NOACH 5782

Noah and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex’s Dress

I want to talk to you about one of the most pressing issues of our time, an issue pointed out to me by my colleague Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, and that is the question of whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dress to the Met Gala was appropriate or not. [Scroll down to see.] We all know that this AOC is quite a piece of work, but she really gained a lot of attention for something that you wouldn’t think so many people would take note of. And yet, they most certainly did!

Last month, AOC showed up to the social event of the year for the rich and famous—the Met Gala, supporting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC—at $30,000 a ticket! She was dressed in a white dress on which splashed on the back were the words in bold Red: “Tax the Rich.” It was surprising she did it at such an expensive affair, but needless to say, everyone had something to say about it—some good, mostly bad. Donald Trump Jr., along with Ted Cruz said it was inappropriate—no surprise there. But on the left, some criticized what they saw as a hypocritical outfit choice, given the reportedly exorbitant cost of a ticket.

But Vogue Magazine said since she was at fashion’s glitziest night, surrounded by some of the most famous and richest people in the world, what better medium to get her message out about taxing the rich than to have it written in bold red on her dress?  

What do you think? I’ll tell you what I think. I think that the dress was disgusting and, as my grandmother would say in Yiddish, it was chalushes. But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m wondering whether my judgment is really fair. And I’ll tell you why I say that. It’s because of famous statement found in the beginning of this morning’s Torah portion.

We all know who Noah was. He was the one who built the ark that saved the world. But the verse which describes him in the Torah is the basis of a well-known rabbinic dispute. We are told, Noach ish Tzadik, tamim haya b’dorotav; et Elokim hitaleych Noach (Noah was a righteous man, wholehearted in his generation; Noah walked with Gd). It’s a simple statement: “Noah was a righteous man who walked with Gd.” But the rabbis wanted to know why the Torah added the phrase, “righteous in his generation?”

Let me read you Rashi’s commentary: Some of our Sages explain, that this was said in praise of Noah. Even in his corrupt generation he was righteous. How much more righteous he would have been in a righteous age! Others think it is intended to disparage Noah. In his own generation Noah was the most righteous, but in Abraham’s generation Noah would have been considered a nothing.

This argument always bothered me. Why weren’t the Sages prepared to give Noah the benefit of the doubt? Why did some question, “Well maybe, had he lived in another generation, he would not amount to much compared to them?” I think a case can be made that the judgments of the Sages here have little to do with Noah and has a lot more to do with the Sages themselves.

According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 108a), it was Rebbi Yochanan who made light of Noah, and was Reish Lakish who held Noah in high esteem. Who were these 2 Sages? At a very young age, Rebbi Yochanan was placed in the academy to study Torah. Right from the start, he was surrounded by students, scholars and many righteous people. For him this was the norm. Reish Lakish, on the other hand, started off as a bandit. He experienced the world as it was. The Talmud tells us he worked as a gladiator to make a living. He knew all about the world’s allurements and enticements. And yet, he decided to give it all up and become a Torah scholar.

Is it not possible that Reish Lakish defended the character of Noah because with his background, he could appreciate Noah’s greatness? He could understand the challenge that Noah faced in living in a sinful world and still remain loyal and steadfast in his righteousness. Reish Lakish understood what Rebbi Yochanan, who lived in the sheltered environment of the Yeshiva world, perhaps could not have understood.  

So, from this we can learn that it’s very possible that when we make our judgments, our judgments don’t simply reflect on who and what is being judged. It reflects on us—the judges—where our biases are coming from. We should make judgments in the way that Gd would want us to make them. How, let’s look at the end of the Torah reading.

Noah and his sons left the Ark and began populating the world. After a while, the Torah tells us, they began building the Tower of Babel. The Torah (Gen. 11:5) then informs us: Vayeyred Hashem lirot (And Gd went down in order to see). Gd had to go down in order to see? What does that mean? Rashi comments: He [Gd] did not need this, for He is omniscient and knows everything without descending to see, but He did this to teach judges that they should not convict the defendant until they see and understand the evidence.

In other words, this comes in order to teach a lesson to all who judge—and that is judges, but all of us who judge others. That whenever you make a judgment, you have to come down from your own bias, you have to come down from your own perspective, you have to come down from your own preconceived notions, and look clearly at the situation as objectively as possible.

So, I have to be honest with myself about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dress. It’s very possible that I am biased, not against the dress, but against her. She, who considers Israel a white supremacist colonial enterprise…she, who thinks of Israel as oppressing a non-white indigenous people…she, who voted against supporting the Iron Dome which is there to protect Jewish men, women and children from being bombed to smithereens…You expect me to like her dress?!  

But I have to do what Gd tells us to do. I have to take my own bias about her out of the picture and I have to just look at the dress itself. So what do I now think of her dress? I think it was disgusting and chalushus. Amen!