While preparing for this week’s service, I learned that there is no clear answer to what it is that Noah’s generation did that was so distressing to G-d that he decided to cause the flood.
I came across the following midrash, which I would like to share with you:
What is the difference between gezel and hamas? Rabbi Hanina says, “Hamas is theft of a small amount whereas gezel is theft of a large amount. And this is what the generation of the flood would do, when someone would come to the market with beans to sell, many people would steal an amount so small they could not be prosecuted in court.”
This week’s midrash has a rather shocking answer to the question of why the world deserved to be wiped out in the days of Noah. One might expect a midrash seeking to answer this question to be filled with heinous crimes: wanton murder, rampant violence, deep-seated corruption in houses of power. But instead, in the midrash, Rabbi Hanina cites a relatively small act as the reason all life on this planet was put to an end. God flooded the earth because people would steal an amount so small, it could not be prosecuted in a court of law. The world was not destroyed because of a whirlwind of violence, rather due to a small voice of immorality, small acts of theft that fell out of the purview of any legal system.
While the action described by Rabbi Hanina was small, the cumulative effect of many small thefts re-sulted in a significant loss of property for the bean seller. What’s more, these small thefts signify a disregard for morality and the singular concern for upholding the letter of the law as opposed to the spirit and purpose of the law. With this understanding, the lessons embedded in the midrash come into focus. Our small actions good and bad have a profound effect on the world and our society. Our concern must not be only with the minutiae of the law, religious or otherwise, but with its spirit as well. Morality and the drive to do good must permeate all that we do, whether big or small, whether at home or in the marketplace.
In thinking about this, I realized that it is easy to dismiss some of our actions as inconsequential – for example, if we receive an extra dime in change and say nothing, we think, “well, it’s only a dime.” But if this happened repeatedly, the store would lose many dollars over the course of a day. Or, if we fail to do good, thinking that we cannot possibly do enough to make a difference for a particular cause, we are also failing to recognize that our actions, when added to those of others, can have an effect larger than we anticipate.
In Sunday School this past week, Shelby and I read a chapter in our book on the importance of community. One of the sidebars was about Clara Lemlich. The point of the sidebar was that one person can make a difference through his or her ability to influence the larger community. For those of you who haven’t heard Clara’s name or story, let me share it, in brief, with you.
Clara was born in Russia and came to America in her teens. She found work in a Lower East Side garment shop. Infuriated by working conditions that, she said, reduced human beings to the status of machines, she began organizing women into the fledgling International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) soon after her arrival in New York in 1905. In November 1909, despite the warnings of male union officers and of the middle-class reformers of the Women’s Trade Union League who believed that young girls could not sustain a general strike, Clara decided to ignite the long-simmering re-sentment of tens of thousands of young immigrant working girls like herself. Insisting that she be allowed to address a strike meeting at New York’s Cooper Union, she said: “I am one of those who suffers from the abuses described here, and I move that we go on a general strike.”
To the surprise of almost everyone, between thirty and forty thousand young women garment workers—predominantly Jewish immigrants—walked off their jobs over the next few weeks. It was a bitter, only partially successful strike. It galvanized the fledgling ILGWU and set off a wave of women’s strikes between 1909 and 1915 that spread from New York to Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Iowa, and Kalamazoo, Michigan. But it also set the stage for tragedy when union negotiators failed to advance the young women’s demand for safer working conditions. That lapse would come back to haunt the union on March 25, 1911, when the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City killed 146 workers, mostly immigrant Jewish and Italian women.
Each of us also works to improve our world. As a synagogue community, we support the poor, feed the hungry, and house the homeless through our charitable contributions to the Children’s Aid Society, the food drive, and the Walk to End Homelessness.
I hope one message you will take away from the midrash and Clara’s story is that one person can make a difference. After all, where would we be if Noah had not listened to God?
Lessons from Noah’s Ark
Don’t miss the boat.
Build on high ground
If you can’t fight or flee – float
For safety’s sake, travel in pairs.
Stay below deck during the storm
Don’t forget that we are all in the same boat.
Don’t listen to critics – do what has to be done
If you have to start over, have a friend by your side
Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the Ark.
Take care of your animals as if they were the last ones on earth.
When things get really deep, don’t sit there and complain – shovel
Speed isn’t always an advantage. The cheetahs were on board…but so were the snails.
Stay fit. When you’re 600 years old, someone may ask YOU to do something really big.
Shabbat Shalom.