Years ago I enjoyed a wonderful radio program called "The United States of Los Angeles." This program featured unique neighborhoods and personalities from throughout the greater LA area. With hundreds of languages and dialects being spoken throughout Los Angeles, this radio show gave a fantastic perspective on the remarkable diversity of peoples and cultures that defines Los Angeles and, more broadly, the United States. This show gave me - at that time a newcomer to LA - a sense of the vibrant communities that make up this megalopolis. This program, despite its name, made LA feel more manageable, more accessible and more unified, given its complexities. Unfortunately, I must have been one of only a few who listened, for as quickly as the program hit the air waves, the proverbial plug was pulled.
Recently though, I have experienced the United States of Los Angeles anew. No, the program has not been reestablished. Instead, with all of my senses in tow, I have been cycling through much of LA. Riding 50 to 100 miles through the streets of the San Fernando Valley, the Santa Monica Mountains, down the coast between Pacific Palisades and Palos Verdes, Los Feliz (the former "Beverly Hills" with its historic mansions), Simi Valley and elsewhere, I have seen the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich and innumerable cultural and social enclaves. From block to block and from mile to mile, the city changes, it progresses and devolves, its barrenness suddenly transforms into the plushest greenery one can imagine. And the smells and sounds, behaviors and tendencies morph with equal rapidity.
In last week's Torah portion, Bereshit, we are introduced to Noah and learned of God's anger over mankind's corruption. The opening sentence of this week's portion, Noah, reads (Chapter 6, verse 9), "These are the toldoth of Noah. Noah, a righteous man, was perfect in his generation; with God did Noah walk." According to many translations, "toldoth" is "generations." Many commentators have difficulty with this translation as the second half of verse 9 does not list Noah's descendants but instead defines his personal character. It is in the next verse, verse 10, where we are told of Noah's offspring. One would think "toldoth" would be followed immediately by the list of names of Noah's sons. Rashi, given the list of Noah's personal characteristics, interprets "toldoth" as Noah's good deeds, stating that the offspring of a righteous individual is the goodness that one brings into action. To Ramban, though, the correct interpretation is its literal meaning of "progeny." Similarly, Sampson Rapheal Hirsch translates "toldoth" not as "generations" or "progeny" but as "products." To Hirsch, these products are Noah's personal characteristics as Torah describes Noah in Hebrew as "ish tzadik tamim." Hirsch explains "ish" - "man" as Noah's steadfastness to uphold morality, even at a time of such depravity; "tsadik" - "righteous" as Noah's capacity to see "everything objectively, nothing from the standpoint of his own interests," to see matters from the point of what is right; "tamim" - "of purity" as Noah's demonstrated self-control in this immoral era. But it is Hirsch's more literal understanding of "products" that I have reflected on most while peddling away. Hirsch illustrates "toldoth" through his interpretation of the names of Noah's sons in verse 10 - the sons as products of Noah's own creation, the sons who will later form all future generations.
The diversity of mankind will stem from Noah's sons. According to Hirsch, each of these sons, as understood by his name, reveals a character type, an orientation for later generations. Hirsch explains that Shem, in Hebrew is "name" or as defined by Hirsch, the "conception of objects," reflecting the wisdom of men and man's ability to name, define and express a concept. Shem is "the conception of the spiritual, mental." Ham in Hebrew is "heat," or to Hirsch, the glowing excitement of sensuality. Ham is the physical response to the world while Japheth, to Hirsch, relates to the Hebrew words for beauty and openness and represents a willingness to open one's self to external impressions and the imagination that comes forth. To simplify, Shem represents the spirit and the mind of mankind, Ham represents the physicality of man and Japhethrepresents the emotional response that defines many people.
In my balanced, two-wheeled wandering through the vastness of Los Angeles, it becomes easy to pass judgment upon some and to raise up yet others in the highest esteem. The multitude of lifestyles, of preferences and economic abilities can appear as mere labels, defining some communities as good and others as bad. Hirsch's interpretation of each of Noah's sons is an insight worth underscoring. Hirsch states, "that these pronounced national differences [represented by each of the three sons] are not to be regarded as degenerations, but they had already been brought into the ark." In other words, the unique differences among individuals and the distinctions among cultures were inherent in the perpetuation of mankind through Noah and his three sons. The distinctions among mankind are a defining feature of what it means to be a descendant of the survivors of the Flood. What came out of the Ark, eventually us, reflects what went into the Ark, Noah's sons.
But in my journeying through the United States of Los Angeles, I have also come to realize that tolerating these other communities is no better than ignoring or disregarding them. We would all prefer to be understood than merely tolerated. My past inclination was to look past the homeless man who sleeps each night on Ventura Boulevard, hunched over with his head wrapped in the hood of his sweatshirt and settling uncomfortably on his knees; or to mock the mere peddler selling water on a corner of Van Nuys; or to envy the perceived family in a quiet hillside home on top of Mulholland Drive. But during my rides, as I have said good morning to this homeless man, perhaps bringing him his only smile of the day given the isolation that the homeless experience, and have chatted in broken Spanish and English with the kind peddler, and have been encouraged to make it to the top of a big hill by the woman who lives in the Mulholland home, I now better understand Hirsch's final point, that all people are created for the one lofty ideal of mankind - of bringing God's holiness into this world.
May we reflect this Shabbat on how our differences and our potential can be the unifying feature of humankind.