And when all the land of Egypt felt the hunger, the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; whatever he tells you, you shall do.” Breysheet/Genesis 41:55
They said to one another, “Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.” Breysheet/Genesis 42:21
As the story of famine unfolds the Torah tells us that Pharoah and Joseph hear and respond to the outcry of the people in need with immediacy. In contrast, the Torah gives us an insight into the thinking of Joseph’s brothers regarding their treatment of him many years previously. Only now does the Torah indicate that Joseph, thrown into an empty pit by his brothers, cried out in fear and distress, only to be ignored. The callousness of the brothers is emphasized by the Torah which tells us that immediately after casting Joseph into a pit the brothers sit down to eat, oblivious of Joseph’s screams. Twenty years later, the brothers finally hear Joseph’s screams in the context of the trouble that they now face. Because the Torah is silent about Joseph’s screams of distress, we as readers can, like the brothers, gloss over the moment with Joseph’s voice unheard moving quickly past this painful moment until the screams can no longer be ignored.
Thinking about screams evokes the famous painting by Edvard Munch popularly known simply as The Scream. My teacher, Rabbi Eliezer Diamond noted the irony that almost none of us is aware of the scream that Munch intended to portray, a scream reflected in the original full title of the painting Der Schrei der Natur, The Scream of Nature.
Munch describes the inspiration for the painting as follows:
I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature.
The figure in the foreground who seems to be screaming is actually reacting to another scream, the scream of the fire red sky, and is striving without success not to hear by covering his ears in a vain attempt to block out the shrieks that assail him.
Rabbi Diamond parses the painting as follows:
[The figure’s] mouth is open wide with shock and terror. But though he can convey that sense of horror he cannot make his friends—or us—hear nature’s scream; he alone is trapped with it inside his own head, held in, as it were, by the same hands that struggle to fend it off. His cries must seem to others to be those of a madman, because they are oblivious to the cause of his terror. Munch brilliantly expresses this by using a visual medium to depict an aural event. We can imagine the scream, but we can never hear it; a wall of silence stands between us and the anguished figure in the foreground of the painting.
Munch’s painting freezes nature’s scream awaiting the moment when we are prepared to hear it and respond to it. The recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) represents a significant step in listening to, and responding to, the screams of our planet.
In a demonstration of global solidarity, negotiators from nearly 200 parties came together in Dubai with a decision on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade – with the overarching aim to keep the global temperature limit of 1.5°C within reach. UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in his closing speech, “Whilst we didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era in Dubai, this outcome is the beginning of the end. Now all governments and businesses need to turn these pledges into real-economy outcomes, without delay and develop stronger climate action plans due by 2025.”
The global stocktake recognizes the science that indicates global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C and notes that Parties are off track when it comes to meeting their Paris Agreement goals.
The stocktake calls on Parties to take actions towards achieving, at a global scale, a tripling of renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency improvements by 2030. The list also includes accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and other measures that drive the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner, with developed countries continuing to take the lead.
While these macro-scale responses are essential, it is equally necessary that we hear the cry of nature, becoming more mindful of our environmental footprint, and changing our behavior to reflect that we hear the earth’s screams.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
Copyright © 2024 Rodef Sholom Temple. All rights reserved. Website designed by Addicott Web.
