Noach, נֹחַ  "Noah" Genesis 6:9-11:32

Noach - The Land Just Around The Corner 5783

Poetic notes on parashat Noach*

All human being has a question at it core

What we are and who we are has a question at its core

What we are and who we are is what?

We are standing before our Creator,

not as an answer but,

as an open question

Each person is born with a question in their DNA

Yet a Jew is born with both a question

and an answer in their DNA

What is the human being

that You are mindful of them?

What is a child of the human being

that You come to visit them at their home?

There was a time when only one child was born

through whom all human being would be preserved

Here is the story:

A child is born whose parents name, Rest

For they say, this child we will call, Noah, 

we will call, Rest

For he will give Humanity rest

But where was the Sabbath?

Instead of the Sabbath there came a great flood!

Did they hope Noah would give them the Sabbath?

When Lamech had lived 182 years,

he fathered a son saying,

“Out of the ground that Hashem has cursed,

this one shall bring us rest!

We will finally rest from our work

and from the painful toil of our hands.”

But what rest from the curse is this

if there is no Sabbath?

A Jew is born

with a rainbow anointing their very DNA

The word of God anointed the seed of Abraham,

anointed it as both the question and the answer,

God made the promise of Adam’s redemption

to reside in the Israelite chromosomes

There is but one tree of human chromosomes

What then is this anointing of the Jew?

What is this anointed DNA,

this seed of Abraham?

It is anointed with a full spectrum of God’s spiritual light,

a spiritual rainbow that is double the expanse of Noah’s

And what is this rainbow of spirit anointing one family tree

that the whole world might see

the glimmering of the hope

of the covenant promise that God

made to Abraham and Sarah?

Slowly, through the cracks

in the war-torn world and its smoke stacks,

there began to be seen colourful rays of hope

Hope bred hope that the world would hold its tongue,

that it would be still and listen as when it was young,

and, finally hearing, that it would quietly repent,

repent of breathing despair,

breathing the fear of death,

the air of the desires for life without repair

Yet hope remained just hope and nothing more

It seemed for endless generations

like the world would grow old and withered

and nothing would ever change

There is no place darker than in a darkened heart

And now the world,

after so many generations,

has become mesmerized,

hypnotized, by the logic of hatred,

through the pride of judgment

and the envy of appearances

The world has aged, become an elder

Its hope became heartburn in its gut

Its wisdom has aged and its knowledge has increased

Still it wrestles with a hope in itself,

It tries to think of itself as young

even while it grows tired

Having a petulant child’s defiant courage

even while it turns grey,

the world struggles on and does not repent

There is a Raven of hope that never returns

Why should it return and see

the shadow of the dark, wonton hunger

born before the flood,

the shadow that crept through the old skies 

and into the new, the shadow 

that crept from the dark skies of the flood

into the skies of the rainbow

and claimed to be born anew?

That silver tongued, reborn shadow,

that ray of light and darkness,

began to stir dreams of pride once again

to fabricate plans in the human heart once again,

plans to be free of the fear of God

In time the coldness of the steel handed grip

of that dark shadow bred cold enmity

between the anointed DNA and the wide array

of all the other human DNA

The story had started long before

Beasts clean and unclean never before eaten

came out of the ark

Some clean beasts in time were ordained

to be sacrificed,

as the flooded world itself had been sacrificed

But blood should never be eaten

The living soul should never be eaten

The soul of the flooded world was in God's protective care

But if Adam should slay Adam,

accountability for Adam’s blood would remain within Adam,

If the children of God fell

into captivity to a kingdom of blood,

they would have no one but themselves to lead them out…

With the old truth and new truth,

Noah stepped into the ark and out of the ark

Now in the end of days we see that the war between

North Babylon and South Babylon

is a war that mocks Noah’s simple faith,

and consumes souls like living limbs, 

and denies that the eyes of God can see

It is not north nor south that people love,

but war itself that seduces souls,

that mesmerizes and captures souls,

that darkened hearts hunger for

It is the lying tongue of war itself,

war with God,

that, from the day Adam stood in the garden,

seduced and tempted the human soul

It is war with God

to idolize false and illusionary gods and rulers,

to allow pride and fear to bow down to

military power and technical might

War lays claim to the wealth of all the earth,

while breeding hearts that cannibalize souls

But from the time Noah set foot outside the ark

Adam was required to judge Adam on the earth

Adam must account for the blood of Adam

For Adam was made

to be the image that reflects God’s protective care

to all of His creation

Adam cannot sacrifice Adam

If the witness sacrifices the only judge,

or if the judge sacrifices the only witness,

no soul remains to judge or to witness judgment,

no soul remains to learn the truth of righteous mercy

If such violence were allowed,

the world would have been flooded for naught

Then the rainbow

would have been placed in the sky for naught

Therefore Adam must judge and restrain Adam

And if Adam ever sacrifices Adam,

Adam must repent

Repentance is not something to be mocked by arrogance

Since the day of God’s displeasure,

Adam has known it was so

Since the generation of Noah,

Adam has certainly known it was so, 

that only through repentance was there a hope of life

Still Adam has always deeply mistrusted Adam

“Come, let us invent a technique to fabricate harmony,

to fabricate stones, to fabricate a city

with a tower of great technique

Let us fabricate a Tower of Technique,

to be ever more refined with precision and efficiency

Let us fabricate a great Technique

and make ourselves a name!

