Parshas Noach

The world had spiraled into violence, corruption, and immorality so thoroughly that Hashem decided to start over. But one man, Noach, stood apart, righteous in a generation that had lost its way. Hashem told him to build an enormous raft/ark, and for 120 years, out in the open, he hammered away while the world laughed at him. Then the skies broke open. Waters burst from the ground and poured from the heavens for forty days and nights, swallowing cities, mountains, and everything that breathed. Only Noach, his family, and the animals sealed inside the ark survived, tossed on a world-sized sea for a year. When the waters finally receded and the ark came to rest, Noach stepped out and gazed into a silent, empty world. The Zohar Chadash records Noach’s first moments when he left the ark. He cried out to Hashem: “Master of the Universe, You are called Compassionate! You should have had mercy on Your creations!”

Hashem’s answer is shocking yet devastating. “Foolish shepherd! Why are you speaking now? I told you a flood was coming and gave you 120 years to build an ark so that you would plead for mercy and pray for the world. All you did was save yourself and your family.”

Rashi, on Hashem’s command to build the ark (Bereishis 6:14), asks why Hashem burdened Noach with a massive 120 year construction project built out in the open when He had countless ways to save him. His answer is oddly worded. So that the people would see him building for 120 years, and ask what it was for, and so that he could answer them that a flood was coming, and perhaps they would repent (Sanhedrin 108b). Why the chain of so thats and perhapses? Why not simply say the ark was meant to help Noach inspire them to repent?

Because Hashem could not command Noach to do it. Noach had to choose to care. So Hashem engineered the entire situation, a giant, strange structure in plain view that would prompt questions, so that Noach would be pushed to answer, to engage, to argue for the world. Every step was set up for him. And Noach never took it.

When the truth of that finally hit him, the Torah tells us what happened next. Noach planted a vineyard, drank the wine, and fell into a drunken stupor (Bereishis 9:20-21). He could not bear the shame of what he had done, and what he had failed to do.

Noach was given a real mission. He preserved the animals of the world and the future of humanity. But he treated that mission as a reason to focus on himself. The lesson is that no matter what directive we believe we have from Hashem, no matter how important our mission is, we are part of a community, and we are responsible for the people around us. A mission that makes us stop looking at others has gone wrong somewhere.

May Hashem help us see the people around us, give us the courage to speak up for them when it matters, and in that merit may we be zoche to build a world that Hashem wants to preserve.