Thoughts on a challenging parsha
Now that the holiday season is behind us, I hope this finds you taking in the opportunity for stillness and quiet it affords. And however you did (or did not) celebrate, I hope this season of the year treats you kindly.
Today, I am pleased to share a short reflection on Parashat Noach, read this week as part of the annual Torah reading cycle. This is a complex parsha. Torah can speak to us in every generation and I believe the motifs of the famous story of the flood can speak to us today in profound, challenging and uncomfortable ways. Part of the work of going through a sacred text year after year is recognizing that though the words remain the same, we change.
We aren’t the same people we were last year. Just as importantly, in Jewish tradition, the written Torah (Five Books of Moses) is the beginning, and not the end, of tradition. We read the Torah alongside the thousands of years of commentary, wrestling with the text, grappling with it, finding guidance, learning about what not to do. To learn and to live Torah is to ask the most existential questions about what it means to live and be a decent person in this world. These questions of meaning and how we relate to one another are of undeniable importance now.
This piece was written for Or HaLev, as part of their Weekly Wisdom series on the weekly Torah portion/parsha. These commentaries invite a mindfulness approach to Torah study.
The piece can be found here: Can We Allow All Parts of Ourselves To be Present?
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman 