The verses I chose to read this morning come from the very end of our parsha, when Noah and his family have just emerged from the ark. They release all of the animals, and then Noah builds an altar and makes an offering to God. In return, God makes a promise to Noah and implicitly also to us: never again will God attempt to destroy the earth and all who dwell upon it. 

I gravitated toward these verses because they show us Noah and those under his care emerging after the storm. The worst is over. Now they rebuild. I would love to be able to fast-forward to that part in our collective story. Right now, a lot of us feel like we’re battening down the hatches in preparation for… well, we don’t exactly know what’s coming. 

And that’s hard. As my friend R. Jay Michaelson notes (How To Survive This Week), it’s easier to live with a known outcome than an unknown one, and there’s a lot right now that we can’t know. We do know that, according to a recent Axios poll, a majority of Americans expect that there will be violence on / after election day. And that’s scary. So in R. Michaelson’s words,

[I]t’s quite alright to be anxious as hell. It is justified, it is not an illusion, and things have gone very badly in the past. So whatever you do, please don’t scold yourself for not being enlightened, balanced, wise, mindful, rich, or calm enough to not lose your cool. I’ve met dozens of spiritual teachers in my time, and the ones who pretend to be awesome all the time are faking it… to you or themselves or both. 

If you’re feeling anxiety as the election approaches, you’re not alone, and you’re not “doing it wrong.” You’re just in touch with your feelings. (Mazal tov.) R. Michaelson is a teacher of mindfulness and meditation practices, and his essay has some good suggestions for managing our anxiety, so if that sounds helpful to you, check out his writing today.

I can’t tell you how the next week will go, or the weeks that follow. (Though for my part I am trying to ignore the constant breathless reporting on polls. Polls actually don’t tell us what real people are going to do in real time… or how other real people will respond. Life is a giant multivariable experiment and no one can solve in advance for what the future is going to be.) 

(Yes, my teenager is taking algebra II, how’d you guess?

I also can’t tell you the best way to spend this last Shabbes before Election Day. Some of us may need a Shabbat away from these anxieties, a time to rest and allow our souls to be restored. And some of us may need to be “praying with our feet” – knocking on doors (or phone banking or text banking) to make sure people have the information they need to vote. 

As is so often the case, Judaism supports both of these. Taking today to rest and be restored is a very Jewish thing to do! And pounding the pavement after shul to urge full participation in our democracy is also a very Jewish thing to do. You’ll know best what your own soul needs. 

I can tell you that Jewish tradition offers us next steps, no matter what. Feed the hungry, protect the vulnerable, act with integrity and honesty, engage in community life, take care of each other. The mitzvot give us a road map for building toward a better world. That road map is true and enduring, right and real, no matter what happens next week or in the weeks that follow. 

I can tell you that Jewish values call us to choose honesty rather than deceit, hope rather than despair, uplifting others rather than grinding them down. Jewish values call us to kindness, never cruelty. They demand that we love the stranger – the immigrant, the refugee. They invite us to center the pursuit of tzedek / justice and actions of  tikkun olam / repairing our world. 

The thing I don’t like about the story of Noah is that he doesn’t push back against the Divine plan to flood all of creation. He rescues his own family and the animals, as instructed, but he doesn’t say to God, “Wait a minute, aren’t there some innocent people out there?” As my friend and teacher Rabbi Mike Moskowitz writes, justice isn’t justice if it’s “just us.” 

Whatever arks we construct – whatever structures we build together in our community life – need to be big enough and broad enough to uplift everyone. I pray that our government can be an ark that lifts all of us out of harm’s way, that helps all Americans and ultimately all the world live with dignity and safety, not at the mercy of floodwaters whether metaphorical or literal. 

Maybe our task this weekend is to trust that no matter what Flood might arise, we have the spiritual tools we need to help each other through it, and to help those who are more vulnerable than we are through it. Our task is to remember that whatever the coming weeks may bring, we can and will lift each other up as we work toward the promise of the rainbow on the other side.

This is the d’varling that Rabbi Rachel offered at Shabbat morning services at Congregation Beth Israel of the Berkshires (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)