Window Dressing[1]
Noach 5781
Rabbi Shaanan Gelman
Towering over the
Kentucky countryside, seemingly rising out of nowhere, is a unique tourist
attraction that draws almost 1 million people annually, primarily Evangelical
Christians. It is called The Ark Encounter, and it is a 510-foot long replica
of Noah’s Ark. Throughout 2017 and 2018, weather conditions weakened the
property on which the ark rested, causing a significant landslide that
prevented access to the attraction from the main road leading to it. Repairs
cost approximately $1 million. In May
2019, its owners filed a suit against their insurance company, claiming that
they acted in bad faith, as they failed to protect their clients
against rain.
Sensing the
hilarious irony of this claim, spokesperson Melany Ethridge of the Ark
Encounter clarified that the waters were not quite biblical in nature.
"Contrary to some reporting, the damage to
certain areas of the Ark Encounter themed attraction was not caused by a
'flood.’” The ark was built on bedrock and was
never in jeopardy,"[2]
In reading this story,
one may wonder about the instructions God gave Noach before the construction of
the original ark. For example, God instructs Noach that the ark must include a
window:
צֹ֣הַר ׀ תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֣ה לַתֵּבָ֗ה
וְאֶל־אַמָּה֙
תְּכַלֶ֣נָּה מִלְמַ֔עְלָה
וּפֶ֥תַח
הַתֵּבָ֖ה
בְּצִדָּ֣הּ
תָּשִׂ֑ים תַּחְתִּיִּ֛ם
שְׁנִיִּ֥ם
וּשְׁלִשִׁ֖ים
תַּֽעֲשֶֽׂהָ׃
Construct
a window in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top. Put the
entrance to the ark in its side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks.
A window seems
like a poor design feature in an ark intended to withstand relentless
torrential downpours. Imagine that on top of all the animal husbandry Noach is
suddenly required to master, he would have to fix leaky windows as well.
Furthermore, all that could be seen through this window was a watery hellscape
that drowned out endless human suffering.
What would be the purpose of seeing outside the teivah other than
rubbernecking to get a glimpse at the pain others are enduring. Besides, aren’t we forbidden from looking at
others derisively when they are suffering and degraded?
Considering all
of the above, why the commandment of צהר
תעשה
לתבה?
I’d like to share
with you an insight from Rav Shlomo HaKohen Rabinowicz (1801-1866), the first
Rebbe of the Radomsk dynasty, from his Torah commentary called Tiferes Shlomo.
צהר תעשה לתיבה. הנראה לרמז בזה כי אותיות התורה ניתנו לצרף כמו שאמרו יודע היה בצלאל
לצרף האותיות כו'. והנה הצדיקים מצרפים האותיות מנגע לענג ומן צר"ה רצ"ה
כמו שחותמין ביום התענית העונה לעמו ישראל בעת צרה ומיד נאמר רצה ה' כו' שנהפך הכל
לרצון טוב. אבל בנח לא היה כך ונאמר לו
צה"ר מן צרה שהיה מאיר לו רק לעצמו בפנים ולא על כל העולם. והבן:
In his
conception, the operative word is the one used for window- צהר.
According to Chassidic teachings, based on Kabbalistic tradition, the words of
the Torah are composed of the spiritual DNA that is the constituent letters of
each word. The letters themselves are holy outside the words they form, and
while the words create the reality they describe, the letters can be rearranged
to create a different one. One of the most often quoted examples of this is
that the word נגע, describing a blemish or an affliction,
whose letters can be rearranged to form the word ענג,
or pleasure and celebration. Similarly, the word צרה,
or tragedy, can be rearranged to form the word רצה,
or favor. Indeed, the Radomsker points out that on every fast day, we beseech
God in the Amidah as the עונה בעת
צרה,
He who responds in our time of distress. And then, in the very next paragraph,
we use the rearranged word- רצה ה
אלקנו-
find favor, our God, in your nation and their prayers. In other words, let us
rearrange our perspective, and see this seeming trial as an expression of
Divine favor. But there is another way to rearrange these three letters: the
word for a window, צהר- that which Noach was instructed to build.
Noach was told to turn his צרה, his distress, into a window, through
which light penetrated the literal and existential darkness.
Whether he knew it or not, the Radomsker was
drawing a distinction between the different potential responses to life’s
challenges. In life, we do have רצה moments- moments when Divine favor is
evident and optimism is easy to feel. I knew an elderly Rav who fell down a
flight of stairs and had to be taken to the emergency room. There was a fear
that he broke his hip, which would have been devastating at his advanced age.
While there, it was revealed that one of his arteries was 98% occluded. The
accident that compromised his life ended up saving it; the dramatic shift from צרה
to רצה was readily apparent to all. Most of the
time, however, you don’t discover a treasure chest behind your diseased walls.
Usually, all you find is mold and a costly repair job. Indeed, there are circumstances so dire and
extreme that the most inveterate optimist would find it impossible to flip the
narrative. I imagine that if Noach were told to turn his צרה
into רצה-
in essence, to “turn your frown upside down!” He would have laughed with no
small amount of asperity. Instead, the
directive to construct a צהר was a challenge not to see it as good, but
at least to search for some light in the darkness. Psychologists make a
distinction between validation and toxic
positivity. The former is a realistic, tangible and healthy way of dealing
with difficulties. The latter is a utopian and delusional method of escaping
reality, which will only lead to disillusionment and despair in the long term.
Data indicates that anxiety and depression have risen to historic levels, and
fully one third of Americans now are manifesting symptoms of anxiety and
depression. Toxic positivity is no more than window dressing, and may only
worsen these symptoms.
“By far the most common [phrase] is
‘It’s fine,’ ‘It will be fine,’ ” said Stephanie Preston, a professor of
psychology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “You’re stating that
there really isn’t a problem that needs to be addressed, period. You’re kind of
shutting out the possibility for further contemplation.”[3]
We cannot simply
wish away a pandemic or an illness by sending “good vibes only” when there are
very real bad vibes in the air. What we
can do is validate feelings and thereby lighten the load on someone’s
shoulders. It is insulting to urge our
friends to “snap out of it” or to “just be happy” when there is much to be
unhappy about. Doing so has about as
much efficacy as shoving ice cream in the face of a grieving relative - as if
the calories could fill such a void.
But it is fair and even helpful to try to identify things in a person’s
life which may bring joy, while still recognizing their legitimate pain.
God’s directive
to Noach presents us with a challenge for ourselves. As we weather a storm the
likes of which we have never known, let us not latch onto empty platitudes or
wallow in destructive despair. Instead, let us work on the little ways in which
we can build a window onto our world.
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