In this way we will never be divided…”

But God towered above their tower

and put an impediment in their tongue

He wrote confusion into the invention of their technique,

to save them from infinite fabrications in their heart

It is a side-effect of confusion

that the truth is only sometimes told

that the lie is only sometimes exposed

Tempers broke faster than the speed of sound

Vengeance returned like the speed of light

Then the anxiety of anger

and the loneliness of hatred

churned up a new hunger for dreaming lies

Instead of God’s smiling skies of spiritual rain,

watering the eyes of pain and 

washing away the unremovable stain,

Adam’s disdain for Adam remained

There are even doves of hope

that, like the raven, at first do not return

And so it was with the world of Noah

But Melchizedek was just around the corner*

Melchizedek, mystic son of Noah,

God's ambassador from the ark of Noah

He came as the housekeeper,

the path sweeper,

to announce Abraham's royal entry

into the fortress that God had chosen,

to prepare a way for Abraham

to enter the place where God chose to take His stand

Melchizedek, the forerunner, who went ahead

to keep the fortress grounds

for Sarah and her offspring,

for the day when they should come to occupy

God’s royal land

This was Abraham and Sarah,

with the tree of DNA having the question

and anointed with the answer

Melchizedek, the prophet of God,

would be just around the corner from Noah

waiting at the corner of Abraham and Sarah,

to pave the way for Israel,

and the rejoicing of the nations blessing Abraham,

This was the way of Melchizedek

This would be the order of Melchizedek,

the order of his words

And so he quietly waited there at Salem for Abraham,

Abraham, in whom God had invested His reputation

in whom God had planted His word,

that in Abraham’s seed He might reveal His name

At Salem, the dove had foretold

that the land of life was just around the corner

Returning with the twig of life,

the dove had come again to Noah as if to say,

here is a twig of the tree of life

which grows in Jerusalem to come,

which you have been saved to see

Noah fell asleep in his tent

Six hundred years of tears fell from his eyes

For Noah’s whole life he had seen Adam’s children thinking,

thinking about how to wrestle free of the thinking of God

What now, Noah wondered,

would the difference in science and society be,

when he was the father from land to sea?

He had gown a grapevine and had fallen asleep

He dreamed of Ravens and doves,

towers and tongues

He dreamed of human science, old and young,

and the mysteries of Israel’s calendar to come

In his nightmare he saw the world’s knowledge come

completely into captivity,

to an irresistible imperative,

imperial commands and calculations, 

to fabricate a Global Tower of Technique

Children of Japheth and Ham would worship the Great Technique

Science itself would fall into captivity to that Great Technique

And all the world would worship in its tower

Then his nightmare resolved 

His sleep began to turn to peace

Some children of Shem would preserve their souls

They would worship only the one true God

He saw them standing on a mountain, 

the mountain of Jerusalem,

meeting there with their God

Noah awoke and his secret was kept by Shem

Then in the end of days, 

those descendants of Shem in Noah’s dream knew full well,

if they were going to bring human knowledge 

into the promise of the liberty

of Jerusalem’s calendar,

of Jerusalem’s festivals — the children of Jerusalem knew,

and those who followed the logic of Melchizedek knew —

they would have to first overcome the logic of hatred between them

They would have to overcome all slavish obedience, 

all heartless obedience to fear

In truth, they were still in captivity to hatred without a cause

Their redemption from this must come first

Then their light would shine to the nations

Long ago, when it was still in its infancy,

the Tower of Technique had fallen

When God had divided the nations into seventy tongues,

according to the number of the children of Israel,

making Israel the target of their confusion

From the soil of confusion hatred had grown in profusion

In time, the beautiful, subtle technique of unholy Fabrication

had reappeared, nakedly flirting with all the world, 

enticing the world to fabricate and resurrect

the Tower of Technique once again

“Come,” they said, “Let us fabricate a Tower of Technique,

a tower of precision and efficiency, 

able to touch the moon and tap the stars”

The children of Jerusalem knew,

those who followed the logic of Melchizedek knew,

they would have to be quiet and listen

and speak and each person deeply hear another

In their company,

Adam would have to take responsibility

Adam would have to accept accountability

for Adam’s blood and soul

Those who followed the order of Melchizedek

Would have to once again bless Abraham

as their only way of blessing God

For in Abraham and his seed God had invested His name

And the seed of Abraham

would have to humbly accept their blessing

and, like Abraham,

not judge them for being out of order*

Somewhere a whisper was heard,

The whisper said:

“Broken people save broken people”*

The whisper carried over the waters on the wings of a bird

Corporate repentance had begun

It had started at home with the people of God

Only then did human science close its eyes

And listen to hear the thoughts of God

It heard the voice of God’s covenant

recorded in the language of the sun and moon and stars,

in Israel’s calendar

Only then did the final Tower of Technique fall

Only then did knowledge once again know liberty

and bow the knee in God’s Jerusalem Temple

Only then did all of Adam’s DNA come into possession

of the answer and the question