Parashat Noah: Who can we believe in?

I’ve always wondered if Babies R’ Us and Pottery Barn Kids see the dark irony that I see in the Noah’s Ark theme that so often adorns the curtains and crib bumpers and baby blankets that they promote for baby décor and gifts. All of those happy animals crammed onto that fun wooden boat with a beautiful rainbow overhead, Noah standing there with the dove roosting on his finger, while the entire world’s population dies off in the flood waters beneath them.

Although our culture colors over this story with pastels and smiley faces, it doesn’t take much digging to discover the more shadowy aspects of the Noah story. You may be aware that according to the Torah, Noah was known as a “tzaddik” – a righteous person, pure in his generation. But you may not be as aware of this story from the end of Noah’s life:

After leaving the Ark and the rainbow, Noah plants a vineyard and makes wine. One day he gets drunk on his wine, and, according to the Torah, he “uncovers himself in his tent.” Noah’s youngest son Ham see his father’s nakedness and tells his other two brothers about it. These two brothers then take a cloth, and walking backwards so they don’t see Noah, they cover him. When Noah wakes up from his wine and learns that Ham had seen him naked, he curses his son and all those who will eventually descend from him.

This is episode is quite murky in its details, and like many Torah stories, we can read it in various ways. The surface meaning is that Ham committed a crime in exposing his father and shaming him. But when you look closely you can see that there is a political agenda in this reading. Ham is the progenitor of the Canaanite people, who later become the mortal enemies of the Israelites. Of course the Torah would plant this story in order to give a reason for why the Canaanites turned out so badly.

Another equally valid way to read this story is to notice the word used for Noah’s nakedness – “ervah.” This same word is used later in the book of Leviticus to label improper sexual relationships, such as incest. In this light, we might understand that Ham was either the victim of incest himself , at the hands of his father, or that he caught his father Noah engaging in a prohibited sexual act.

This reading shows Ham as taking a huge risk. He knows something is not quite right, and he knows that raising a question about his father’s moral purity could ruin the reputation of this tzaddik. His brothers, on the other hand, decide not to look directly at what took place, and they cover it up. In this reading of the text, we might see Ham’s curse as that of an ostracized, silenced whistle blower.  

Once we know this part of the Noah story, what we are left with is a residue of dissonance and ambivalence - an uncomfortable feeling about Noah. We are left with questions - Is Noah really a tzaddik? Is he a hero? Can we believe in him?

As we have seen much too often in our country lately, it is a huge risk for a person to blow the whistle on a powerful individual or institution when he or she sees something that is not quite right.

No one should ever be allowed to amass such power as the assistant coach of Penn State football Jerry Sandusky did. So much power that when custodians witnessed him sexually abusing young boys, they were so afraid for their jobs that they didn’t report it. So much power that when University officials first learned of it, they did nothing.

I grew up in central Pennsylvania – Penn State country. Although I knew nothing about sports, I knew who Joe Paterno was. Penn State football was a religion where I come from, and the “legendary” coach Joe Paterno was a god. I even remember our public school lunch menu regularly featuring Nittany Lion Franks.

My parents have close friends on the Penn State faculty who were deeply devastated by the news of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of young boys that were part of his charity program for at-risk youth.

Institutions can amass so much power that the individuals associated with those institutions become untouchable. To use an image from another part of our Torah portion this week, the Tower of Babel story – the power and the money and the winnings build and build, until names like Joe Paterno and Jerry Sandusky are inscribed on the topmost bricks of a towering structure. For anyone to allow the news to get out about Sandusky’s criminal behavior was to risk that entire tower crumbling to the ground. And so it was covered up – for a long time. And many boys suffered as a result.

We see a similar story playing out right now with the cycling team, led by Lance Armstrong. This tzaddik who has raised millions of dollars for cancer research built a tower with his name on it too. His spectacular performances at the Tour de France captured our imagination – he too was a hero.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, in his tent, he was using intimidation, money, and manipulation to artificially boost his performance and the performance of his teammates through illegal doping. He threatened anyone who knew the truth who might be tempted to blow the whistle. That tower called “Armstrong” has come tumbling down as well.

And so, here we are, left with these fallen heroes, these murky stories, that uncomfortable feeling in the pits of our stomachs, wondering – Who can we believe in? Who can we ever allow our children to believe in? Even that smiling old Noah holding the dove – we even have questions about him.

First of all, I think that it is important to have heroes in our lives. We and our children all need role models, and we shouldn’t be afraid to follow the good examples we find out in the world.

But we also need to be honest with ourselves and our kids when these role models fail. This too is part of life. I think there is a reason why the Torah is not about perfect unfailing people. It is much more difficult to feel a connection to a person who is perfect. We can learn a lot about how to deal with our own challenges by seeing how a good role model handles his or her own failures.

But there is a different between an imperfect person and a hero who turns out to be engaging in serious criminal behavior. Here I think the Torah has some insight for us as well.

First of all, we should be wary of anyone who seems to promote an image of themselves as a pure, perfect tzaddik. That first line of our Torah portion, which calls Noah a righteous person in his generation – that line should be a red flag, calling for further investigation.  All too often, an image of perfection, of total purity or righteousness is a manufactured image. Underneath it lies a whole other story.

Even more importantly, our Torah portion introduces the concept of accountability. Before the Flood God had come to the disappointed realization that the devisings of humanity’s mind are evil from our youth. Human beings have this tendency within them to misbehave, and God understands that this would never change.  Given that, it is a wonder why God decided to keep us around after the Flood in the first place.

But after the Flood, God finds a solution,  inventing the concept of covenant. This covenant holds human beings accountable to God and to God’s laws. Now, when we spill innocent blood –when we cause suffering – we cannot hide. There will be consequences, and there will be justice.

In the context of covenant, there is now a way to test if someone truly merits being called a tzaddik or a hero. Does she see herself as above accountability? Does he see his power as protecting him from the consequences of his actions?

The person who possesses enough humility to understand that there is something out there that is larger than his own power, his own tower of winnings, his own ego. That person who understands the danger of her power and who will never use it to exploit or threaten or hurt others. That person is someone we can believe in.