Some time ago, when we were about ten or twenty years younger, there was a whole series of words classified as “unmentionable,” words which should not and could not be mentioned in polite society. By today, the number of such words has been severely reduced. In fact, the more such words that appear in a book, the more chance does the book have of becoming a best seller. Inhibitions have been scrapped, and the unmentionables are no longer unmentionable. However, one particular word, previously used in the very best of societies, has in our day become the foremost of the “unmentionables.” And that is – sin. No one seems inclined to ever mention that word, least of all preachers and teachers of religion. It sounds hopelessly antiquated and old-fashioned. All the more the challenge therefore, my friends, to speak to you this morning about sin. No, not about the big sins and the major crimes of the day – those I leave, in this election season, to the tireless political orators of all shades who have been recounting all the big sins since 40 or 50 years ago. I propose, rather, to talk about the small sins, those minor infractions of decency that generally go by unnoticed. I want to discuss with you those small sins which can, ultimately, produce effects and consequences more evil than the biggest of sins; I want to treat of those small and insignificant sins which, when added to each other and taken together, outweigh in rascality and horrible results, the greatest of major crimes. This week’s Bible Reading, according to our Rabbis, conveys to us this very idea of the disproportionate danger of small sins. The dor ha’mabul, the generation of the flood, was an extremely evil one. And our Sages point out that though they committed the three major crimes known to mankind – incest, idolatry and murder – G-d did not bring the flood upon them. G-d waited patiently. And it was only when they committed robbery that G-d brought upon them the Great Deluge. Now, robbery can be tran…

In reading today’s Biblical Portion concerning Noah and the flood, we cannot fail to be stirred by the pathos, and moved by the intensely human drama, of Noah’s predicament. Here was Noah, a pious, gentle soul, who had seen much of life and civilization in his day. He knew intimately the people who were his contemporaries whether good or bad, and he was in touch with the major trends of his day, whether he liked them or disliked them. And in his old age, G-d sends him and his family into an ark, windowless and cut off from the world, and keeps him there for forty days and nights. During this time a great flood rages and destroys all life, levels mountains and hills and changes all. Now think of the plight of Noah as he emerges from the ark; listen to his heartbeat as he steps out and beholds the terrible scene. What was once his home is no more. His property and that of his close friends is no longer recognizable. His old friends have died in the ravaging waters. The very landscape has changed the landmarks with which he was so acquainted since childhood are no more. The world he once knew is no more. Here before him is a strange desolation. No doubt there welled up in his soul bitter feelings of melancholy and despair. Sadly he thinks, “Yes, I and mine were saved. But if this is what we were saved for, to be the sole witnesses to complete and utter ruination, I don’t think life is worth living. Perhaps it would have been better if I too had perished in the Deluge. Why live, why hope, why work? All is gone, and there is nothing to look forward to.”And at this point, our Rabbis tell us, G-d appears before Noah and does not allow him to continue this moroseness and despair and hopelessness. For G-d showed Noah three worlds. He showed him, first, olam be’yishuvo, the world as it first was, in its “normal” days. He showed what Man could have accomplished: a Paradise, a Tree of Eternal Life, a Tree of Knowledge. He showed Noah the chance man had to attain health and wis…

I believe that the first in this season’s series of Late Services is the appropriate time for a talk on “A Credo for the Pulpit,” a general outline of the aims of the Jewish pulpit in general, and this pulpit in particular. So often is the pulpit exploited for book-reviews, political orations, sociological observations, psychiatric advice and personal opinions, that a public airing of its functions, responsibilities and aims should be healthy for both Rabbi and Congregation.The pulpit, to my mind, must fulfill three basic functions: to teach, to preach, and to reach. These three do more than rhyme; they establish an inner rhythm, by which Rabbi and Congregation harmoniously rise to the service of G-d. The main function of the Rabbi has always been to teach. The pulpit was always geared more to the lecture than to the sermon. The principal object was to teach, to inform, to let the people enjoy the pulpit as an educational tool to open up for them new vistas, new understanding, new horizons that they never realized existed in Judaism.Study, in Judaism, is regarded as a form of Service or Worship. “Talmud Torah” was not only a way leading to the observance of G-d’s mitzvos, but in itself a mitzvoh of major importance. For generations after the destruction of the Temple and the beginning of exile, Jews studied, assiduously, the Laws of Temple Sacrifice and laws applicable only in time of national independence – because the study of Torah is in and of itself a sacred deed, whether practical at the moment or not. The word “mishnah,” indicating the great body of Oral Law, our Sages pointed out, spells “neshamah,” or “soul,” when its letters are rearranged. For study is itself a spiritual achievement of no mean proportions.Historically, that was the primary function of the drashah, the sermon. It followed the reading of the Torah and explained it. The Rabbi rose to his highest function when he was not only a shepherd guiding his flock, but a teacher instructing his studen…

