Parashat Noah

With another go around of the opening reading of the Torah under our belts, and our heads well scratched, we plunge right into the wild waters of the chapters of Noah.

 Noah is a study in contrasts, and the debate on his merits or lack there of has been going on for millenia. Even the qualifying statement introducing Noah to the readers of the bible could go in several directions.

“…Ish tzadik tamim haya b’dorotav.. a completely righteous man in his generation…” (Gen. 6:9)

 Rashi explains there are several ways to understand this- perhaps in his own, corrupt generation he could be called a tzadik, but compared to an Abraham, he was no tzadik; or, he was righteous especially in light of the corrupt influences of his surroundings.

 Either way, the rabbis bring him to task for not taking the opportunity to influence his neighbors, for quietly building his ark, knowing full well that the world was about to be destroyed.

 The Torah tells us that the earth had become corrupt, because human beings had become corrupt. Initially human beings were created with five gates of wisdom, the five unique senses. The corruption started, of course, with the eating of the forbidden fruit, and involved an almost total sensual compromise.

 Chava (Eve) erred by listening to the temptations of the serpent with her ears, seeing the beautiful fruit with her eyes, taking it from the tree with her hands, eating from it with her mouth, and convincing Adam to eat from it as well using her speech. Only the sense of smell was not involved in the transgression, as the sense of smell is more connected to spirituality and the serpent had no sway over it. The word for smell, rei’ach, is connected to the word for spirit, ruach. Only the spiritual potential remained intact as the ground was cursed, and humanity compromised.

 When Noah left the ark and saw the desolation of the postdeluvial earth he had a spiritual reawakening of sorts.

“Noach built an altar to Ad-noy, and took of every ritually clean (kosher) animal and of every ritually clean bird, and brought up burnt-offerings on the altar.”

 The Zohar writes:

When Noah came out of the ark he opened his eyes and saw the whole world completely destroyed. He began crying for the world and said ‘Master of the world! If You destroyed Your world because of human sin or human fools, then why did You create them’ One or the other You should do: either do not create the human being or do not destroy the world!’ He offered up offerings and began to pray before Him and the aroma ascended before the Blessed Holy One and was sweet.”

Rabi continued “A triple aroma ascended to God: the aroma of Noah’s offering, the aroma of his prayer, and the aroma of his actions. No aroma in the whole world was as pleasing to Him. Therefore He commanded: ‘Be observant and present to Me in due season My pleasing aroma’ (Num. 28:2) This means: ‘Be observant: Present to me the aroma that Noah presented to Me: the aroma of offering prayer and right action.”

 It was now evident why G-d had ordered seven pairs of the “pure”, kosher animals to supplement the initial guest list entering the ark, every species two by two.

 “Ad-noy smelled the pleasing fragrance, and Ad-noy said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, for the inclination of man’s heart is evil from the time of his youth. I will never again smite every living thing as I have done. So long as the earth exists, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never be suspended” (Gen 8:21-22).

 All future korbanot, fire offerings, would have a connection to Noah.

 Now we can appreciate story of the naming of Noah by his father, Lemech “He named his son Noach, saying, “This one will bring us rest from our work and the anguish of our hands, from the soil which Ad-noy has cursed.” (Gen 5:29)

Noah (who, by the way, gets credit for inventing the plow) in a spiritual sense, merits the return of fertility to the earth and ends up smelling like a rose (at least until he toasts his success..but that’s another story…).

 May all of your endeavors leave you smelling as sweet..

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Greg

PS..Enjoy this: