ROUGH
DRAFT
A
management audit of the Sedre Noach נֹחַ
My
daughter's torah portion for her Bat Mitzvah was
from Noach, which is Genesis Chapter . It is hard to believe
that it is 3 years since then, and my sweet,
intelligent, considerate little girl has become a, a, a, teenager.
I
have always thought of Noach as two children's stories,
something to read to one's children (or one's nephews and neices)
before bed time, and not really worthy of serious consideration.
One of the reasons why I admire Rabbi Jonathan so much is that he
challenged me, as part of my preparation for my daugher's
Bat Mitzvah, to review the story and find some meaning in it.
And I did. Since that time, Noach has become one of my
favorite sedres, because it has the first recorded engineering
triumph and the first recorded engineering fiasco. As an
engineer, applying scientific knowlege to the solution of practical
problems, I want to know why one project succeeded and the other
failed. Failure is instructive
So,
let us compare and contrast the two projects from an engineering
perspective. Generally, when auditing a project, we look at
things like mission (was the project really doable?), were there
cost, funding, or political problems?, was the technology available
adequate for the project? Was the schedule correct, or did they
try to get it done too fast, or perhaps not fast enough? Were
they properly organized to accomplish the mission? For example,
the military and the Boy Scouts are organized hierarchically; while
the internet is highly distributed: both organizations work.
|
Comparison
|
The
Ark
|
The
Tower of Babel
|
|
Mission
|
To
save all life as we know it from devine disaster
|
Self
agrandizement (Gen
11:4)
|
|
cost
and funding
|
No
mention of any funding or cost overrun problems
|
No
mention of any funding or cost overrun problems
|
|
Technology
|
A
very large wooden ship.
There are some limits to the unit strength of wood which
suggests that the ark is unseaworthy: long period waves would
create stresses in the structure that should cause the ark to
break in two. In fact, the Torah records that a wind blew
(Gen
8:1), which would cause long period waves. Finally,
there is no mention of watertight bulkheads, lifeboats, or
survival suits. The only mention of life support ( waste
disposal, life boats, survival suits, medical) in food Gen
6:21. No mention of navigational aids, propulsion.
So
the technology is only marginally up to the task.
|
A
large tower made of fired bricks.
Bricks are very strong in compression. Bricks were
also a proven technology. True, it would be difficult to
build a tower much higher than about 9 Km (30,000 feet) high, but
there is archaeological evidence that suggests they got no higher
than 21 m (60 feet).
So there seem to be no technology
problems. (note 1)
|
|
Schedule
|
Clearly,
the job has gotta get done before the rain starts. Gen.
7.4 says 7 days, but I think that is the time to load all of
the animals onto the boat.
|
No
mention of any schedule constraints.
|
|
Organization
|
General
manger is Noah, working under contract (a covenant) with G-d.
The management team includes Noah's sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth,
and Noah's wife.
From the text, it appears that the
management team is well organized, focussed, capable.
However, after the mission is completed, the team breaks down
somewhat (Gen
9:20).
|
There
is no clear chain of command, decisions are made by consensus.
At the beginning of the project, things progress fairly well.
|
|
What
went wrong?
|
Noah
;x{n has a lack of vision - he sees only his task. When
given his task, he doesn't question his orders, as Abraham will do
when G-d contemplates the destruction of Sodom and Gemmorah (Gen
18:24) Once his task is finished (and he did a brilliant
job), he really has nothing to do. He develops an
existential crisis which he deals with by drinking and excessive
sexuality.
|
When
G-d confounded their language, the people were no longer able to
meet and plan and execute agreements. Clearly the project
failed because of a massive communications failure which caused
the organization to cease functioning.
|
Frederick
Brooks, in The Mythical Man-Month, stops at this
point, because he wants to make a point about the importance of good
communications. However, I am a Jewish
engineer, so I am going to go on a little bit further and discuss the
will of G-d.
My
experience, based on what I have learned and also on the basis of
informal chats with The Almighty, is that G-d can be crystal clear
when he so chooses, and cryptic as anything else when he chooses not.
So, for example, Moses
asks G-d, "what is your name?" and G-d
replies "
Eyeh, asher Eyehi
"
(
i
(
אֶהְיֶהאֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה
)
which is clear as mud.
On the other hand, there is a
commandment, "Thou shalt not murder"
Hebrew i
לֹא תִּרְצָח lo
tiryzaḥ. Clear as a bell.
If there is one message that comes
through the Torah
loud and clear, it is the demand for social justice. Over and over
and over again to the point where it gets monotonous, we are
commanded to do The Right Thing. However, The Right Thing is
not beyond our capabilities - we are not expected to have god-like
perfection.
A
copy of this discussion can be found on my website,
http://www.commercialventvac.com/noach.html.
This page also includes definitions, links to additional
commentaries, and links to translations and online renderings of
the Hebrew. The rest of my website is also
available for your perusal.
Definitions
and descriptions
The
words in italics are roman transliterations of hebrew words. I
want to learn how to render hebrew on a web page - the Israelis do it
using .GIF files.
-
Bat
Mitzvah (Feminine) or Bar Mitzvah (Masculine)
-
Literally
the son of commandment or the daughter of commandment - it is the
rite of passage into adulthood for Jewish children. Reform and
some conservative
-
Engineering
Fiasco
-
Engineering
Triumph
-
Sedre
-
The
torah is (informally) divided into portions, one for each week.
But it gets complicated because some hebrew years have 4 or 5 weeks
more than others. The hebrew calendar is pretty cumbersome,
but it was the best that could be done given the technology of the
day and it works well enough. Besides, we had our Y2K crises
3700 years ago! Each portion is called a sedre. However,
a Bar or Bat Mitzvah kid doesn't read an entire sedre (for that
matter, seldom do Rabbis), but just a section of it, which is the
kid's torah portion.
Additional
notes and links
This
sermon will be delivered in October, 1999.
This is a picture of
the Western Wall in Jerusalem, taken only moments ago and courtesy
of DrawNear
ministries.
A
commentary by Hillel Halkin with an introduction by (I think)
Rabbi Robert Orkland. of
Temple Israel, Westport, CT.
Three commentaries from the
Rasheit Institute for Jewish
Spirituality: Corruption
- Rabbi Rami Shapiro; Noah's
Silence - Rabbi David Blumenstein; Parashah
5758 - Rabbi Rami Shapiro.
This is a painting of the Tower
of Babel done by some Israeli web designers, Way
Out Web.
The structure is probably unsafe due to
earthquakes, but there is no mention of earthquakes. In other
places, G-d causes the earth to open (Deut.
11:6 ) and the earth to stop rotating on its axis (Joshua
10:13 ), so it seems reasonable that G-d could cause an
earthquake. An earthquake would cause a large loss of life, and
G-d has other effective means at his disposal to deal with his
issues. In any event, it seems unreasonable to attempt to
design against the will of G-d, and even today, Acts of God are a
valid defense in tort law.
This occurs is several places, Deut.
5:17, Ex.
20:12, and in Lev (). However, the translation in the
Interlinear bible I am unhappy with. They translate the
word as "kill" where the JPS bible and the Plaugh
commentary translates it as "murder".
The
Mythical Man-Month : Essays on Software Engineering
by Frederick P., Jr. Brooks Addison-Wesley Pub Co; ISBN: 0201835959
.
