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Parshat Noach
2006
Rebuilding the world, rebuilding New Orleans...
Like the story of Noah and the flood, the story of Hurricane Katrina is one of great tragedy, but also one of great opportunity. Countless cultures of the world tell stories of a significant flood and now New Orleans has a similar story to share.
Parshat Noach tells the story of God’s decision to flood the earth. Everyone from the Jewish scholar to the college freshman struggles with the question of why this happened. I myself, an eight-year resident of New Orleans, as well as the Tulane freshmen who came to New Orleans one day before Katrina, struggle with a similar “Why?” – Why the hurricane? Why the flood waters? Why come back to New Orleans to rebuild the city and rebuild the Jewish community?
The story of Noah indicates that God looked down unto the earth and felt that people were destroying the world with corruption, selfishness and evildoing. In all the land of Earth, God found only one righteous person, Noah. So God decided to destroy the people of the earth, to cleanse the earth of all that was evil, and start anew, sparing only Noah, his family, and the animals of the world. After the flood ceased and the waters receded, God made a covenant with Noah that he would never again destroy the world with flood waters. As a promise to Noah, God put a rainbow in the sky. Soon human life and animal life increased all throughout the world.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg, in his book The Jewish Way suggests that the essence of the covenant between humans and God is that it relies on a partnership. Rather than passively accepting God’s protection, “God summons humanity to participate in the process of creating a redeemed world. Each partner enters into this treaty of total redemption; each brings a pledge to this binding covenant.”
Similar to the story of Noah, hurricanes Katrina and Rita swept through New Orleans, breaking the levees and flooding most of the city. Much of the city and the surrounding areas were completely destroyed. Much like Noah waited for the flood waters to recede, so did I, and so did the students of Tulane, Loyola, the University of New Orleans, Xavier and Dillard Universities. Although the flood waters receded in New Orleans, many residents were stuck in their “arks” awaiting the opportunity to return home. Students were enrolled in schools across the country and New Orleanians were stranded in cities living with friends, family members, or in shelters. Noah finally saw God’s rainbow, the sign from God that Noah was looking for and he knew it was time to rebuild his world. Here in New Orleans, many are still waiting to see the rainbow. Will there ever be a rainbow for the people of New Orleans to see?
The flooding of the world and the flooding of New Orleans... an act of God or an act of nature? Who really knows? Did God send the hurricanes to destroy New Orleans and the Gulf Coast? My thought is no, hurricanes in this part of the country just happen because of the weather patterns. When you see a rainbow in the sky, is it because God put it there? Again, I feel that the answer is no, rainbows are a reflection of the moisture in the sky. Above all, the story of Noah and the flood and the story of New Orleans and its flood, are stories with a moral. Both are stories about places full of sin and corruption, but also righteousness.
Everyone in New Orleans has a story, many of them more dramatic than mine. I evacuated like everyone else. I was scared and nervous and I cried with many of my friends and loved ones from New Orleans. I was confused about why the levees broke and concerned about the welfare of my community.
After a month of speculating about where to go and what to do, Paige Nathan, then New Orleans Hillel Executive Director, encouraged me to come to Baltimore, where together, we could do some truly meaningful work. While in Baltimore, the Maryland-area Hillels opened their hearts and their doors, setting up computers, phones and a makeshift office. Paige and I, and the rest of the staff that was spread out across the country, worked hard to reach out to the students. We e-mailed and called students, parents and college and universities all over the country. We worked closely with other Hillel staff, college admissions staff and Jewish professionals nationwide. I personally traveled to Boston University, Syracuse, Cornell, NYU and UPenn, joining students for Shabbat dinners and taking freshmen to coffee, trying to encourage them to come back to Tulane. I worked hard to be that symbolic rainbow they were looking for, the sign that everything was going to be ok and that is was ok to come back to New Orleans to rebuild and renew.
When I returned to New Orleans after Yom Kippur, ready to start a better year, I found that I had truly been spared. Neither my car nor my apartment had flooded. I still had my job and wonderful support from Hillel’s Charles and Lynn Schusterman International Center. I was fortunate to receive love and support from Jewish communities all over the world.
Because I was spared, I feel the responsibility to be more righteous and help repair and rebuild New Orleans. As assistant director at the New Orleans Hillel at Tulane University, I worked closely with our students, staff, lay board and university administrators to determine the new needs of the post-hurricane college student. Since the hurricane, our program numbers have increased tremendously. Community service and social action are now our top priority. New Orleans Hillel is working hard to recraft itself to meet the changing and growing needs of the New Orleans students.
I don’t know what the future holds for New Orleans or for the rest of the world, but I do know that we can’t wait around for a special sign to tell us to move on. Like the world after the biblical flood, it will take a very long time to rebuild New Orleans. On Sunday, October 29th, I am getting married in New Orleans. My future husband and I would like to stay in New Orleans and help rebuild this wonderful city, a city often associated with sin and corruption, but also a city full of good and righteous people. We are committed to creating our own rainbow here in New Orleans.
Written by Jody Portnoff, MSW, Assistant Director of New Orleans Hillel at Tulane
Learn More
Additional commentaries and text studies on Parshat Noach at MyJewishLearning.com.
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