We live in an anxious age. If it is hard for you to watch the news, what lenses does our tradition offer to help us make sense of it all?

Tomorrow we are going to look at the two models that we are in the middle of reading in shul: Noah, who seeks refuge in his ark, away from the pain of the world (Click here), and Abraham, singled out by God to do justice and righteousness (Click here).

The Noah principle is so tempting, and that is where many of us live, in our zip code, worried about the world, but insulated from its harshest features. 02459 and the other zip codes of our congregation are an ark. We can read about the horrors of the world without, for the most part, experiencing them on the front lines. Noah is no child’s story. Noah captures the reality of withdrawal from a world that feels impossible to fix and too painful to face. We do Noah, pretty much every day. But is more expected of us, and if so, what?

The Abraham principle is so daunting. The classic question is: why Abraham? What did he do to deserve the covenant? The classic answer, which we will study tomorrow, is that when he saw a world on fire, he felt summoned to do something about it. Put out the fire. Restore the building. Sounds good. Seems hard to argue with. But if we take that midrash seriously, what does it call upon us to do, particularly if the problems we see as most vexing do not admit of any solution that we can bring.

We don’t have answers, but we do have helpful lenses.