This week when I opened up the text, all of the death – from the destruction of the flood to discussions of murder – jumped out at me. Some of it was personal – Rabbi Sara’s new position as a bereavement coordinator for hospice means that a lot of our conversations are about people dying. Also, I recently I served on the chevra kadisha and assisted in my first tahara, the ritual washing and preparation of a body for burial. If that was not enough to make the story of Noah, and the death of most of the world jump out at me, all of the discussions and events related to the death penalty certainly did not escape my attention. I could not help but notice these verses:

“For your own bloodguilt I will require your lives; I will require it by means of beasts or by means of human beings-by means of a fellow human being will I require a guilty person’s life.
The shedder of human blood, / that person’s blood shall be shed by [another] human; ‘ for human beings were made / in the image of God.

Often this passage is translated to suggest that God wants us to avenge murder through the death penalty. The translation in your handouts says that very thing. “That person’s blood shall be shed by [another] human.” (Gen 9:6). Capital punishment was much more widespread in the ancient world – even disobedient children were subject to it. For many, that is all the support they need to justify and implement this horrific sanction.

Judaism, however, has not always taken that as the final word. It is much more complicated. Take the ben sorer, the disobedient child. Anyone who has raised a teenager knows that the urge to kill is not out of the question. So, when does teenage rebellion rise to the level of justifiable homicide? According to the Rabbis, no child has gotten there yet, as exasperating as they can be. There are pages upon pages of the Rabbis discussing the death penalty, limiting its use almost to an impossibility, and even when acknowledging its use, dedicating themselves to the utmost consideration of the condemned. All people must die and if they die at the hands of the state, it is to be the most dignified, least painful or disgraceful way possible. As the text reminded us, “human beings were made / in the image of God.” (Gen. 9:6).

Even that line, “The shedder of human blood, / that person’s blood shall be shed by [another] human,” seems so clear. Nathan Mastnjak, who is a Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary, New Orleans. Does a deep study of that passage and argues that the Hebrew suggests something else. His understanding is that a more likely reading argues that the avenger of blood is not human. Such an understanding is consistent with Professor Everett Fox’s translation:
Whoever [now] sheds human blood,
for that human shall his blood be shed,
for in God’s image he made humankind.

Modern study of the death penalty reveals that it is not a deterrent. Perhaps our role is not that of executioner, after all. The Medieval commentator Chizkuni wrote that man is a check on murder by being a judge, that God appointed man on earth to be the judge so that fellow man would be deterred from committing sins and crimes. Or maybe the statement that whoever sheds blood, for that person shall blood be shed is a prediction that bloodshed will only lead to more bloodshed. None of that supports the understanding that we, humans, are supposed to kill as a punishment.

There is already too much death; executions only increase it further. Is that not the lesson of Noah? Noah and his family were spared because Noah was righteous for his age – not necessarily good, but better than the rest of the people. And when the flood subsides and Noah realizes that the rest of humanity is gone, that so many people are dead, he tries to drink himself into oblivion. Not the best coping mechanism, but a demonstration of how devastating deaths can be. How can we possibly believe that the conclusion of this lesson is to kill more people? If that is not enough, the very next line says: “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; populate the earth and increase it.” (Gen. 9:7) Do not murder it says, choose life. And as for murders that are committed, “for that human shall his blood be shed.” There will be a reckoning, there will be judgment and justice. But it is not our job to exact it.

One of the most sobering parts of tahara is the respect for the met, the deceased. All of the procedure is done with care and tenderness by volunteers, members of the community who give their time for this last mitzvah. And at a number of points during the ritual, we ask forgiveness of the met.
That is how God wants us to treat one another. Even someone who is no longer alive, their body is to be respected and treated with care. Death is not a spectacle. Death is to be treated with caution and care.

At a funeral, when we go to put the earth on the casket, we do not hand the shovel from one person to another, as not pass our grief along with it. The preparation of the body for burial is different. Rabbi Alana Krivo-Kaufman describes it like this: “We pass the water and the words and the silence from hand to hand, from voice to voice, from person to person, weaving ourselves together in the affirmation of the dignity of this body, this soul, the entire world that was this one life.”

Noah, amid the carnage, destruction, and death after the flood, thought much differently about the idea of the entire world. As small as his circle was, perhaps if he had reached out to his family, the other survivors, things would have gone differently for him. May we see a day when we do not take upon ourselves shedding blood for the blood of a human. Instead, may we be responsible for life. For our own, for others. And to dedicate ourselves to maintaining a connection, as we pass through life, and pass from one relationship and one interaction to another.