And the Lord said to Noah, “Build for yourself an ark. Build it with compartments and cover it inside and out with pitch. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits and its height 30 cubits.” (Genesis 6:14-15)
And it came to pass after these things that the Lord called again to Noah saying, “Where is the ark I commanded thee to build?” And Noah said, “Forgive me, Lord, but my contractor hath let me down. The pitch you commanded me to pitch inside and out was delivered to the wrong address, and the guy at the lumberyard doesn’t know from cubits. Honestly I’m doing the best I can, considering.”
And the Lord grew angry and said, “Make it so. Moreover gather up the animals two by two and bring them into the ark with you, for I am about to destroy the earth because it is filled with “hamas.” (Genesis 6:11)
But behold it was not so. “Reboynah shel oylam, Lord of the Universe,” said Noah, “Now the wagon drivers have gone on strike. Birds of the field come only in sets of 12. Male gorillas cannot be had for love nor money. And you think it’s easy to get a plumber on a weekend? Lord, Lord, what am I to do?”
The Lord did not answer Noah, but God repented of His plan to destroy humanity. People seemed to be doing a good job of it all by themselves.
You will not find this story in the Midrash, but it is a very old story nonetheless. A tale of frustration, annoyance, and exasperation. Of all the little things that go wrong, that niggle away at you, that get under the skin, that aggravate, pester and provoke the kind of momentary outrage that is not at all in keeping with your character. It’s a story that chronicles the stress inducing nuisances that inevitably come with living a socially inter-connected, inter-dependent human existence.
David tells the story of standing behind a lady at a fancy food emporium in our town. The woman was yelling at the clerk behind the counter using demeaning, highly inappropriate language. And when David confronted her, the woman excused herself by saying, “Well I have 20 people coming for lunch and my help didn’t show up.”
In this week’s Torah portion, God despairs of human kind because people have filled the world with hamas - the word is usually translated as lawlessness. I’m not sure we know exactly what hamas really means; but - if God thought it sufficient cause to bring human existence to an end - for sure it wasn’t anything good. Interestingly, in the next week’s Torah portion, when Abraham’s wife, the matriarch Sarah is disrespected by her maidservant Hagar, Sarah uses the same word to describes the situation to Abraham. “Hamasi, my hamas is your doing.”(Genesis 16.5) In the grand scheme of things I don’t think the two situations are exactly equal in gravity or consequence. But there you have it. How often we feel that the annoyances and frustrations we experience are somehow “the end of the world.”
When we over-react to the little things and blow them out of all sense of proportion, it is all too easy to look past the dignity of others, and so doing momentarily lose our own dignity as well. Frustration is well, frustrating; but a person can be annoyed and still resist being inhumane. If and when enough people lose it enough times, that will be the end of civilized life on this earth as we know it.
My friend Ellen had a very difficult tenant renting her apartment. The guy would exaggerate the gravity of his complaints. There were many complaints, and he relayed them all in an overly dramatic way. Finally, when he referred to a small discoloration in the bathroom tile grout as ‘a disaster’, Ellen said, “I have taken it as my mission in life to help this young man distinguish the difference between tragedy and annoyance.”
Friends, we all need to get a grip from time to time. To take a breath, to relax. Because - as our trip planner said to us just before we left for India, “Things will go wrong.” So when you feel you are on the edge, when the other car cuts you off in traffic or once again you are waiting for that delivery that was promised you weeks ago, when you feel you are just about to lose it: Take a breath. Count to ten. We don’t live in Syria; and - after all - most of it is just about tile grout anyway.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Whiman