Whattaboutery, Shooting Messengers and Ecological Disaster

Here’s a classic Rabbinic tale

Midrash Tanhuma

Said Rav Huan in the name of Rav Yossi, God warned the generation of the flood about the oncoming flood for 120 years in the hope they would change their ways.

But they didn’t so God said to Noah, ‘Make an ark of cedar wood.’ Noah got up and planted cedar trees.

And the people asked him, ‘what are those cedars for?’ And he said, ‘God wants to bring a flood on the world.’ And they laughed at him.

And Noah watered the cedars and they grew, and the people asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ And he answered said God wants to bring a flood on the world. And they laughed at him.

And eventually he cut the trees down and planed them. And they asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ And he answered them. And since they didn’t change their ways, God immediately brought the flood.

--

There seems to be something in the human psyche which doesn’t like to change and doesn’t like to admit change is underway. We find it easier to mock those who are warning of the truth than to accept their truth. And even if change is acoming, we feel, we are going to be able to resist it.

These are very old stories.

--

Talmud Sanhedrin

When Noah rebuked them and spoke words to them tough as fiery flints, they mocked him. They said to him, ‘Old man, what is this ark for?’

He replied, ‘The Holy Blessed One will bring a flood upon you.’

Ha! ‘A flood of what,’ they jeered? ‘if God brings the Flood up from the earth, we have iron plates with which we can cover the earth! if from heaven, we have a substance called ‘akob’ which can ward it off.”[1]

--

Technology is extraordinary, and we clearly def need tech advance to get us out of this hole, but it’s not going to be enough. Indeed somewhere in the way in which technology gets monetized, and we get tempted into buying more and more, it might even be that the promise we can build our way out of this mess with more and more consumption is going to get us into even greater trouble than we were in in the first place.

That, of course, is the lesson of the tale we read at the end of the Parasha.

Faced with a challenge the humans of the generation of the Tower of Babel, turned to technology – let us build a tower, they said.

As if a tall building could be the solution to the problems of their lives.

And they succeeded in building a tall building, but didn’t succeed in taking due account of their lives.

And the building eventually crumbled, as buildings eventually do.

The truth is that change needs to be radical and we need to be honest about the scale of change required.

There are, of course, prophets who will tell us of the damage to the oceans and the glaciers and the fragile systemic nature of our planet’s ecosystem.

And just like the prophets of the Biblical period – we’ve largely ignored them – that is to say unless we’ve mocked or blamed them.

There’s an amazing moment in Shelach Lecha when two of the twelve spies sent into the Land of Israel come back with a perspective that is entirely accurate – but the people around threaten to stone them.

There’s poor old Elisha, wandering along the road –

וּנְעָרִ֤ים קְטַנִּים֙ יָצְא֣וּ מִן־הָעִ֔יר וַיִּתְקַלְּסוּ־בוֹ֙ וַיֹּ֣אמְרוּ ל֔וֹ עֲלֵ֥ה קֵרֵ֖חַ עֲלֵ֥ה קֵרֵֽחַ׃

– we’ve been shooting messengers for a very long time.

Elisha gets his own back he calls on a bear to come and mangle the mocking kids.

Prophets often get to be proved right, eventually.

It’s always been easy to attack the prophets for their indelicate ways and blunt language. But it hasn’t mean they were wrong.

We need to stop criticizing climate activists for the blunt=nature of their presentations.

And we need to change.

It’s one of the great truths of humanity – that change is possible.

Our most powerful and well-attended Festivals celebrate the possibility of human change. The entire message of Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur is that even if change is hard, and even if we have been here before and promised to change, and slid right back to where we were just moments ago, this time it can be different.

Rambam – see yourself and the entire world balanced.

And then, Pirkei Avot, Mitzvah Goreret Mitzah, transformational change can come.

Here’s my top tip for allowing change to happen.

Pay no attention to anyone who takes pride in suggesting a contradiction in our actions.

How can you say eco matters are important when you just … I don’t know, left a light switch on.

Similarly, pay no attention to the whataboutery merchants – the sort of people who, if they hear you are recycling want to know challenge you because you aren’t, I don’t know, only eating local seasonal food produce.

Both these kinds of people – and I might be one of these kinds of people sometimes too, should be disregarded.

There’s a lovely line in Baba Metzia – Reish Lakish says

קְשׁוֹט עַצְמְךָ וְאַחַר כָּךְ קְשׁוֹט אֲחֵרִים.״

Sort yourself out, then afterwards, worry about sorting anyone else out.

If you are trying to do better, if you’ve found a first step – take it. It will tip the world, it will tip you, it will make the next step easier.

Change doesn’t come all at once. Change is always messy, inelegant, contradictory. But only way we ever improve. Our unevenness needs to be welcomed.

To those standing tall, raising their heads over parapets where it is so easy to be attacked - I salute you. Keep fighting, keep campaigning, keep doing that most Jewish thing of refusing to give up on us, even as we fail.

And as for the voices that mock – there have always been voices that mock. There always will be.

Those who mock might not deserve to be mangled by a bear – but they don’t deserve our attention. The rumours of the flood are very real and we have a world to mend,

Shabbat Shalom

[1] Sanhedrin 108b