Difficult Choices

Noah, why did you save animals and not people? Couldn’t you fit a few more mothers and babies on the ark? Could you have built a larger ark to protect a few more? How did you make these difficult choices?

And Noah answered, I did the best I could.  I had to think of the future. We needed the animals to repopulate the earth. God created animals before people.  The animals were not unkind the way people can be.

And Noah continued, my neighbors mocked me when I was building the ark. None believed me. None would help me. They were evil and selfish. Who would I have chosen among them? There was no goodness in the world to rescue but animals.

And Noah added, God told me what to do. I obeyed.

But surely Noah, not everyone was sinful.  The mothers and the babies, were they also evil?

Noah retorted sometimes the innocent get swept up with the guilty. The world has always been unfair and inequitable. Good people must make difficult choices.  Who to save and who to kill?  Who to befriend and who to condemn?

And “The earth had become corrupt before God, and the earth had become full of HAMAS (violence)” Genesis 6.

Noah knew that good people would have to make more difficult choices in the future. He could imagine the bloodshed and the agony that would plague humankind. When he reached dry land, he planted fields and vineyards. But his knowledge of the nature of people would haunt him. From the grapes, he made wine, and from the wine he drank.

Noah’s son Ham found Noah drunk and naked, but he did nothing to comfort his father. Ham is the father of Canaan. Ham’s cruel indifference cursed Ham’s descendants.

Torah would tell of God’s wrath with Canaan. “And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the South, heard tell that Israel came by way of Atharim; and he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. And Israel vowed a vow unto the LORD and said: ‘If Thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities.’ And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them and their cities. . .” Numbers 21:1-3

God knew that the innocent would die along with the guilty. Israel has always known that there are times to build and a time for destruction. God has reasons. Noah had reasons. The Israelites had reasons. We pray for peace and know that peace is elusive.

If you want to plant for the future, you must uproot the weeds.  If you want to eliminate evil, you must be willing to empower the good. If you want to have peace, sometimes you must wage war.

Evan J. Krame