Henry Barenbaum [October 24, 2020] Parshat Noach

Shabbat Shalom everyone. 

My bar mitzvah is Noah. Most of us know the story.  It’s about God having Noah build an ark because God was going to flood the earth for 40 days and 40 nights to erase humanity as a whole. There are a lot of bad things going on in the world right now.  Everyone is anxious and scared.  It feels like we are closer than ever to that time right before God flooded the world in Noah. Today, I’m going to speak about the problems with humanity and the ways we can fix it. 

We should first ask why God told Noah to build the ark in the first place? God told Noah to build the ark so that he could wash away humanity. He did this because humanity was -- simply -- terrible. People were not civilized. Humanity was selfish and no one had any intention of caring for anyone else. G-d wanted to reset humanity, so he flooded the world.   But after the flood, God realized that it was too drastic of an action, and he said that he would never erase humanity again. To keep his promise to humanity, he created a rainbow. So now, G-d knows that he can’t risk making the same mistake that he made the first time. I think some things I’ve learned from my portion are (1) it’s hard for humanity to change and (2) people don’t listen to others. 

So what would God think of our world today?  Is it terrible like the world in Noah’s time?  It is scary.  I don’t recognize it from 5 years ago, or even 1 year ago.  Covid is affecting the world in horrible ways, and our leaders in power in the Federal government are not doing much about it.  Wildfires are burning through California, as they have for the last several years, leaving a lot of people without homes.  America worked to protect civil rights in the 1960s after a lot of hard work, but now our leaders seem racist and people are angry and protesting in the streets.  And there is the possibility that after the election in a week and a half that the rightful winner won’t get sworn in as President.

With all of the terrible things that humans are plaguing us with right now, what bothers me the most? The first thing that comes to mind is racism. Racism is the cause of a lot of our problems.  I really don’t know how we live in a society where racism is a thing. To me, it doesn’t make sense how people think that skin color is a sign of how a person acts or who a person is. Some don’t think everyone is even a person….  They think that the color of your flesh makes you not only a different person but a horrible person.  But skin is just color -- the people underneath are all made up of the same basic components.  Would you rather look at a painting that is one single color?  It would be flat and boring.  Or would you rather see a painting made up of many bright colors?  Those colors show you all the uniqueness and greatness of each part of the painting.

Another thing that bothers me is the people who disobey laws when it negatively affects others around them.  It is selfish.  I am mainly thinking about COVID and the decision of people to just ignore the law and not social distance. There are times you can do it safely, like going on a trip with a few others socially distanced.  In those cases, you need to be tested before you hang out with anybody. But people just don’t care and severely underestimate their chances and the chances of others of getting COVID. In saying this, I am of course thinking of our President.  He spent the entire pandemic saying COVID was no big deal, holding rallies with a lot of people without masks, and making fun of people who wore masks.  And then, big shock, he caught it.  And the people around him caught it.  And the people around the people around him caught it.  And so on -- they are not tracing or trying to contain it, but rather trying to convince the world that it is not a big deal.  He endangers everyone who works for him and invites thousands of people to come see him in person, all so he can appear strong and try to win the election.  This makes me particularly mad because he is supposed to enforce the laws, but he ignores them and shows other people it is okay not to follow them either.

Now we move on to the big issue of climate change. Is it just me or do fewer and fewer people in power -- people who can actually do something helpful -- seem to care about the environment? There are basically four groups of people in the environment category. There are people who are trying to help the environment. There are people who don’t think it’s that big of a deal. There are people who know the climate is changing but just don’t care. And then there are people who don’t believe the climate is changing at all. The ice caps are melting. The ocean has risen 1.5 inches to my knowledge while our President has said it’s because tiny rocks keep falling in there. Fires burn California down every year and our President says it is because the ground has not been raked.   None of what he and other deniers say makes sense.  The cause is obvious to everyone who looks at it except for those politicians and people who make money on pollution. 

