This week's parasha is in honour of Kolel's Rabbinic Director, Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, who is the 2005 recipient of the Covenant Award for Exceptional Jewish Educators.

Noah (Gen. 6:9-11:32) for Nov. 5, 2005

We don't have a choice of what we're dealt in life, we only can choose how to play with the hand we're given.

Study with Baruch Sienna

This year's cycle of weekly Parasha study explores what connections and insight we can find by examining the Torah portion together with the Haftarah.

This year's cycle of weekly Parasha study explores what connections and insight we can find by examining the Torah portion together with the Haftarah.

This week we read the familiar story of Noah and the flood. The Haftarah taken from Isaiah, (54:1-55:5) includes an explicit reference to Noah: "For this to me is like the days of Noah: As I swore that the waters of Noah nevermore would flood the earth, so I swear that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you." The story of Noah illustrates that God cannot stay angry forever. After the flood God promised (in fact, made a covenant) to never again flood the world (I guess recent tsunamis and hurricane disasters excepted). Just like God made a covenant with Noah and his descendants, God would restore Israel to Zion.

The word 'brit' (covenant) and the expression 'lo... od' (not again) and the root 'tzedek' also appear in both the Torah and Haftarah. Sections from this week's haftarah portion are also read on Shabbat Re'eh and Shabbat Ki Tetze.

Our highlighted verse taken from Ashkenazic reading (Sephardim conclude the haftarah at the end of chapter 54) somewhat ironically goes on to invite all who are thirsty to come for water.

Scholars identify this 'deutero-Isaiah' (from chapters 40 on) as a different author from the Isaiah ben Amotz identified in Isaiah 1:1. The 'Second Isaiah' preached in Babylonia in the sixth century BCE and brought a message of consolation to Israelites who had been captured and exiled.

If the Torah were a movie, this week's parasha of Noah could well be titled: Breishit: The Sequel. Because in many ways, it is the story of Re-Creation. Last week the Torah opened with the world covered in water, and this week, water destroys the world and God starts over. After the flood, as the water recedes, the earth emerges from the water, with echoes of Creation as described in last week's parasha. Even Noah is like a second 'Adam' as all of humanity can be traced to Noah, and Noah is blessed (with a blessing that is usually more associated with Adam): 'to be fruitful and multiply' (Gen. 9:7).

But Noah, while parallel to Adam, takes our relationship with God up one level. Noah is the first person that enters into a covenant with God. God sets the rainbow in the sky as a sign of this covenant (Gen. 9:12-13). (Upon seeing a rainbow, the traditional blessing is: "who remembers the covenant [with Noah] is faithful to it and keeps promises"). Noah is still passive; although he builds the ark, we never hear Noah speak. Further, no expectations nor demands are put on Noah for his part of the covenant. Next week, Abraham, will continue this trend with a mutual (ie. two sided) covenant with God, reflecting an even stronger relationship with God. (This concept of covenant is stressed in the Haftarah and the relationship between God and Zion is even described as a (healed) marriage, with the husband (God)

Needless to say, the motif of water is pretty central to this week's portion. And the (Ashkenazic) Haftarah reading continues with the first five verses of chapter 55, where Isaiah compares water and food to God's spiritual teaching. The Talmud in fact uses this verse from Isaiah as the 'prooftext': Water means nothing but Torah, as it says: "Ho, everyone that thirsts, come for water (Isaiah 55:1)." Baba Kama 82a. Isaiah may have been familiar with the imagery, used by the earlier prophet Amos:

A time is coming, declares Adonai my God, when I will send a famine upon the land;
Not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of Adonai. (8:11)

Water is a common metaphor for Torah, and the midrash in Song of Songs has a long list of qualities of water that are analogous to Torah. (See What the Torah is like...). Still, I find it surprising that the Rabbis chose to include this image of Torah as water for the week we read of the flood! Most of the examples they give in Shir HaShirim Rabbah favourably compare the Torah to water. However, they allow that, "Just as someone who does not know how to swim is drowned in water, so is Torah - if one doesn't know how to 'swim' one can drown in it" (Shir HaShirim Rabbah I:19).

And I think there is a profound spiritual message in this. Water, of course, (like its opposite, fire) can be a source of life and blessing (just a few weeks ago I wrote about rain and dew), or a force of destruction and devastation. The point is that water, like the rest of nature, has no moral value and is neither 'good' nor 'bad.' By comparing Torah to water we are cautioned that while Torah can be a source of wisdom and great spirituality, even it can be [misused] to be harmful. The Rabbis even compare Torah to a 'drug' (making a pun on the Hebrew word sam: which spelled one way means 'placed' and spelled another means 'drugs.' Used improperly, even the Torah can be poisonous (Taanit 7a). Everything in life has potential for good and for bad.

Like water, events don't have intrinsic meaning; they have the meaning we assign them. This is true of personal tragedy, for example. We've all heard of a family or an individual who has suffered a terrible loss. Sometimes they are poisoned by it, and become depressed or bitter, while other times, the same tragedy has propelled them into becoming the greatest mitzvah and tzedakah doers. One of the greatest human abilities, is not to find meaning in random events, but to make meaning from them. In his one man show, 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal describes life as being dealt a hand of cards. Some people are dealt a royal flush, or a full house, or a simple pair of twos. We don't have a choice of what we're dealt in life, but we can choose how to play with the hand we're given.

Shabbat Shalom.

BDS