendants of those who professed Reform Judaism, there is something of the same feeling as reading the beginning of Shemot – our ancestors could not know what their descendants would become, they could only do what was right and possible in their time and their context in order to create the best chances for their family/people/religion to continue. And they could tell their story, which would include naming the names, reminding their descendants of the familial link and the story that went right back to Sinai.
     Ephraim Rothschild and the family from which he came lived generally in small towns away from the hub of political activity for 230 years, the connection to the area ending only when my grandfather left Hannover (via Baden Baden) for Dachau in November 1938 and my teenage father left Hannover for England. Not quite the 430 years of sojourning in Egypt, but a substantial time nevertheless, and a time when the family story continued to be told and passed onto the next generations. The memoir makes clear that his main interest was his family and the family business, and while he had some criticisms of the Judaism of his time, both the conservative forces of reaction and the too radical (for him) forces of Reform, he took it upon himself to endow and run a synagogue. But he also took it upon himself to learn the new political and economic ideas, teaching himself the essence of democratic politics and national economy, even writing to Bismarck and then to the Kaiser with his ideas and recommendations.  While never taking on the authorities too far, or taking a path of outright disobedience, he chose to play as full a part as he could in improving the lot of his fellow Jews and his fellow Germans.  Living in a relative backwater was no hindrance to his taking part in life. As in the opening of of the book of Shemot, Ephraim’s memoir tells the stories and names the names, and he seems content to do his best within the context and place he found himself, keeping family and religion going to the next generations. And with the stories we find out about some of the women of the family, and how hard they worked to keep everything going.

The title of the book of Shemot (names) is usually understood to refer to the names of the sons of Jacob who came down to Egypt with him, but there are other names to be found in this sidra and there are areas where the naming of names seem to be deliberately avoided. In particular within the story leading to the birth and naming of Moses which is found in this sidra only three names are made clear – the Hebrew midwives Shifrah and Puah are named and described twice as women who “revered God”, and their civil disobedience in aiding the labouring Hebrew women is recorded in bible, as well as their divine reward which is understood by Rashi to be that they became the founders of great dynasties themselves. Yet the father of Moses and the mother of Moses are described only as coming from the tribe of Levi, the Egyptian woman who rescued him is only described as ‘bat Paro’ – a daughter or female relative of Pharaoh, and the sister who oversees the rescue as ‘his sister’. Moses himself is finally named by the daughter of Pharaoh only ten verses later when he has been weaned by his mother and returned to her in the royal household.

This naming of the God-fearing midwives, yet the deliberate non-naming – almost to the point of clumsiness in the text – of all the others around Moses’ birth and rescue reads curiously in a sidra called “Names”. Is it trying to tell us that sometimes we must stand up and put our names to our acts of justice while at other times it is better to do so in anonymity?  Certainly that thought has resonances today in a world anonymity on the net.

      Or is it trying to say that sometimes it is the story that is important and the players are merely functionaries whose naming might distract us? Or maybe that it is our relationships with each other that truly matter and not just ourselves? Or that who we really are – the essence that is caught up in our name – can only be understood in the context of who we are connected to and what we do in our lives.

     The study of one’s family history can be fun and also it can be painful as the many stories of persecution and deprivation echo down the centuries along with the names, often the same names used repeatedly so that one can no longer tell who is being remembered in the naming.  But just to get caught up in who was who is not to in any way know about them. For that one needs the stories, the way the relationships developed, the sense of what they did and the context for why they did it. And we need also to recognise the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something. As Richard Feynman wrote “You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”