Crow and Raven: Noah's Scouts

In Vancouver, crows own the evening sky. Every evening, as pink light fades to purple, 16,000 crows head home. They leave their day jobs of foraging in family territory and return to a communal roost in the trees by Still Creek, Burnaby. And every evening, a million human heads look up and watch the winged parade.

The Hebrew word for “crow” and for “raven” is orev. This same Hebrew word also means “evening,” “mixture,” and “pleasant.”  A single word, for a singular moment of the day: as the sky is lit with mixed colors, gradually evening into midnight blue, crows fly overhead, pleasing their amazed human fans.

Charles and I were so pleased that one evening we drove out to Burnaby to watch the crows gather. The gathering was part theatre, part horror movie, and thoroughly real life. Crow central is so busy and intense, that visitors have to rely on past associations and images to sort through what they see. So, I delighted as group after group of dancers performed improvisational aerial ballet. Charles cringed as rows of alien creatures with swords for mouths stood at attention on their branches. And we both covered our ears, because crows tend to yell when they’re in a crowd.

But if you catch crows in a small group, in a quiet spot, at a peaceful time of day, you may overhear a conversation – like I did at Scott’s Bay, Nova Scotia. The words were crow: caws, cackles, and odd rolling sounds. But they were arranged unmistakably into sentences, shared in the give and take of conversation. Biologists have documented and begun to analyze this language. No doubt some people can speak it.

And if you’re trouble in the wilderness, ravens may rescue you, like they rescued me from a foolish adventure in Colorado: a solo hike across windy tundra at 12,000 feet, on my first day out, with my lungs still operating at low sea-level efficiency. After only an hour, my thinking wasn’t linear, my hands and feet were tingling, my swollen limbs were triggering my chronic nerve pain; when I tried to write in my journal, illegible scrawlings came out. I must have looked pretty bad.

And suddenly: “Croa-oa-oa!” A raven was calling. A passing flock had slowed to a circle and was trying to get my attention. I tried to focus through the mental fog and I made a plan: put one foot in front of the other, stumble back to the trail, walk to the road, drive to the ranger station, ask for oxygen. The ravens escorted me until I reached the trail.

As you may know, most of the animals in the story of Noah’s Ark have only a small walk-on part. Only two animals have significant roles: Orev (crow or raven) and Yonah (dove).

After forty days of continuous rain, followed by months of floating, Noah decides to check the global water level. He sends Orev on a reconnaissance mission. Orev flies out and back until the waters recede. Noah sends Yonah. Yonah cannot find a perch, so she comes home and perches on Noah’s arm. Seven days later Noah sends her out again, and she returns with a torn olive leaf. Seven days later Noah sends her out again, and she does not return.

When we imagine this scene, we draw on our associations and images of these birds. As a child, I only knew Orev as a shouting, mobbing bird. So, when I read about Orev’s role on the ark, I imagined him as crazy and stubborn. He misunderstands his mission; he flies around in circles; and he’s no help to Noah whatsoever. But then sweet Yonah gets it right. No wonder she’s the ancestor of the homing pigeon.

But now, as an adult, I understand Orev’s skill set. Each morning, he heads out on his own and each evening he returns to his large flock to debrief the day. He speaks a complex language woven of words, syntax, and gestures. He can learn human words, and use them correctly in new situations. His range includes every earthly landscape, from high alpine tundra to low seaside grove. And he’s a keen observer of human life.

Obviously, Noah sent Orev on a mission Orev completed perfectly: to fly out and back each day, and to let Noah know when there was enough dry ground to send Yonah out on a mission suited to her skills: a good sense of direction, and a keen eye for nesting materials available at ground level.

Our sages, writing 1500 years ago, knew about the range of human responses to Orev. In one midrash, Orev asks Noah, “Why send me on this dangerous solo mission?” And Noah answers, “You’re not kosher, so I can’t eat you or offer you as a sacrifice. What good are you to the world? Who cares if you don’t return?” But God intervenes to educate Noah and says, “One day, Orev will feed a righteous human being.” God is referring to a Biblical story in which ravens feed the prophet Eliyahu, as he hides out from forces of political evil.  (Bereisheet Rabbah 33:5; I Kings 17:6).

This midrash is from the Bereisheet Rabbah midrash collection. Bereisheet Rabbah presents one key message in a thousand variations: God created the universe as a well-ordered web of cause and effect. Even if times are dark for the Jewish people, God has seen to it that we will survive and thrive. This particular midrash about Noah teaches that God’s help may come in surprising packages, even through the feet and beak of an orev.

Another midrash teaches that Orev knows we are part of the same web of family. Here, Orev tries to talk Noah out of sending him on the reconnaissance mission. Orev says, “Noah, you brought only two of my species onto this boat. If I go out and something happens to me, my mate will be alone and my species will cease to exist…unless… maybe you’ve thought of that and you’re sending me away so that you can marry my mate?” Noah finds the idea ludicrous. (Talmud Sanhedrin 108b)

When I first read these midrashim, I was shocked that our sages thought Noah could be so clueless about the animals he cared for. Then I realized that they were not writing about Noah, the biblical character, but about Noah, the lone human being responsible for preserving planetary life – in other words, capital E Everyone. We are the ones who are clueless.

We need to enter the Torah’s mindset, and the sages’ mindset. Because, when it comes to Orev, their stories are not mythological. Crow really does talk. Raven really does rescue. And many birds really do see human beings as part of their flock.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow invited rabbis across North America to observe Shabbat Parshat Noah as Earth Healing Shabbat. When it comes to healing the earth, our scientific challenge is to understand global ecology. Our social challenge is to implement our knowledge. And our spiritual challenge is to change our perception so that we really do see and hear our fellow species – affirming that the one God created us all, and expects us to manage together in this giant ark we call planet earth.

— Laura Duhan Kaplan, 2010

Image: http://api.ning.com