The book is sweet

Last night I went to my monthly Women's Torah class at the synagogue. I am the only person in the group with any formal training in literature. Though the leader of the group knows much more about Torah than I do, I am able to contribute many things about literary analysis, vocabulary, myth, etc. that add to the group's understanding and can take routine questions of how to understand the text as I would in my own classroom. I was concerned that I would be butting heads with the leader because of this, but it seems she is okay with it. Last night we discussed the parashah (section of the Torah) of Noach (Noah). It was Christians who first separated the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, into chapter and verse. Before that it was separated into small portions for consumption up to three times per week. The most interesting part of the discussion (and there were many interesting things) was actually not in that section, but right before it, when the text spoke about why the divine beings who, like their Greek predecessors, mated with human women to produce a race of giants, the Nephilim, who became giant heroes. But apparently God didn't like all this misegination (sp?), and destroyed everything except Noah and his household and the famous pairs of every living creature.
One wonders first of all what the creatures had done to deserve this, but apparently they too were mixing too much for God's taste, according to commentary. The point is, no one is really sure. Some speculate that it is all about God's fear that people would begin to eat meat, since they were all still vegetarians, despite being booted out of the garden. But interestingly, in the 2nd creation, which parallels the first, point for point, it's hunky dory for humans to now eat meat, and the offering of meat that God once spurned from Cain, with disastrous consequences, he now gladly accepts. Strange.
We discussed the fact that Noah, though perhaps better than most of his time, was not such a great guy. Unlike Abraham, he said nothing when God took it into his head to destroy creation. In fact, he says nothing until he wakes up from his bender and sees that Ham has sodomized (or possibly castrated) him --that's the way the commentary says those lines would have been read at the time. And then Noah curses his grandson, a way of explaining the emnity between Israel and the Canaanites that came up only much later. And also, unfortunately, a way of justifying slavery that was much bandied about in the 19th century south.
Clearly, being created "in God's image" isn't all good. If God is this arbitrary parental figure who spurns one offering to favor another, causing feuds, is it so surprising that his creation should repeatedly behave in this same way? I brought in the Kabbalistic theory that the creation was a manifestation of God's mistake, which inadvertently brought evil into being, intertwined inextricably with creation.
Another bit of bright news--a recent poem, "Taking Tea," was accepted to Caesura! Thanks again Reb for the tip!