In this morning’s Sidra we read of the generation of Noah and the evil lives they lead. Their punishment, as it is recorded in the Torah, was complete destruction – except for Noah and his family – in the great Flood. Following that episode, we read of another generation following in the footsteps of the first. This is the dor ha’haflagah – the Generation of the Tower. The people of this generation had evidently failed to learn from the tragic lesson that its predecessors had been taught. They were a people marked by arrogance and haughtiness. (Summarize story of the Gen. of the Tower). Remember, friends, that the Torah does not describe merely poetic myths. We have substantial corroboration of that episode from the science of archeology. We know that the Mesopotamians of about 3,600-3,800 years ago began to dwell in big cities and in them to build tremendous pagan temples. These temples were constructed as high towers as a sign of the equality of the builders with the pagan gods they worshipped. In their writings, some of which we still have, they boast to building into the heavens, even as is recorded in today’s Sidra. (See Kasuto, Me’Noach ad Avraham, for all this information). At the turn of the present century, the very tower of which the Bible speaks was discovered, in ruins, by a German archeological expedition. It was clearly an impressive and imposing structure. These tremendous towers served both to express and inspire these Babylonians to imagine themselves a superior race, a “herrenvolk.” Ultimately, the cities and the towers were destroyed and all further construction was frustrated. If later today you will reread that part of this morning’s portion, you will observe the terrific sarcasm with which the Torah describes the entire episode. Just one example: the name Bavel (or Babel or Babylon) given to that place by G-d. This is a sarcastic pun, because the Mesopotamians themselves called their city Babel because in their language the name was derived fr…

Question: Should be reversed – light by day and dark by night? Answer: G-d wanted to teach Noach – despite his children – that was easy enough to be light by day, dark by night – to conform, avoid all differences in environment, chameleon-like. What will save the world is willingness of man to be like a מרגלית, to shine in full lustre even when world dark and black, to shine forth when...

In reading the narratives of the first two books of the Torah, it is good for us to keep in mind the guidelines and the caution expressed by the Zohar: ווי לאינון חייביא דאמרי דאורייתא לאו איהו אלא ספורא בעלמא, דאינון מסתכלין בלבושא ולא יתיר (Zohar Bamidbar 152). “Woe to those sinners who say that the Torah is nothing but a collection of simple stories, for they see but the garment, the superficial aspects of Torah, but not more than that.” This same counsel, to look beyond the literal for the deeper meaning, is true of the commentaries and narratives of the Rabbis. They are to be understood as profound teachings in metaphoric dress, not as fairy tales or as the frivolous products of an extravagant imagination.In this spirit let us recall an incident related by the Rabbis concerning Noah’s ark and his adventures on it during that first great cataclysm of the flood. The Midrash comments on the verse וישאר אך נח, “And only Noah was left.” The word akh is always understood to be restrictive, it limits the subject under discussion. Why, then, was this word necessary in this verse? Surely, the entire context of the story, as well as the verse itself, tells us that all humanity was destroyed except for Noah. In their answer, the Rabbis of the Midrash imply that the word akh comes to tell us that there was something lacking in Noah himself. This imperfection of Noah resulted from a rather unfortunate encounter he had with one of his passengers aboard the ark. One time, the Rabbis tell us, Noah was late in feeding the lion, as a result of which the lion bit him, and he emerged from this confrontation with the lion limping. Thus, Noah remained akh, with a serious impairment or deficiency. One commentator on the Midrash maintained that we know that it was a lion that bit him because the word וישאר אך by rearrangement yields עכשיו ארי , “a lion bit him.”Now, what do they mean by this? Why tell us this story? What is behind the “garment” of this tale?The lion, of course, was r…

The first verse in the Biblical portion read on the Sabbath of your Bar Mitzvah contains four elements, which together constitute a set of ideals worthy of inspiring any young man just entering into the life of Jewish responsibility. We read that Noah was ish tzaddik tamim hayah be’dorotav, a pious man, whole-hearted in his generation. First, he was ish – a man. Today you become a man, in the sense that in reaching your majority you are expected to undertake all your manly and human obligations. You must become sensitive to the wants and the sentiments and sensitivities of your fellow men. A true ish is one who always responds to the call of his neighbors, who tries in every way to better the human situation, to improve the lot of his fellow men – whether religiously or economically or socially or politically.

