Friends – One of the less ambiguous advantages of having been conditioned from an early age to dutifully accept the role of “marketing subject unit,” or “target patron” for America’s competitive economic superstructure was the seasonal ritual, which I cheerfully performed with sheer abandon and utter obliviousness until quite recently, of dumping-onto-the-kitchen-counter my large plastic Jack-O-Lantern, filled to the brim with individually-wrapped, bite-sized samplets of the most astounding variety of multi-colored, multi-flavored confectioneries ever known to mankind (having gratefully recieved them from the kindly residents of my immediate neighborhood in exchange for a momentary glimpse of my foam-rubber monster mask and flame-retardant polyurethane jumpsuit), in a heart-thumping display of sucrose-induced hyperactivity, carefully hording away my favorite delectables to eat slowly and deliberately, and parcelling the rest into smaller, browner bags to trade with my little friends or accidentally lose under the couch later. Of course, although such a ritual has been since replaced in my life by the more sober, more refined beverage-swilling, pastry-scarfing and zanily-costumed merriment of Purim (myself having more recently become a “marketing subject unit” of the Jewish people’s own outreach mechanisms), such memories, such powerfully concentrated bursts of different colors, fruity flavors, squeals of joy and delight between best little buddies, and lighting-quick flashes of the sweetest possible sweetness in the world don’t easily relegate themselves to the musty back-cupboards of one’s consciousness… they tend to stick around in the forefront somewhere, inspiring one to instinctively seek a new color, a new flavor, a new sweetness every once in a while…
Perhaps that’s why, when Noah’s Rainbow, evoking the bright candy-wrapper rainbow of childhood purity and sweetness, appears in this week’s Parsha, it’s meant to make an extra long-lasting impression… after all, it appears at the dawn of humanity’s own second childhood, as an ‘inverted crossbow’ testifying to a brand new relationship with the Creator, one where humanity no longer suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous inundations, but instead engages in a new form of partnership, one in which the human race itself becomes the prism through which the pure, all-inclusive, undifferentiated light of Heavenly influence can be refracted into a multifarious spectrum of color, flavor, rhythm, and creative manifestation in the world… According to R. Matis Weinberg, Noah’s Rainbow signifies God’s underlying desire for the new world, after the Flood, to diversify and refract His providence creatively, not to simply provide a mirror-image reflection of His providence; “Creation’s entire rationale is uniqueness, distinctness, distinctiveness, diversity and individuality. It presents us a world that must be made whole – and wholeness comes only through… the path leading to synthesis and concert of variety and heterogeneity. Challenge, responsiveness, fresh vision and growth are not only part of the definition of life – they are the very format of Creation (Frameworks, Pg.40).”
Interestingly, the Midrash describes Noah’s Rainbow as the vanguard of humanity’s new creative relationship with its Creator through the invention of the very element by which rainbows exist in the first place: rain. As the Talmud Sanhedrin tells us, the pre-Flood generations lived much like I imagine many rich and famous international playboys do – with every need and whim catered-to on hand-and-foot, exerting little-to-no physical effort for their own sustenance… Materiality itself, after Adam’s primordial departure from his optimal spirito-physical balance in the Garden of Eden, utterly dominated the everyday existence of humanity; people lived extraordinarily long lives, giants roamed the earth, and fields produced 40 years’ worth of produce from one sowing. “As a result of these benefits, however, they cast off the yoke of Heaven, saying, ‘For what purpose do we still need God? We do not even require His help to obtain water, since we need no rain. We get an abundant supply of water from different sources; we have the streams and wells of the earth!’ Answered God: ‘Is it with the very goodness that I granted you that you rebel against Me? I shall punish you with that same substance, rain water (Sanhedrin 108)!”
Thus, the specific type of relationship engendered by CONSCIOUSLY needing, requesting and thankfully acknowledging God’s rain from Above affords humanity the opportunity to transcend the pampered, decadent, illusionary lifestyle of automatic wish-fulfillment, and to EVOLVE, to see the real nature of the universe as a place of relationship, of give-and-take, of back-and-forth, of ongoing dialectic tension and struggle… and only through acknowledgement-of and engagement-with such a struggle can true creativity, uniqueness and fresh vision be spawned… only through the relationship of rain to the earth below can the sun’s light become refracted into a glittering rainbow…
The kaleidoscopic range of this Daff’s different articles and subjects not only substantiates my aforementioned theoretics, but also attests to the difficulty some of us face in dealing head-on with what's happening in Israel right now… As Eliyahu B. correctly claims, we should be scared to become desensitized to the pain of the world as Hashem focuses His emet (truthfulness) into it… as R. Daniel Kohn said today, we must mourn that lives must end in order for God’s truthfulness to enter the world, but we must rejoice when that truthfulness does indeed enter… please God, find another way to bring in Your holy emet!
Jerry Silverman
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Jerry Silverman is a former student of Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He is working in new media, designing and managing media projects. He lives in Riverdale, NY with his wife Sarah and their two children. |