Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
October 19, 2001
Raising Our Eyes to the Rainbow
Let me share with you just four incidences which have occurred here recently. Before Rosh Hashanah, a congregant called to inquire about the extent of the security in force at the Temple. When informed that we would have four marked police cars and four security guards - two uniformed and two plainclothes - the person said that was not enough. She was going to go the synagogue because she understood that they had more security.
A young mother spoke with me about her fear after the events of September 11. She is not a person I ever considered to be an alarmist, but she told me frankly she was not sure she was going to come to Holyday services, because there were just too many Jews together in one place, too easy a target for terrorists.
I invited a young couple to be our parents for the ShalomFest baby naming demonstration. They consulted and agreed that they would be happy to do that. The following morning, the husband called - they had had a change of mind. His wife was just uneasy, didn't want to expose their child to possible danger. Again, it was just too easy a target for terrorists. Two other congregants expressed surprise to our President that ShalomFest was not canceled, or at least postponed.
There are a significant number of Americans, including Jews, who harbor deep within them today feelings of fear, insecurity, and vulnerability. Many individuals are tense and troubled, not knowing what tomorrow may bring.
I believe that this week's Torah portion has a message, which can be very helpful to such people. The stark and tragic details of the flood are recorded along epic lines. God informs Noah that he must construct an ark because "I'll bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh." Noah heeds God's command, builds the ark and, just before the inundation, takes on board all the members of his family and species of every living thing to keep them alive, male and female. It rains for 40 days and 40 nights, and all flesh perish except those in the ark. Finally the rains cease and the waters of the flood begin to recede. Noah and his family remain in the ark for nearly a year until the earth is completely dry. He sends forth a raven, later a dove, til finally the second time she returns with an olive leaf freshly plucked in her mouth. Only then does Noah remove the covering of the ark and they all disembark onto dry land.
How terrifying to Noah this disastrous experience must have been. What a sense of desolation. There is nothing living when he comes off the ark. The entire world had become a huge cemetery. Not a single person or animal had survived. Noah was reluctant to live in such a world, for wherever he went he would walk on the graves of the dead. Whether Noah actually indicated or God recognized his anxiety and depression that the world - everything that he knew - was destroyed, God assured Noah of a bright future. "Behold I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh."
Rainbows are fascinating. We may talk about the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. We may teach children about the refraction of light as the sun appears at the end of a rainstorm. We can even derive an understanding of how individual colors combine to create a tapestry of beauty. We all look at a rainbow and say "Wow!" And if we are Jewishly sensitive to the moment, we recite a liturgical formula. We praise You, our Eternal God, Ruling Spirit of the universe, who remembers the covenant, remaining faithful to God's promise and keeping the Divine word."
A covenant is not a promise or an oath or a vow, God unilaterally declaring: I won't cause another flood to destroy the world. A covenant is a contract, an agreement between two or more parties. So what is the Rainbow Covenant? I think that there are two answers to that question.
The first is: if you, Noah, will agree to create new generations, I, God, will affirm that there will be a world for them.
Chapter 9 of Genesis begins "God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 'be fertile and increase and fill the earth'." But Noah hesitated to fulfill God's charge to propagate and multiply, for if the world is to be destroyed again, why bother? So it is to relieve this fear that God agreed to confirm the covenant with Noah with the sign of the rainbow. You agree to have children, and I agree never to destroy the earth. That is the covenant.
The rainbow becomes a symbol of hope and confidence, of trust and courage, of optimism and good cheer, of security and faith in the future. Noah came to realize that tragedies can be followed by triumphs, and obstacles can become opportunities. The evil that exists can be a prelude to good. In fact, friends, without the storm, the clouds and the rain, there can be no rainbow.
I believe that the rainbow is the sign of hope. When I began my study of philosophy, one of the first phrases I learned was Descartes' - "I think; therefore, I am." Let me paraphrase this Jewishly to read "I hope; therefore, I live." Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is as indispensable or powerful as hope. Without hope we are only half alive. Where disappointment has leveled a dream, hope builds it again. Where discouragement has lowered a vision, hope lifts it anew. Where depression clouds the future, hope hangs out the banner of promise and possibility. Dr. Alfred Adler once said that while "physically it may be true that where there is life, there is hope; psychologically, the opposite is also true - where there is hope there is life."
Hope is very hard to define. Let me suggest the following. Hope is being grateful for the promise of blessings not yet experienced. Hope is gratitude for the chance to solve our problems, to meet our obligations and to reach our goals. It is a pledge to keep trying, even while we are waiting, and to wait patiently while we are trying. Hope is pushing on in order for something good to happen, and holding on until it does. Hope is not allowing ourselves to be cheated of the good that the world holds for each us, no matter what terrible unfairness and trials life also holds. Hope is being ready for something good to happen, even after grief and misfortune have clouded our expectations. Hope is an affirmation that there is divine goodness, that life has blessings in store for us, despite grief, disappointments, evil, folly, comedies of errors and tragedies of lost opportunities.
