“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
-The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
The raven. A bird with a reputation as dark as its wings that seems to span cultures. In English, group of ravens is called, not a flock, but an “unkindness.” Why? What did the raven do to deserve such an ominous perception?
In the story of Noah and the flood, two birds get special attention. The dove and the raven.
And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. And he sent forth the raven, and it went out, back and forth until the waters dried up off the earth. And he sent forth the dove from with him, to see whether the waters had abated from upon the surface of the earth … And the dove returned to him at eventide, and behold it had plucked an olive leaf in its mouth; so Noah knew that the water had abated from upon the earth.
Breishis 8:6-11
At first glance, it seems both birds are sent on the same mission: to find dry land. The raven fails, while the dove returns triumphantly with an olive branch, an image that would forever be etched in humanity’s memory as a symbol of hope and peace.
A more careful read though, yields a question. If Noah sent the raven out first, why does it only list the reason of ” to see whether the waters had abated from upon the surface of the earth ” by the dove?
Our sages tell us (Sanhedrin 108b) that the raven was cast out of the arc as a punishment. All the creatures on the arc were not supposed to copulate, but the raven ignored that decree, so Noah sent him away.
Yet the raven kept returning to argue with Noah’s verdict. He even goes so far as to accuse Noah of having ulterior motives for sending him away, saying:
“Perhaps you desire my mate!’
“You evil one!’ [Noah] replies “even that which is [usually] permitted me has [now] been forbidden: how much more so that which is [always] forbidden me!”
Sanhedrin 108b
Noah’s response is so obvious, it’s hard to fathom why the raven would even suggest it. Noah was a righteous man whom G-d entrusted with the fate of the world. Why would he stoop to having relations with Mrs Raven?
The answer, is what psychologists term “projection.” When we have a negative trait we dislike about ourselves, we tend to project that upon others and believe that they are the ones guilty of it. It’s a way of deflecting so you see evil outside yourself instead of inside. The raven didn’t want to acknowledge his own defiance of G-d, so he chose to see corruption in Noah instead.
This story gives us a glimpse of why we see the descendent of that raven in a less than positive light, but more importantly, it gives us glimpse into that darkness in ourselves. The next time you feel anger or resentment towards someone for their negative behaviour, take a moment of introspection to see if you sometimes act similarly. Are you lashing out because you hate that characteristic in yourself?
When you point a finger at someone, three of your fingers are pointing right back at yourself. Let’s work on ourselves to not be like the raven.
Have a good Shabbos,
Rabbi Altonaga and the JET Team
