Humanity’s Limitations

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 9 October 2021

At the beginning of the pandemic, many journalists wrote editorials, many politicians made speeches, and many rabbis stood on their bimahs and gave sermons about what the dramatic events that were then unfolding meant for humanity. Many spoke of this moment as a ‘reset’; as an opportunity to change many of the damaging behaviours humanity has developed that are not only destroying the planet, but which are putting the future of human life on earth at risk. Many welcomed the return of wildlife to areas that were previously so busy with human industry that animals had been driven away. Many applauded the renewed community spirit that saw people cooperating to make sure the most vulnerable in our society were looked after during the lockdown.

Many made reference to the fact that, in many respects, the pandemic was man-made – that it is yet another symptom of climate change, and of our assault on the planet – that Coronavirus was an opportunity for us to ‘build back better’ and change the way we treat the planet that we have been given as a gift.

With COP26 approaching, it does not seem that the pandemic has prompted many of these changes. The reality is that we have not reset.

I could stand here and remind us of all the things that need to happen for disaster to be averted. But actually we know what those things are; the scientists have been telling us for long enough – that we need urgently to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, plant more trees (or at least stop cutting down those we have), and generally consume fewer of the planet’s resources.

Many see Parashat Noach, the account of the near-total destruction of the world, as a lesson about the need to act to stop climate change and global warming. It absolutely can be this – but what can it be for those of us who are convinced of the need to act, but who despair at humanity’s ability to achieve anything? If a disaster on the scale of Covid-19, with over 4 millions deaths worldwide, will not produce any dramatic actions, what will?

In the passage that leads up to the part that Immy read for us this morning, the Torah tells us:

‘The Eternal saw how great humanity’s wickedness was upon the land, and how every plan devised by their minds were nothing but evil all the time. And the Eternal regretted the creation of humanity and God’s heart was saddened’ (Genesis 6:5-6)

God despairs of humanity, only a few chapters after God created them, and saw they were tov me’od – not just good, but very good.

As Immy has reminded us, even Noah was considered to be a righteous man only by the standards of is time, and the bar set by those around him.

The relationships that are demonstrated between humanity and God in these early stages of the Torah are often fraught with tension and difficulty. They often involve God having high expectations of humanity that we are unable to fulfil, leading to frustration, regret, sadness and, ultimately, destruction. The flood is not the end of this – and perhaps this is part of God’s learning. While the evil ones may have perished in the flood, the concept of evil, the ability of humans to stray from the path of righteousness, goes nowhere. Immediately after the flood, Noah is caught getting drunk. Soon after, his descendants are the builders of the Tower of Babel – who forget about the sanctity of human life in their eagerness to build a tower that will reach the heavens. Rather than destroy, in order to punish humanity this time, God simply pushes this generation away, rendering them unable to communicate with each other.

There is little reciprocal communication between humanity and God, which is perhaps what makes God’s encounter with Abraham in next week’s parashah so significant – God takes a new approach; one which involves covenant and partnership.

This new covenantal relationship does not prevent evil. Human beings within the covenant continue to behave despicably. But it changes the paradigm in which we contemplate relationship – both with God, and perhaps with each other.

God recognises our humanity. Rather than being perennially disappointed that we do not live up to high expectations, God recognises that we were created both in the image of God, and imperfect.

To recognise humanity in others is both to recognise that they (like us) are made in the image of God, but also to recognise that they have flaws and limitations that mean we cannot expect them to be perfect; that change does not happen overnight, and that we cannot expect dramatic interventions that will sort everything out. Change requires patience, and an acceptance that we are dealing with human beings, not gods. This is even true about the way we think and talk about what states can do about such crises. As much as the state might seem like a god, it is really only made up of limited individual human beings.

This is a lesson we can not just learn about our interaction with other; it can also tell us something about how we treat ourselves.

One of the most powerful stories we as a Jewish people had told ourselves over the last two thousand years has been that the destruction of the Temple came about, not as a result of Roman might, but as a result of God’s punishment to us for sinat chinam – baseless hatred. Over and over we tell ourselves this story. But we still do it! Every year Yom Kippur comes round and on reflection we realise that there were times when our limitations got the better of us, and we fell into the same old traps, the same old behaviours.

In the Liberal Machzor, at the end, opposite the last tekia gedolah of Ne’ilah, is printed a quotation from Rabbi Israel Lipkin Salanter: ‘Most people repent during the Selichot week preceding Rosh Hashanah; the more pious during the month of Elul preceding Rosh Hashanah; but I say that one should begin to repent immediately after Yom Kippur.’

Regardless of the depth of the sincerity with which we made our resolutions at Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, the likelihood is that we have already begun to fail at one or other of them. This is why the traditional Kol Nidre prayer was a pre-emptive annulment of al the vows we would take (and brake) over the next year, rather than retrospective repentance for those we had already desecrated over the previous year. For anti-Semites this was proof that us Jews could not be trusted or taken at our word, and that no contract we signed or agreement we entered into would have any validity. For us, it is a profound acknowledgement that, however much we strive to do what is right, however much we want to avoid sin and letting each other down, we know we are human and we are limited, and we will end up missing the mark in one way or another.

It might seem that I am being pessimistic, and that there is nothing positive that we can take forward. But I think there is.

In our portion, it says that God Vayit’atzev al libo. God’s heart became saddened. The cause of the flood was not, ultimately, humanity’s evil, but God’s sadness, God’s pessimism, God’s disheartenment. And at the end of the Noah story, we see that God vows never to do so again – the symbol of hope being the rainbow.

If we face humanity’s limitations with sadness and pessimism and we say, there is no point because we cannot effect change all at once, then we preclude change. If we hope, not for revolution and immediate solutions, but if we attempt slowly to right the wrongs of the past, working in covenant and real relationship with each other, maybe we have a chance.