Parashat Noach: Building Arks of Light and Speech

David Ben-Ami

Boker tov, and welcome. Wherever you are, and whatever the light looks like outside your window right now, I'm glad you're here. This is a short morning reflection: one passage, one teaching from the sages, and a blessing at the end. Today we're in this week's Torah portion, Parashat Noach.

David Ben-Ami

Here is the verse. Genesis, chapter six, verse nine. Noach ish tzaddik tamim hayah bedorotav; et haElohim hithalekh Noach. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. The word tzaddik means a righteous person, someone of moral uprightness and integrity. And I'd like you to notice one small phrase in the middle: bedorotav, in his generation. Two little words, and the sages argued over them for centuries.

David Ben-Ami

Rashi, the great medieval commentator, preserves the debate, and it goes back to the Talmud, Sanhedrin 108a. Some of the sages read the phrase as praise. Noah was righteous even in his generation, a generation of violence and corruption. So imagine how much greater he would have been if he'd lived among righteous people, with good examples all around him. That's the view of Reish Lakish. And his parable is a flask of perfume lying in a rubbish heap. Even there, its fragrance is sweet. How much sweeter it would be in a clean place.

David Ben-Ami

Other sages read the same words as a quiet criticism. That's Rabbi Yochanan. Noah was righteous compared to the people around him, but had he lived in the time of Abraham, he would have counted for little. And his parable, from Rabbi Hanina, is a barrel of wine kept in a cellar full of vinegar. Among all that vinegar, its fragrance is noticed. Take it out of that cellar, and the aroma is too subtle to be sensed.

David Ben-Ami

There's a second hint in the verse. Noah walked with God. But about Abraham, the Torah says he walked before God. Rashi explains that Noah needed God's support to hold him up in righteousness, while Abraham walked in his righteousness by his own strength. And you can see the difference in the stories. When God announces the destruction of Sodom, Abraham argues and pleads for strangers. When the flood is announced, Noah simply builds. A later Hasidic teacher, the Kedushat Levi, suggests that Noah saw himself as no better than anyone else, and so he never imagined his prayer could change anything.

David Ben-Ami

What I love is that the tradition doesn't force a winner. Both readings stay on the page, side by side. And maybe that's an invitation. Some mornings we're the perfume in the rubbish heap, doing our best in a hard place. Other mornings we're the one who ought to be asking whether we could do a little more. Both can be true, and neither has to crush us.

David Ben-Ami

Now let's talk about what Noah actually did. Rashi, quoting the Midrash, points out something lovely. The verse says, these are the generations of Noah, and then, instead of listing his children, it says, Noah was a righteous man. The lesson, says the Midrash, is that the real offspring of the righteous are their good deeds. That's what we leave behind. That's our legacy.

David Ben-Ami

And the thing Noah built was a teivah. That's the Hebrew word for ark, literally a floating chest. The Torah uses it only twice: for Noah's vessel, and for the little basket that carried baby Moses on the river. But in later Hebrew, teivah also means a word. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, noticed that. When God says, come into the teivah, he heard: enter into the word. Enter into words that are honest, careful, and kind. In a flood of stress, or cynicism, or harsh talk, we can build a small shelter out of the way we speak.

David Ben-Ami

And listen to the detail he adds. God tells Noah to make a tzohar for the teivah. Rashi says some of the sages thought this was a window, and others thought it was a precious stone that gave off light. Either way, the ark had a source of light in it. The Baal Shem Tov taught that our words should do the same, that they should shine outward. A shelter of good words should never become a locked fortress. It should be a place with a window, so that others caught in the storm can see a little light.

David Ben-Ami

One more thing about the building. Rashi, drawing on the Midrash, says the work took one hundred twenty years, so that the people of his generation would see him building, and ask what it was for. Perhaps they would change. So building goodness in public, patiently, year after year, is itself a kind of invitation.

David Ben-Ami

And then the flood ends, and the Torah gives us a brit. That's a covenant, a binding promise. God says never again will a flood destroy the earth. And the sign of that promise is the keshet, the rainbow. But keshet also means an archer's bow. Nachmanides, in his commentary, records an old reading: this is a bow turned upside down. Its ends point toward the earth, and there's no string and no arrow. It's the way a soldier holds a weapon when calling for peace.

David Ben-Ami

And notice where it appears. The Torah says, when I bring clouds over the earth, the bow will be seen in the cloud. Rashi reads that as the moments when darkness is on its way. The rainbow doesn't wait for a perfectly blue sky. It shows up in the clouds. And when we see one, the sages teach us to say: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, zokher habrit, neeman bivrito, vekayam bemaamaro. Blessed are You, Lord our God, Sovereign of the universe, who remembers the covenant, is faithful to the covenant, and keeps Your word.

David Ben-Ami

So let me offer you a blessing for this day. May you have the clarity to build small arks today, out of kind and honest words. May you have the patience to keep building, even when no one seems to notice. May you leave a window in your ark, so your light can reach someone who needs it. And when clouds gather, may you catch sight of the rainbow in them, and remember that hope and renewal are steadfast. Have a good day, and a good week. Shalom.