The Biblical story of Noah and the flood is one which strikes a peculiar kind of sympathetic resonance in us moderns. There were times in living memory when this tale seemed like a quaint echo of primitive history. Unfortunately, it now has become full of contemporary relevance. We who live under the perpetual threat of the mushroom cloud of atomic annihilation experience a shocking recognition of the story of the flood. That primordial flood, which left traces in the literature and tradition of almost every ancient people, was understood by the Torah in essentially moral categories. The cataclysm which swept away civilization was one which was brought on by corruption and immorality. Only Noah, who was a non-conformist in his generation, escaped the terrible, universal catastrophe. When the Torah records the episode of the deluge, it is not because it wants to teach us ancient history; the Torah is not a history text. It does want us to learn something about ethics and right conduct from it. And the Torah does not teach explicitly and didactically; rather, the landscape of the Torah is strewn with hints which we, with whatever wisdom the Lord has given us, must interpret and understand in order to derive moral significance and instruction from it.It is therefore appropriate for us, a generation threatened by our own particular form of atomic deluge, to investigate the story told to us by the Sidra a bit more deeply and analytically.The Torah tells us that the flood was the consequence of widespread corruption, particularly the evil called ḥamas, which we usually translate as “violence.” The Jewish tradition defines ḥamas as, especially, gezzel – stealing or robbery. This was a generation which did not respect private property, one in which people were uninhibited in over-reaching themselves and stealing the fruit of the labor of others.However, there was something that troubled the Rabbis about the whole episode of the flood. Granted, they ask, that the criminals …

Almost two years ago, I stood before this congregation and apologized for allowing personal sentiments to color my remarks. That was the occasion of the Bar Mitzvah of my first son, Joshua. I now happily impose upon this patient congregation once again, and ask you to indulge me if a number of my comments turn out, in a manner purely unpremeditated and completely coincidental, to be inspired by and have some relevance to the Bar Mitzvah of my second son, Shalom. I hope that what I have to say will be at least of some passing interest to others as well. What can one say to a youngster being initiated into Jewish manhood? What advice can we give him about what it means to be a man, in an overcrowded, dirty, depressed urban society, in which violence and pessimism and depersonalization are accepted facts of life? – in which adults habitually grasp at the last straws of their vanishing youthfulness by retrogressing into adolescence and preferring to be boys rather than men? – in which Judaism and Jewishness are in drift and on the brink of chaos?IIThat to be a man is an achievement, is obvious from the first words of this morning’s sidra. Man, איש, is the Torah’s encomium for Noah even before it accords him the honorific titles of צדיק (righteous), תמים (whole), and את האלקים התהלך נח (Noah walked with God). Simply, and perhaps this was the greatest compliment, Noah was called an איש, a man. Obviously, the Torah is speaking about the moral and spiritual content of manhood in the sense of a mature adult, not of the official and conventional definition of the category of “man.” Halakhically, a child becomes a man at the age of 13 years and one day; the legal transition from minor to major is very abrupt. But, in the larger sense, what does it mean to be a man?IIIThe first thing has to do with the social, political, and intellectual climate of our times. We live on an overcrowded planet, in which the sophisticates and cognoscenti who speak in the name of Science teach us …

For forty days and nights the heavens opened and the rains came. Then, for some one-hundred and fifty days, the waters rose. The world was engulfed in a cataclysm, and all living things were drowned in their watery graves. Afterwards, the waters receded, and the earth was turned into a mushy swamp. Finally, as Noah’s ark rested on Mount Ararat, he heard the divine command: “God spoke to Noah, saying: Tzei min ha-tevah, Go out of the ark.”A careful reading of this passage indicates that apparently Noah was averse to leaving his ark. After all, for several periods of seven days each he had sent out birds to test the quality of the land, and decided that it is better to stay indoors. At the end, he did not leave until he heard a direct order by God to do so. He needed a divine command to eject him from his ark.Philo, the Midrash, and the Ibn Ezra, among others, all wonder why Noah was so reluctant to leave. After all, I imagine that had I been cooped up with the same people and with all those animals in a floating menagerie for twelve months, I would be extremely anxious to get out and place my feet on earth again. The commentaries offer various answers, but none of them is completely satisfactory.Let us search for an answer by putting ourselves in Noah’s place. That should not be too difficult. Because, in a manner of speaking, we too have almost had a Noah-experience. Mutatis mutandis, we Jews are just emerging from our ark, surveying the terrain, discovering death and destruction in so many families we know, and, even more, becoming suddenly precipitously aware of the flood of fire that engulfed and almost destroyed our people. I find several reasons, as a result of this psychological identification with Noah, why he would not want to leave the ark. I discover the elements of fear, despair, weariness at having to start all over again, even feelings of guilt. But, because of lack of time, allow me to concentrate on one special reaction that I suspect Noah had – beca…