Noach 5771

Parash Noach
Genesis 6:9-11:32 Isaiah 54:1-55:5 (Isaiah 54:1-10)

The second parsha of the Torah begins with Noah and the destruction of the world by a flood. It ends with the first mention of Abram.

There are 10 generations listed from Noah to Abram. Interestingly, Noah is considered instructive of the difference between Jews and non-Jews. The covenant (9:9) G*d makes with Noah (symbolized by the rainbow), is made as the G*d of all peoples. The Noahide laws are listed as the requirements of the covenant (1) establishing courts of justice and rule of law, (2) prohibiting idolatry, (3) prohibiting blasphemy, (4) prohibiting sexual immorality, (5) bloodshed, (6) theft, (7) and prohibiting tearing a limb from a living animal.

Yet Noah is not considered a patriarch like Abraham.

The destruction of the world in the flood is similar to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The contrast between Noah and Abraham is important. I read the entire story of Abraham back in April before a lecture by Rabbi Samuel so I remember that he advocated for the innocent among the guilty. Noah is said to have been mechanically obedient.

To quote Rabbi James Jacomson-Maisels "Jewish tradition is famously ambivalent about Noah. While Noah is praised in our parsha as "a righteous man; blameless in his age" who "walked with God," midrash complicates our understanding. According to Rabbi Judah, Noah was precisely blameless "in his age," but had he lived in future generations, he would not have been considered righteous. Similarly, while Noah "walked with God," midrash suggests that this designation is lesser than that of Abraham, who "walked before God."

Rabbi Jacomson-Maisels further captivated me with the idea "It is Abraham's readiness to act [to lessen G*d's anger], his courage, and his initiative that enable God to enter into a new kind of divine-human relationship."

In this respect, Noah's imperfections have a great deal to teach. Noah is not a perfect person. The episode with Noah's three sons is famously controversial. It expresses another curse, but unlike the previous curses in the Torah it doesn't come from G*d but a father to his son. The text actual says Noah cursed not Ham but Ham's son Canaan.

I note an interesting suggestion by the amazing Elie Weisel, that Noah's drunkenness reflects his being a 'survivor' of a holocaust.

This parsha also contains the story of the Tower of Babel. A city and a tower built under the tyrant Nimrod. Which in 11:4 we have explained is built to "make us a name". This is generally agreed to be a moral against pride. This is valid but "To make a name" something far more serious than to say "glorify" themselves. Names are like idols. 11:9 contains G*d's "confound[ing] the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them..."

This very relevant today. Information has transformed us and we are lost in it. Is it not sad and ironic that having the ability to globally communicate and share so much information we have become more and more polarized and not less bigoted? We simply more easily justify ourselves and that sickening dominate psychological impulse to self aggrandizement leads to elaborate 'internal' worlds. The paradigm has changed but we are not realizing our potential instead we are creating shrines to ourselves on facebook.

The text also says one language and one speech and this implies there is something more to the unity of people before Babel. The scattering also adds to this sorrow. If I didn't believe in G*d I would despair of the future. Yet it is precisely the messianic hope which is prefigured by yet another "Fall" in humanity. On the other hand, it would be inevitable that if population expanded it could not function in the same fashion as before. This is the question. Is diversity good? Certainly in many forms but when it comes back to the idea of G*d's transcendence those distinctions will become insignificant.

Each people, each religion, and each cult feels they will be vindicated at some point. I think most of us take the view that it can't be that simple. My new fervor makes me dread that a real ultimate battle is coming yet history tells me every generation thinks this will be its fate. However, I would do almost anything for G*d to end our misery. However, a sane person realizes we can't know what to do. Unfortunately, there are individuals who will tell someone that to do G*d's will they need to go become a suicide bomber. (Or blow up an clinic for that matter.)

G*d help those people who kill even out of love. G*d turn hate into love. Your power is infinite. Nothing is impossible for you. Preserve us. I will never give up hope for you are incomparable and cannot be conquered. Open our hearts!!!


I also noted a repetition of the command to be fruitful in 8:17 again in 9:1 and again 9:7.

9:2 also blew my mind and contains several important mitvot.

"And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all wherewith the ground teemeth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered. Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man."

This coupling of murder with eating flesh is explicit.

The haftorah directly mentions Noah by name and reflects on it in light of the Babylonian disaster. A line that struck me was:

'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD.' I55:8.

If only we could accept that G*d is greater than us~!

The violence and insanity of war is largely the attempt to define G*d for others or to make G*d's of ourselves.

In this respect, that G*d alone spares us, is very clearly the most important lesson of Noah for me.