Parashat Noach
October 25, 2022
Geri Bloch, High School English Teacher
Bereshit, in the beginning, we note the activities of God in the creation of our world: Separating light and darkness to bring day and night to the planet; separating water from water to bring us water and sky; separating the water below the sky to bring us Earth and Seas; bringing forth vegetation and seed-bearing plants; introducing the sun and the moon; producing living creatures in the sea and sky; bringing forth cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind; “birthing” male and female in God’s image; resting on Shabbat. The Torah reveals the architecture of the earth with step-by-step visuals that demonstrate how God’s plan for this planet has always included multivarious colors and forms to excite our senses with the loveliness of the natural world.
The physical beauty of the Garden of Eden also contains The Tree of Life and The Tree of Knowledge of good and bad, as well as the serpent-seducer. From the beginning, then, there is “ugliness” and oppositional behavior. We know this story: Adam and Eve taste the “forbidden fruit,” learn that they are naked, and are expelled from the Garden. Later on, Cain murders Abel, so we learn that though humans are created “b’tselem Elohim,” in the image of God, the choice to do good or the choice to do evil can only be made by the individual. And in Parashat Noach, many of the people in Noach’s time choose corruption and immorality, rather than righteousness.
Parashat Noach tells us that “Noach was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noach walked with God . . . .” However, the people on earth became “corrupt; the earth was filled with lawlessness. . . . all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth. . . .” Apparently good goes up against evil and evil seems to be winning. God decides to destroy every living thing by flooding the world. Noach obeys God’s direction, builds an ark, takes in seven pairs of every clean animal, male and female, and two pairs of every unclean animal male and female; God also tells Noach to bring in seven pairs of birds male and female. Every type of living creature, male and female, are herded onto the ark. Noach and his wife, and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives board the ark. Think of the diversity of color, of shape, and of size; God seems to be saying: I have created an aesthetically pleasing world and look what man has done to it! Noach says very little about God’s plan, but chooses obedience over questioning. Noach walks with God, but does Noach walk among the people to teach them how to live on the earth God has created?
The Flood. The seas can produce frothy white and aqua waves that roll along the coasts of the land; however, this flood is a malignant force bringing death to everything upon the planet, even rising above the highest mountains. The only beauty left was the gopher wood ark containing Noach’s family and the animals. In destroying God’s own creations, God seems to say that the loveliness that had been had turned ugly; God has an aesthetic sense for the land on which people reside and in the souls of the people created.
Parashat Noach tells us that “Noach was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noach walked with God . . . .” However, the people on earth became “corrupt; the earth was filled with lawlessness. . . . all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth. . . .” Apparently good goes up against evil and evil seems to be winning. God decides to destroy every living thing by flooding the world. Noach obeys God’s direction, builds an ark, takes in seven pairs of every clean animal, male and female, and two pairs of every unclean animal male and female; God also tells Noach to bring in seven pairs of birds male and female. Every type of living creature, male and female, are herded onto the ark. Noach and his wife, and his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives board the ark. Think of the diversity of color, of shape, and of size; God seems to be saying: I have created an aesthetically pleasing world and look what man has done to it! Noach says very little about God’s plan, but chooses obedience over questioning. Noach walks with God, but does Noach walk among the people to teach them how to live on the earth God has created?
The Flood. The seas can produce frothy white and aqua waves that roll along the coasts of the land; however, this flood is a malignant force bringing death to everything upon the planet, even rising above the highest mountains. The only beauty left was the gopher wood ark containing Noach’s family and the animals. In destroying God’s own creations, God seems to say that the loveliness that had been had turned ugly; God has an aesthetic sense for the land on which people reside and in the souls of the people created.
Once the flood is over and the ark rests upon Mount Ararat, God tells Noach, “I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. . . . That shall be a sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is on earth.” The rainbow, with its luminous curve of multiple colors, becomes the symbol of God’s covenant. We know that when a rainbow appears against the blue of the sky, our faces become radiant with awe at nature’s beauty. Later on in the parashah, as the people of Babel desire to build a city with a tower to the heavens, God comes down and sees how they have become too ambitious, too arrogant. God worries that with their one language, “nothing will be out of their reach.” God “confounds their speech and scatters the people over the world.” They cannot understand each other’s language; the building stops. The diversity of language and of ethnicities that the destruction of Babel creates demonstrates, once again, God’s aesthetic sense. The vibrancy and color of language and of culture make the world a living rainbow.
Human beings must make a choice to do good works, to be humble, to preserve and protect nature and the planet on which we live. God will never again destroy the earth, but perhaps it is time for men and women to restore the broken sections of the rainbow that is our planet.
Human beings must make a choice to do good works, to be humble, to preserve and protect nature and the planet on which we live. God will never again destroy the earth, but perhaps it is time for men and women to restore the broken sections of the rainbow that is our planet.
Shabbat Shalom