In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Noach, we encounter our tradition’s take on the classic flood myth so prevalent in cultures arising in the Fertile Crescent. Beyond the common, recorded experience of societies endangered by proximity to river flood plains, the larger theological lessons of the Torah’s version offers myriad insights. God decrees humanity as unworthy of continuation, invoking a “comic mulligan” due to, amongst other sins, “chamas,” usually translated as “lawlessness” or “violence.” The rabbis further interpret this to refer to all kinds of criminal treachery. But through the prism of our current climate crisis, as floods and other weather-related crises threaten our very survival, one can read the lawless violence of humanity as our affront to nature, our negligence of its consequences, and our inevitable decline as a civilization if we do not respond and remedy. Thus, the rainbow at the end of the tale, a sign that God will never again bring destruction, serves as a stark warning of our capacity to become the means of our own demise if we do not act.
I remember learning that the first laws of Judaism were given after Noah survived the flood. Googled, and found them here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah. it marks the beginning of the concept of making laws and provides very basic guidance for general behavior.
It also marked the end of human sacrifice and severe animal cruelty. They are call the Noahide Laws.