I also really hate the way our Federal government communicates with its citizens – particularly President Trump and the Republican Congress.  There is a ton of “fake news.”  Our President calls any news he does not like or agree with “fake News.”  But I am talking about actual fake news – news that is not factually correct.  There is also truthful news, but it gets confusing because people with different ways of thinking get their news from different places, and each place tells their viewers that the other sources are fake and wrong.  In the confusion of all of that news, where not all facts are true, there is no discussion about the actual facts, because no one can agree on what those facts are.  And people are not willing to talk to each other about it, because each side has its own facts and they see nothing to agree on.  It’s unfair and makes society fall apart inch by inch. It was probably really exciting to be in the government about 30 years ago, because people were talking to each other and discussing their points of view, but still being friends even though they disagreed.  Government is rotting before our eyes and today’s politicians have wiped out an old establishment that was once good. 

While there are a lot of problems with our leaders, there are also politicians that we should still look up to -- politicians who look like they are doing the right thing and caring about people.  Senator Kamala Harris was a prosecutor and then California Attorney General, and she protected people in California by prosecuting criminals.  Now, not only is she a senator, but she could be the first African American and female vice president.  And Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House -- the third most powerful person in the country -- and she stood up for her values by going against the president publicly, where she ripped up his State of the Union Speech on television after he finished as a way to protest his decisions and what he was talking about.  She never seems bullied by him (and he bullies everybody).

How can we and society change these things? First, act to protect our planet.  We should stop littering and throwing plastic into the ocean. We need to compost our items correctly. It’s dangerous for people to just throw something away at the nearest garbage. We need to keep protesting for the rights of others.  Second, act to change government for the better.  We need to change the policies and laws. Whether any of these changes happen depends on who wins the election. We know President Trump won’t listen to us so let’s hope Biden wins. People have to listen and learn about each other. Instead of just looking at a person and judging who they are by appearance or party, people should actually get to know them.  A lot of times fear is why people don’t get along. The more we learn, the less we might fear, and the more accepting we are of each other. Third, realize you can change things piece by piece and person by person.  We don’t need to change everyone, just one person at a time. We want people to stop what they’re doing wrong and start acting right.

You might think it is easy to say how to better the world, but hard to actually do it.  What is hard is to expect one person to do it alone.  We all have to do our parts.  But we have examples of people who have demonstrated ways to make change.  Look at Greta Thurnberg.  She is a teenager who was so worried about the environment that she sailed across the ocean and spoke up about the problems with our governments until she inspired others to listen or do similar things.   And Chadwick Boseman….  He died recently.  He was an example for people, both as a person and as a symbol.  As a person, he fought cancer for four years and never showed his suffering or pain, all while doing great work.  And as a symbol, he showed people around the world that they could see themselves or people like themselves as heroes.  

To actually better the world, we can’t wait for our leaders to act.  We need to start the process ourselves, person to person.  It is important that we understand others’ differences, accept them, and, most importantly, talk to them about them.  We would want our leaders to do that, like they used to, but unfortunately, they don’t, and we might have to show them how.

I have spent a lot of time talking about what is wrong with the world.  But it is also important that we focus on what is right.  Maybe if God did that in Noah’s time, he would not have been so quick to flood the world and start over.  So what makes me happy in this world? There is a lot in the world that makes me feel supported and cared for, and that makes me feel good and safe.  My family supports me, not just during this Bar Mitzvah process, but in life, both physically and emotionally.  They and others have supported my growth as someone on the Autism Spectrum, and I am proud of the person I have become and am.  My school, teachers, and friends support me.  They help me succeed, and I get to enjoy life with them.  Rabbi Stacy, Cantor David, and Lisa Bialkin supported me through this process of studying to become a Bar Mitzvah, and I am grateful for their help and guidance.  And of course, I feel supported by my Jewish community at Rodef Sholom and all of you who are here virtually, near and far, supporting me today.  

Shabbat Shalom.