Walking with God: How Words Carry Weight

Imagine this: you have always been “the good one.” Through endless tasks and Sisyphean “to-do” lists, you always come through. You follow the plan scrupulously, never talking back or asking questions. One more thing: your world has completely upended and you’ve been trapped in a mandatory makeshift cruise with your family and all of animal-kind for anywhere between 40-150 days. Might it be understandable that when all of this was done that you might desire a decadent barbeque and a decent drink?

Offering a grateful sacrifice and receiving a guarantee of global salvation from God,  Noah—our parashah’s namesake—looks around and thinks desperately to himself: “Wow, do I need a drink.” He plants a vineyard and, as soon as the grapes are ready he overindulges, undresses, and passes out. He is found by his son Ham, who shared the news with his brothers Shem and Japeth, who—in an effort to maintain their dad’s dignity—take a cloth, walk backwards, and without looking, cover up their father. When Noah wakes up, with shame and most likely a wine hangover, Noah rages at his son Ham—the one who saw him at his lowest moment and who went to spread the word. 

While no-one caught Noah’s disastrous diss track on film, his words to his son were preserved for posterity in this annual Torah portion. Noah, the one who walked with God, who never spoke and did exactly what he was told, “נֹ֗חַ אִ֥ישׁ צַדִּ֛יק תָּמִ֥ים הָיָ֖ה בְּדֹֽרֹתָ֑יו”—"Noah who was righteous and blameless in his generation”—did what many of us do when we are confronted with crisis, exhaustion, and shame: he lashed out. If this sounds like a defense of Noah, it’s not meant to be one—his words to his son Ham: “אָר֣וּר כְּנָ֑עַן עֶ֥בֶד עֲבָדִ֖ים יִֽהְיֶ֥ה לְאֶחָֽיו” ““Cursed be Canaan; The lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (a curse spoken three times in this portion)—not only condemned his own grandson, but also became a repeatedly referenced religious source for racial-based slavery. Ham’s brothers remained silent. 

On September 13, 2009, at the  MTV Video Music Awards, rapper Kanye West took to the stage, interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video and boldly declared: “I’mma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best music videos of all time.” The country exploded with sassy memes, sardonic remarks, and side-eyed commentaries (including a not-entirely-bima-appropriate response from President Barak Obama). For the next two days, Kanye West flooded the feeds as a a top trending Twitter topic, with over 293,000 tweets about West posted within the hour after the incident. 

On October 16, 2022, on Revolt TV’s “Drink Champs”, Kanye West blamed the “Jewish media” and “Jewish Zionists” and the “Jewish community” for taking over “the Black voice,” among other misdeeds. The very next day, in an interview with Chris Cuomo on NewsNation, West added that “the underground Jewish media mafia” was threatening to intimidate him based on his beliefs. On Twitter, he wrote “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE…also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League jumped into action, Hillel pros threw open their doors to support their “Ye-loving” students. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok were filled with content, mostly coming from the Jewish community. Where was the flooding of the feeds that came in 2009? The righteous anger? The refusal to accept such shameful and hurtful behavior?  More importantly, why am I, as a rabbinic intern, bringing this rap drama into a religious and spiritual space?

Here’s why: Kanye West has 31.6 million Twitter followers, more than double the world’s “core” Jewish population. Last Shabbat, an antisemitic hate group raised their arms in a Nazi salute behind a banner they hung over LA’s 405 freeway saying “Kanye is right about the Jews. Honk if you know.” Jewish people, organizations, and professionals shared it on their social media—begging their non-Jewish friends to lend their eyes, their ears, and their voices. With articles claiming that “Kanye West’s antisemitism—not his anti-Blackness—tanked his status as a billionaire,” Kanye’s supporters increasingly perpetuated antisemitic tropes and oppressive behaviors. A.M. Homes wrote: “Persons in power don’t realize how much weight their voices carry.” If we had known that Kanye would, when given the opportunity to speak his mind, spread anger and animosity like Noah, would we have given this man a microphone?

Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel said once “I have found nothing better for a person than silence,” but silence can be deafening when our rhetoric becomes our reality. Perhaps better advice comes from Hillel who not only said “do not separate yourself from the community,” but also advised “in a place where there is no humanity, strive to be human.” Noah was called good because he walked with God. A week ago, we understood that we were created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. What might it mean for us to walk with God, to reflect on that Divine spark within us? Perhaps it is simply this: that when we speak, our words have weight and the power to both create and destroy worlds with long-lasting effect. It’s on us to work towards building the new world that we’ve been dealt—one word at a time—however difficult they might be.