Rabbi Yair Robinson
Parashat Noach 2026
“Oh No! Or is Different Really Better?”
Anyone who visits my office knows I am a huge fan of comics and cartoons. There was cartoon that was making the rounds a while ago, mostly back in 2016, and resurfaces again from time to time. The first panel has a single person who declares “I wish things were different.” In the second panel, he proceeds to destroy everything around him. The third panel reveals the figure surrounded by the wreckage saying, “oh no.”
“Oh no” is right! We all know people who have decided for one reason or another to smash things to pieces because they decided that different would mean better: damaging relationships, careers, community connections and the like. Perhaps we ourselves have at some point or another, out of disappointment and frustration, decided that different would be better no matter how much worse it made things first. Of course, this does not just happen at the personal level. We have seen the last several election cycles devolve into this kind of destructive pattern, as people hope that something good will come out of the destruction, then discover that it does not.
Many of us might disagree, but if we are being honest with ourselves, I think many of us sympathize with the idea of different being better. Especially right now. After all, we are aghast at the unfairness, the inequity, the injustice in the world. We are exhausted as our so-called allies continue to minimize our pain post October 7th, enraged by the behavior of people with power who choose to gaslight others and protect themselves rather than take responsibility for their actions. As unrealistic as it may be, we want to live in a world where the good are rewarded and the wicked punished, where power and privilege does not shield people from the consequences of their actions, where victims are heard over the supposed needs of their abusers, and where Saturday Night Live is merely unfunny rather than odious and actively hostile to half the population.
That is what we want. And do you know what, if the only way to make that happen is through our rage, anger, and grief, if the only way is to smash everything around us to affect change, then why not? Why shouldn’t we smash it all to bits?
It is a profound feeling, up until the point we see it reflected back at us. Because that is what we see in our portion. God sees the world, for this moment, as we do, and sees a world overwhelmed by violence and corruption, and decides that the only solution, the only way to make the wicked suffer, the only way to make things different, is to wipe out all life, safe a handful of creatures in a life raft. God has waited patiently since Cain killed Abel for humanity to learn, for the blood to stop crying out from the ground, and when it becomes clear that humanity will not change, God smashes it all to bits. Isn’t that what we want to have happen? To the perpetrators of terrorism and violence, the killers, and rapists, the Hamasniks and people with badges who lock immigrants away in cages in warehouses and make children defend themselves in court. All those who seek to do harm, who seek to exert power, who seek to benefit from the suffering of others, who lie to protect their privilege: fundamentally, we want them to drown, to suffer, to be obliterated. Or at least, that is what we say we want. And then when we see God do it on the pages of Torah, we recoil with horror. When confronted by the actual reality of it, we suddenly become concerned with forgiveness and second chances. When God holds up to us the ramifications of our desire to make everything different to wreak havoc on all who cause suffering in the world, that urge is tempered and we decide that we want other solutions, better solutions, solutions that require bridge building and partnership even with people we may disagree with, solutions that require listening to others deeply and finding ways to deepen understanding.
I know it is less satisfying. It is harder work, sometimes tiring work, sometimes despairing work, but it is important work. I know we are less and less enamored of the Delaware Way and see all the ways it can be hostile to meaningful change, but it has also been, up until recently, a bulwark against the ugly personal politics we encounter elsewhere, and more recently here with school board members using bigoted speech about an entire religion, and candidates for election misgendering their opponent repeatedly. We might think that smashing everything, making everything different will lead to better. But the breaking so often only benefits those who are happy to have everything broken, and who do not care who gets hurt.
The Flood culminates with the Rainbow as a sign of God’s covenant with humanity that the world shall not be destroyed again. But we should also see it is a reminder to us that, in our urge to relieve this world of suffering and pain, in our own grief at the injustice we see, we should not doom all we see as opponents either. We cannot derive justice from drowning the world. May we turn to partnership and renewal, bridge-building, and healing, to truly make this world better. Amen.