Dear Friends,
It is not easy to read the story of Noah at this time. When God informed Noah of the impending flood, condemning the depravity of humankind, God commanded him to build the ark, saying, “The end of all flesh is come before Me...” (Gen. 6:13)
We don’t know the nature of the corruption of Noah’s generation; we know all too well that of our own. In a week where our coronavirus death-toll reached 220,000 Americans, while some claim that the pandemic is a political hoax, or that it will soon disappear, or that mask-wearing and social-distancing are contrived, or that brilliant physicians and immunologists are idiots, we can sadly think “the end of all flesh is come before Me...” Let’s hope God doesn’t send another flood.
Earlier this week, a neighbor said that he wishes it would all just go away. But, we know it will not; coronavirus is the context of American life. Some years ago an historian of modern Jewish history stated that all Jewish life in the second half of the twentieth century is a footnote to the Holocaust. Likewise, American life since 2020, is a footnote to the pandemic.
Whether we are tired of addressing it or not, all living is now linked to COVID. Who has escaped its impact? Consider the commentary of the 11th Century French sage, Rashi, to our Genesis verse. Explaining how God could say “the end of ALL flesh is come before Me,” Rashi taught, “wherever you find immorality and idolatry, indiscriminate punishment regardless of guilt or innocence comes upon the world, and it kills good and bad alike.” Sadly, Rashi lived during the earliest Crusade, and he surely knew of indiscriminate death. Today, all of us have been affected by this capriciousness. Death does not discriminate. The erosion of confidence and the loss of innocence undermine all in society.
I read that a colleague told his congregation at Yom Kippur that “America will be the same America again.” He sought to bolster their anxieties. Yet, I disagree; America never will be the same. We will be different, and what we may evolve to be depends on us. This is the message which Rashi wished to teach. In the face of loss which affects all, a society has the task to face its challenge and vanquish it. If social irresponsibility is allowed to continue, it will destroy all flesh. In antiquity, God hastened that conclusion with the flood. Today, I pray, we’ll see a different conclusion.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
It is not easy to read the story of Noah at this time. When God informed Noah of the impending flood, condemning the depravity of humankind, God commanded him to build the ark, saying, “The end of all flesh is come before Me...” (Gen. 6:13)
We don’t know the nature of the corruption of Noah’s generation; we know all too well that of our own. In a week where our coronavirus death-toll reached 220,000 Americans, while some claim that the pandemic is a political hoax, or that it will soon disappear, or that mask-wearing and social-distancing are contrived, or that brilliant physicians and immunologists are idiots, we can sadly think “the end of all flesh is come before Me...” Let’s hope God doesn’t send another flood.
Earlier this week, a neighbor said that he wishes it would all just go away. But, we know it will not; coronavirus is the context of American life. Some years ago an historian of modern Jewish history stated that all Jewish life in the second half of the twentieth century is a footnote to the Holocaust. Likewise, American life since 2020, is a footnote to the pandemic.
Whether we are tired of addressing it or not, all living is now linked to COVID. Who has escaped its impact? Consider the commentary of the 11th Century French sage, Rashi, to our Genesis verse. Explaining how God could say “the end of ALL flesh is come before Me,” Rashi taught, “wherever you find immorality and idolatry, indiscriminate punishment regardless of guilt or innocence comes upon the world, and it kills good and bad alike.” Sadly, Rashi lived during the earliest Crusade, and he surely knew of indiscriminate death. Today, all of us have been affected by this capriciousness. Death does not discriminate. The erosion of confidence and the loss of innocence undermine all in society.
I read that a colleague told his congregation at Yom Kippur that “America will be the same America again.” He sought to bolster their anxieties. Yet, I disagree; America never will be the same. We will be different, and what we may evolve to be depends on us. This is the message which Rashi wished to teach. In the face of loss which affects all, a society has the task to face its challenge and vanquish it. If social irresponsibility is allowed to continue, it will destroy all flesh. In antiquity, God hastened that conclusion with the flood. Today, I pray, we’ll see a different conclusion.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