In our congregation, we have members who rebuilt their lives after the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. We have members who have faced loss and tragedy, which might have paralyzed them, and driven them to despair, but they found the hope to hold on. Or at least they found that holding on was their hope. We have taken the words of Jeremiah to heart as a people and as individuals - "there is hope for thy future." Jeremiah tells us that hope is God's promise that there will be blessing in holding on, even if the blessing is just holding on and, therefore, having a future after all, before we even know it. Judaism is forever a religion of hope and courage, of trust and faith, of patience and fortitude. There is a Latin proverb "dum spiro, spero - while I breathe, I hope."
In a large hospital this notice is posted. "Never utter a discouraging word in this hospital. Keep your sad looks for other places. If you cannot smile, do not enter this building." How apt are these words for a world beset with fear, insecurity, despondency and hopelessness.
I may have told this story once before; it is worth repeating. There was a Navy commander who had an only son whom he cherished. When the boy was eight years old, at a summer camp in Massachusetts, a dislodged boulder had rolled down a hill and pinned the boy to the earth. With almost every bone in his body broken, he was rushed to a hospital where the surgeons immediately amputated one of his crushed legs. The finest physicians and most gifted surgeons held a consultation, called in the father and told him, "It is no use. There is no hope. He has only a day or two, at the most three. He cannot live and there is absolutely no hope; his body is too severely crushed."
But the father had hope. He would not give up and he remained praying by the side of his son - not for two or three days, but for five entire weeks as his son lay there between life and death. The doctors again insisted there is no hope at all; it is now a matter of hours. But the Commander could still see the faint radiance of a rainbow in the sky. He stood there close beside the prostrate, unconscious form of his battered son in the hospital bed and, following Jewish tradition, prayed in the darkened room "Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu - Hear, O Israel, Adonai is our God". And abruptly, mysteriously and miraculously, a weak and strained voice responded, "Adonai Echad - Adonai is one."
Even in his delirium, these words of response emanated from the lips of the Commander's son. Though otherwise unconscious, in some unfathomable manner, the boy had heard this prayer of hope from his father, a man unshakable in his faith in the one God who is the greatest Physician of all. On hearing that prayer, the subconscious mind of the lad had somehow glimpsed the rainbow of hope.
From that moment, the boy's temperature dropped and he was miraculously restored to life - and that boy lives today. The reason that he lives an almost normal life is because when all seemed darkness and despair, both father and son, together, beheld a rainbow of God's eternal covenant.
I said that there were two explanations of how the Rainbow Covenant works. Let me illustrate the second by means of a story or two. In 1987, there was a very heavy rainfall in different parts of Britain. The meteorological office published an authoritative paper which predicted that the British Isles could be covered by some ten feet of water. As soon as various groups heard about it, they got together to take action. Some began to plan a massive evacuation program, others went to church to prepare for the Day of Judgement, still others engaged in fasting and prayer in an effort to revoke the evil decree.
The Jews got together too. They immediately formed a committee representing all the Jewish organizations in the country. Its aim was simple - to make practical arrangements for living under ten feet of water.
That update of an old Jewish joke represents our People's faith in the assurance that God will never again destroy the earth. If God is about to cover Britain with ten feet of water, there must be a way for humans to live under ten feet of water because, after the biblical flood, God said that "Never again will I doom the earth . . . nor will I ever again destroy every living being."
There is an American variation of that story. Flooding of the Mississippi River was inundating a small Missouri community. Everyone was evacuated except for one elderly gentleman, who stubbornly refused all offers of help. He climbed from the porch of his house to the roof and prayed for God to rescue him.
When the waters rose quickly, a motorboat came to his rescue, but the man refused to board it. He was absolutely sure he would be saved by divine intervention.
The waters rose perilously and a second boat offered help. He turned this one down, too. He was stubbornly waiting for God in whom he trusted.
When he was forced to climb still higher to the very top of a nearby tree, a rescue helicopter lowered its ladder; police bullhorns pleaded with the man to take hold. He declined this offer too. "God will save me," he said. They could neither convince nor coerce him.
The river swelled and finally swallowed the bewildered man. He burst into Heaven and protested vehemently, "God I have done so much good in my life! I trusted, I prayed, I had faith! What did You do just when I needed You most? You turned Your back on me."
Instantly a heavenly voice responded: "I sent three messengers, two boats and a helicopter to save you!"
In Judaism, hope cannot be passive. Often we must initiate in order to activate the sources and support of hope.
But even more, on many occasions in history, humanity has accused God of reneging on the divine promise as the world experienced devastation and destruction through earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, tornados, plagues, pollution and wars. Elie Wiesel, poet laureate of the Holocaust, declares that "The twentieth century witnessed two devastating floods - Auschwitz and Hiroshima. Acknowledging that they are very different in scope, the effects are the same - entire worlds were destroyed. So we ask God - 'how can You allow this to happen? You promised. What is the meaning of Your rainbow?'"
