31/10/2024
Some unformed thoughts on Beresh*t, Noach and moral evolution.
Beresh*t and Noach are both creation stories. Taken together they can offer a vision of moral evolution, of the role humanity’s tzelem elokim, our Divine image, plays in an unfolding world.
Beresh*t starts in chaos, in the unformed void and the darkness on the face of the deep. A story of progressive order begins as the waters roll back, the deeps retreating to expose dry land. Life emerges, flourishing in a manifold forms that seem to culminate in humanity’s role as the Divine form within creation, filling the earth and subduing it.
This first iteration of the image of God is set to the work of tilling and tending the garden of creation. But Adam fumbles with the Divine agency we were given, asserting his independent will. The agency taken through eating from the Tree of Knowledge didn’t have to be a sin, it could have been a leap of moral evolution. The very command not to eat shows that human actions matter, which is the root of all morality. If Adam had combined his agency with a sense of responsibility, a whole new relationship would have begun, a new image of what it means to be Divine.
But instead of saying ‘look Lord, we need to talk,’ when asked about his actions, Adam pointed at Eve and said ‘she made me do it!’ Taking agency without accepting responsibility is the source of all human breakdown and evil. Only children or villains want to act without regard to the consequences. Adam wasn’t evil, but he did need to grow up. And so he was sent out of the garden to “work the ground from which he was taken.” To develop the Divine image within.
Adam’s lesson was learned by a few, but humanity as a whole struggled to grow in exile. Eventually the situation threatened to obscure the Divine image again, and so God decided it was time for the great reset. Parshat Noach presents us with an orderly, flourishing world. At least in the physical sense. But its moral collapse brings on chaos, as the skies cloud over with rain, hiding the heavens, and the chambers of the deep open, erasing the dry land. The order of creation is reduced to a chip of wood floating on the face of the water. And yet it held all the seeds of the future, including the Divine image.
Noach was saved because he walked with God, carrying forward the moral consciousness inherited from Adam. He took the first steps toward human moral maturity, combining agency and responsibility in obedience to the Divine image. Hence he found grace in the eyes of God and was saved. He receives a covenant to renew creation, one with reminder (and perhaps a warning) built in. “Whoever sheds human blood, by human hands shall that one’s blood be shed. For in the image of God was humankind made.” It is the ultimate statement of how agency and responsibility combine to define the human Divine image.
Noach was righteous in his generation, though the Sages are split on how high that praise really is. He advanced human moral consciousness from the time of Adam, in truth Noach only went so far in our evolution. When God said ‘I’m going to destroy everything, build an ark!’ Noach’s response was ‘right Lord! How big?’ He took agency on his own behalf, and his obedience shows he was responsible for his behavior. But he did not attempt to argue the morality of the destruction to come. He left the rest of creation to sink or swim. Perhaps this is why Noach gets falling-down drunk in the aftermath of the flood. He had been saved, but stepping out of the ark also meant facing the reality that he had not tried to save.
The first question posed to humanity came in Eden, ayeka? Where are you? It is really the primary question of life, God asking us all where we’re at? Asking whether we have a sense of our agency, and the responsibility it creates. Asking us whether we are ready to play the full role of the Divine image in creation. If we hear listen for this question in our lives, we will find to be the driver of all moral evolution.
Adam hid from the responsibility of his actions, like a child. We all do this at times, and need to answer honestly when asked – where are you? Noach stepped up next to God, following the straight and narrow, but not taking on the full mantle of his moral potential. Of his tzelem Elokim, his Divine image. That stage of evolution awaits someone who will combine fearless agency with taking responsibility for all creation. Someone whose moral consciousness is so strong, his Divine image so clear, that he will it hold it up even in opposition to God. It will come with Avraham, the first one to hears the question ‘ayeka – where are you at?’ and answer with his whole self, hinneni – here I am.
