Parshat Noach
The Book of Genesis
October 11th-12th, 2002
6 Cheshvan, 5763

How very fitting that the Day School here in Savannah has canceled school this Friday morning, on the eve of the Sabbath when we read the portion of the Great Flood (Mabul), because of--you guessed it--last night’s heavy thunderstorms and the resultant flooding in low-lying areas!

Don’t worry: there’s no major deluge here or anything (nothing quite like the biblical account, nor even the Gulf Coast in recent weeks), but evidently it’s soaked enough so that the school administration has decided that kids should remain home today. In my family, the charming holiday atmosphere--gleeful children unexpectedly rescued from the yoke of learning, and free to happily frolic about the halls--speedily degenerated into an awful bout of angry bickering, bullying, screaming, whining and whimpering.

Aha, I said to myself, as my thoughts sought refuge in G-d’s word from the chaos around me, Now I have an idea of what it must have sounded like in the Ark during that year…

It was no luxury cruise ship voyage, no holiday-at-sea, for Noach and his wife, his three sons and their spouses. Our Sages tell us that it was a round-the-clock, 24-7, ministry tending to the needs of all the variegated animals on board. (No leisurely morning coffee breaks, or late-night cross-legged reminiscing about the antediluvian era.) The Midrash tells us that Noach emerged from the Ark with battle scars: coughing blood from the battering physical demands of the experience, or, alternatively, nursing a wound from the attack of a lion incensed at the slow service. (See Rashi on 7, 23) I wonder if there weren’t moments when, as spiritually elevated as he was ("Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations…"—6, 9), and as cute as those koalas must have been, Noach didn’t just consider bailing out…walking the plank…jumping Ark!

He must have strengthened himself by repeating a die-hard rule of G-d’s governance of the world: He never gives us tests that we can’t handle. (Whether Noach with the animals in the Ark, or the Edelsteins with their kids in the house.)

But why was such a strenuous regimen necessary? Our faith, after all, teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, is omnipotent (and benevolent), and if it wasn’t meant to be Club Med, well, then, it didn’t have to be—pardon my French—the Voyage From Hell either! What exactly was going through the Almighty’s mind?

To find an answer, we turn to the great Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, zt’l, trusty navigator on the often strange seas of rabbinical exposition and Jewish mystical thought. (Michtav M’Eliyahu: II, pp. 155-56)

Rav Dessler first reminds us of what the Torah tells us about the nature of the society that G-d decided to destroy. "Now the earth had become corrupt before G-d; and the earth had become filled with chamas…G-d said to Noach: ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with chamas…" (6, 11 and 13).

"Chamas" is a Hebrew word that is difficult to define precisely…though it may well be approximated by the values of the present-day Palestinian terrorist group that eerily bears that name! (I don’t know what it means in Arabic.) Some translate it as "robbery," others as "violence." Onkelos (the classical Aramaic translation of the Torah) renders it as, "seizing" or "grabbing." Rabbi Eli Munk, in The Call of the Torah, expounds on its special connotation:

"…it is chamas [and not open robbery] which leads society to its destruction.

The word means a crime committed through cunning or malice, a crime  which human justice has not the means to pursue, a crime which only the  voice of conscience could prevent."

The Midrash famously illustrates just how deeply the Generation of the Flood was afflicted with this sin of calculated taking. A person would be coming from the marketplace with a container of peas, and a group would surround him and rob him. However, each perpetrator would take only a single pea: because of its insignificant value, he could not be prosecuted in the courts of law. (Whether we in our society have reached this level of cunning criminality, with some of our CEO’s allegedly cooking books with the help of their accountants, is up to each of you to decide. Best to carry your umbrella with you in any case…)

Although the Generation of the Flood was guilty of other transgressions as well, notably widespread sexual immorality, our Sages tell us that the verdict of destruction was sealed ultimately because of chamas. Rav Dessler notes that such a "society" destroys itself really, severing as it does all bonds of trust between people--and this is hinted at in the very language of the verse quoted above: "The end of all flesh has come before Me." In other words, G-d says, this society has on its own come to this, it has spiritually destroyed itself.

If the root cause of the destruction, then, was the spirit (and perfection) of taking, the only possible salvation—and protection—from G-d’s awesome decree was the spirit of giving. As Rav Dessler explains, it was only through the extraordinary and arduous giving that Noach and his family were called upon to bestow to the remnant of life on the Ark that they were able to weather the storm of the Mabul (Flood). In natural terms, this poor wooden Ark, as massive and weather-proof as it was, could never have survived the boiling and tempestuous waters. What kept them alive, safe and dry (if utterly exhausted), was the miraculous power of giving and kindness that they displayed--the saving grace of chesed.

It was this trait of giving that they had to embody in order to survive the Flood (sent to wipe out a generation of consummate takers). It was only a life of complete kindness, and other-centeredness, that could prepare them to be the pioneers in the new world G-d was creating, and to succeed in this second chance He was granting for His beloved (if frail) free-willed creation, mankind.

In short, G-d needed to teach Noach and his family--and the rest of us--that the only kind of vessel that could possibly make it through the Flood was…a Love Boat!

And, indeed, that is the only way we can really make it through these tough times for our people, and spiritually grow even as fear and destruction (and floodwaters) seem to mount in the outside world. To study our Torah of Life, itself G-d’s greatest gift of kindness to man, and embody the chesed/kindness to all of Creation that it teaches.

The S’fas Emes beautifully notes that the Hebrew for "ark" and for "word" are (remarkably) identical: teyva. Our salvation, our Ark (teyva), in this world of selfishness and grabbing, is every word (teyva) of the eternal Torah! We need to enter into them, and let their meaning enter into (and transform) us, and with their help, to strive to become as righteous as Noach, as Moshe, as Avraham and Sarah and all the rest of our great forebears. They were conscious of G-d (and His expectations) every second of their lives…and careful to honor their fellow man, created in His image. They were consummate givers, every last one of them.

Let me tell you something personal. Not only is this Shabbos that of Parshas Noach….it also happens to be my Hebrew birthday. And I’m turning—ugh, you guessed it, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t deny it—40! Yes, the very number of days and nights that G-d caused it to rain down upon Noach’s contemporaries…and a number with very much significance in Jewish thought. (That’s for another time…hopefully before I turn 50.) Our Sages in Avos tell us that a 40 year-old attains Bena, a deeper level of insight and intellectual comprehension. I hope that will prove to be true in my case…I certainly know that I seem to need greater and greater levels of caffeine to even stay awake to muddle through my days, much less attain profound Torah insights!

But I do have sufficient insight at this point (after three cups of Arabica) to know that I need on the eve of this awesome day, to thank my parents, the rest of my family, all of you dedicated and thoughtful friends and readers for all that you’ve given me. And especially, my dear wife, Ivy, who is the greatest and most constant giver in my life…in spite of the barking she sometimes endures from her [considerably] older spouse!

I also thank my beautiful children…to whom, like Noach with his restive animals, I must now turn my attention…for all that they give me, which is not only aggravation.

It may not always be fun to get older, as you know—despite rabbinical reassurances—but I am deeply thankful for the life, joy and health G-d has kindly given me. (And as they say, it’s better than the alternative.) I thank You, Hashem, for having brought me to this day…and to the end of this week’s parsha sheet.

I sincerely wish you all a good Shabbos. May we continue to study Torah together…and soon rejoice as one people, united, in Jerusalem, speedily in our days.

GOOD SHABBOS!

My e-mail address is yosefe@comcast.net

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Rabbi Yosef Edelstein, Savannah Kollel. Phone: 912-351-0469; fax: 354-9923