We hold God accountable, as did the shammes who watched the transports to the concentration camps leave town. He'd go to the front of the synagogue and say: "Master of the Universe, I want You to know that we're still here." When he was finally left alone in the town, he went to the synagogue again, banged his fist and said: "Master of the Universe, I want You to know that I am still here." Then he stopped, only to murmur, "But You! Where are You?"
The covenant that God makes with Noah and for all generations to come, the Rainbow Covenant, requires our participation in the creative process. It is a two-way street. Humanity and God are co-partners in the process of creation. We hold just as much responsibility as God does for making sure that floods do not destroy the earth. Whose decision was it to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And we may ask the same questions about Auschwitz. Did God bring on the Nazi flood of torture and terror, murder and mayhem?
The decision to bring children into the world carries with it our responsibility not to destroy the earth with floods. And God's part of the Rainbow Covenant is the divine promise not to bring those floods which humanity cannot overpower. We are partners and we must work together if there is to be hope for future generations. God may be the Source of hope, but we human beings are its conveyors.
When we see the rainbow, we acknowledge that it is a sign of God's covenant and that God is faithful to that covenant. God is upholding the divine promise, but we share the responsibility to protect the world for future generations.
In order for us to be able to fulfill our part of the covenant, we must be able to see the rainbow. Sometimes it is still raining when the rainbow appears. We can see it if we look through the raindrops. Let me show you how.
We have heard the terrible numbers of people killed or still missing from the shocking events of September 11. Without diminishing for one minute the sadness of those truly tragic deaths caused by deplorable acts, let me suggest that there is even here a way of seeing the rainbow, even now. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were places of employment for some 50,000 people. The missing list is just over 5,000; that means 90% of the people targeted survived the attack.
Some 23,000 people were the target of the third plane aimed at the Pentagon. I believe that the latest count shows that only - only - 130 or so lost their lives. That is a 99.5% survival rate. The plane seems to have come in too low, too early to affect a large portion of the building. On top of that, the section, which was hit, was the first of five sections to undergo renovations that would help protect the Pentagon from terrorist attacks. It had recently completed strengthening and blast proofing, saving untold lives. This attack was sad, but a statistical failure.
The American Airlines Boeing 757 flown into the outside of the Pentagon could have carried up to 289 people, yet only 64 were aboard. Luckily, 78% of the seats were empty.
The American Airlines Boeing 767 could have had up to 351 people aboard, but only carried 92. Thankfully, 74% of the seats were unfilled.
Another Boeing 767, United Airlines flight 175, with 351 seats had only 65 people on board. Fortunately it was 81% empty.
The Boeing 757 of United Airlines was one of the most uplifting of the stories. The smallest flight to be highjacked, with only 45 people aboard out of a possible 289, had 84% of its capacity unused. Yet these people stood up to the attackers and thwarted a fourth attempt of destruction of a national landmark, saving untold numbers of lives in the process.
To summarize these numbers, out of potentially 74,280 Americans directly targeted by these criminal cowards, 93% survived or avoided the attacks. Friends, that is a higher survival rate than heart attacks, breast cancer, kidney transplants and liver transplants - all survivable illnesses.
The highjacked planes were mostly empty, the Pentagon was hit at its strongest point, the overwhelming majority of people in the World Trade Center buildings escaped, and a handful of passengers gave the ultimate sacrifice to save even more lives.
Hope cannot be passive. A young man once sat in a rabbi's office confiding a difficult problem. After an hour's counseling, he said to the rabbi: "Thank you for helping. You gave me great hope. I'll have patience; I'm willing to sit and wait." The rabbi was astonished. "Wait, I understand, but are you just going to sit around until it comes?"
We must look for the rainbow. You know the story about the man who led a pious life, had always tried to do good. He was now 85 years old. He prayed to God one night and said: "God, I have tried my best to serve You. I've never asked You for anything for myself. Now, I'm going to ask. Let me win the New York lottery." He opened the paper the next morning and his name was not there.
"God, why did You let me down? What happened? Let me win next week." The next week, he looked and again his name was not there. "God, how come You let me down? Why didn't I win?"
All of a sudden he heard a heavenly voice, which said: "Mr. Goldberg, give Me a break! Don't you think you should first buy a ticket?"
Despair is one of the worst sins. We must act first and never give up. Yes, there is reason for us today to be concerned about security, to be extra careful and cautious. But let us not be afraid; let us look for and see the rainbow, the symbol of hope. We Jews have survived 4,000 years because we are "prisoners of hope." Amen
In preparing this message I have benefited from the writings of my colleagues
Rabbis Elliot B. Gertel, Dow Marmur, John Moscowitz,
Rick Sherwin, Hillel Silverman, and Saul I. Teplitz.
