* TORAH WEEKLY * Highlights of the Weekly Torah Portion Parshas Noach For the week ending 3 Cheshvan 5755 7 & 8 October 1994 ========================================================================= This issue is dedicated in the memory of Mr. Bernard Harris O.B.M. 17 Elul 5754 ========================================================================= Summary It is now ten generations from the time of the first man, Adam HaRishon. Man has corrupted the world with immorality, idolatry and robbery, and Hashem resolves to bring a flood which will destroy all the earth's inhabitants except for Noach -- the sole righteous man of his era -- his family and sufficient animals to re-populate the earth. Hashem instructs Noach to build an ark in which to escape the Flood. After 40 days and nights, the flood covers the entire earth, even the highest mountains. The water covers the earth for 150 days, and then begins to recede. On the 17th day of the 7th month, the ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat. Noach sends forth first a raven and then a dove to ascertain if it is safe to leave the ark. The dove returns, and a week later Noach again sends the dove, which this time returns the same evening with an olive branch in its beak. After seven more days, Noach once again sends forth the dove, which this time does not return. Hashem then tells Noach and his family to leave the ark. Noach brings offerings to Hashem from the animals in the ark which were carried for this purpose. Hashem vows never again to flood the entire world and gives the rainbow as a sign of this covenant. Noach and his descendants are now permitted to eat meat, unlike Adam. Hashem commands the Seven Universal Laws: Prohibitions against blaspheming Hashem, idolatry, theft, forbidden sexual relations, murder, eating the meat of a living animal ; and the positive command to institute a legal system. Noach plants a vineyard and becomes intoxicated from its produce. Ham, a son of Noach, delights in seeing his father drunk and uncovered. Shem and Yafes, however, manage to cover their father without looking at his nakedness, by walking backwards. For this incident, Ham is cursed to be a slave to slaves. The Torah lists the offspring of Noach's three sons from whom are descended the 70 nations of the world. The incident of the Tower of Bavel results in Hashem fragmenting communication into many languages and the dispersal of the nations throughout the world. The Parsha concludes with the genealogy of Noach to Avram. ========================================================================= Commentaries "These are the offspring of Noach -- Noach was a righteous man" (6:9). The essential offspring of a person are his righteous acts. Just like a person nurtures and cares for his offspring, sparing no love or effort to perfect them, likewise one should behave toward one's good deeds. One should lavish love to perfect even the least promising of them, as one would do with one's children, for no-one considers even the least of one's children insignificant. (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein) "The dove came back to him in the evening -- and behold, it had plucked an olive leaf with its beak" (8:11). By bringing back a bitter olive leaf in its mouth, it was as if the dove was saying to Noach "Better that my food be bitter and from the Hand of the Holy One, Blessed be He, than sweet as honey, and from the hand of man" (Rashi). During its stay in the ark, the dove had been obliged to rely on Noach for food in order to survive. It brought back a bitter olive leaf that it would normally eat to express an idea that our Sages teach: The most bitter food eaten in freedom is sweeter that the sweetest food eaten in captivity. (Rabbi S.R. Hirsch) "Then Hashem said to Noach, `Come into the ark, you and all your household'..." (7:1). The word in Hebrew for ark is Teiva, which also means word. Throughout the history of the Jewish People, both in times of oppression and assimilation, our only refuge has been to "Come into the Teiva"; to come into the "word". That word is the word of prayer uttered from a contrite heart; that word is the word of the Torah, which has proved itself to be a "Noah's ark" for all our household throughout all of history. (Ba'al Shem Tov) "G-d will extend Yafes, and he will dwell in the tents of Shem" (10:27). In this verse the Torah hints at the historic relationship between Greece and Israel. Yafes, the progenitor of Yavan -- Greece -- was blessed by Noach with aesthetic sensitivity. Shem, from whom Yisrael is descended, was blessed with spirituality and holiness. Noach's blessing was that the contribution of Yavan-Greece will be significant only if "he will dwell in the tents of Shem". Aesthetics has a value only to the extent that it is harnessed to the goal of spirituality. Otherwise, it may become a pretext for immorality and hedonism. "Truth is Beauty", but what is beautiful may not necessarily be true. The truth of beauty can only be made manifest when it serves the spiritual. The seeker of beauty, the artist, is sensitive and easily moved. But the tragedies of history bear eloquent testimony to the fact that sensitivity to beauty is not enough to guide Man. Without an external ideal which directs his perception and expression of beauty, man descends to immoral hedonism. He can build temples of passion, and call them tents of a new godliness, golden calves and deify them as the purpose of existence. (Based on Hamek Davar and Rabbi S.R. Hirsch) ========================================================================= Haftorah: Isaiah 54:1-10 Just as in the Parsha this week, where Hashem promises never to bring another flood to destroy the world, so too the Haftorah carries Hashem's promise never to exile the Jewish People after the redemption from the current Exile of Edom. The Parsha depicts the terrible flood which destroys the earth and its myriad creatures at the decree of the Merciful G-d. It looks like the end, but it is, in reality, the beginning. Out of the ashes of a degenerate world sprouts the pure seed of Noach. Similarly, the destruction of the First Beis HaMikdash, and the dispersal of the Jewish People is like a "flood," which superficially seems like a total disaster. The Prophet tells that rather than being the ruin of the nation, in reality this was its preservation, and like a mother left lonely and grieving, Zion will be comforted when the galus (exile) has achieved its appointed task of purification, and her children return to her. ========================================================================= Ani Ma'amin The Rambam's 13 principles of faith Introduction: Next week we begin a series of reflections based on The Rambam's (Maimonides') Thirteen Principles of Faith - "Ani Ma'amin" which literally means "I believe". Each of the Thirteen Principles begins the same way: "I believe with a perfect faith..." The obvious question is: How can faith be perfect? Isn't perfect faith a contradiction in terms? Isn't faith something that by its own nature can never be perfect? The answer is, that the word in Hebrew for faith, "emuna", is really better translated as "faithfulness". Judaism is not based on `leaps of faith', but rather on faithfulness to a verifiable transmission of historical events. An analogy might be as follows: A patient goes to a doctor. The doctor makes an examination and is fairly certain that the patient requires surgery. To confirm his view, he sends the patient to another doctor, who concurs with the first doctor. The weight of medical opinion is now 90% in favor of operating. However, when the surgeon takes up his scalpel to make an incision, he operates with 100% of his skill, not 90%! Similarly, although faith by definition cannot be 100%, faithfulness can be. The Jewish People have a perfect faithfulness to Hashem, based on a historically verifiable encounter with the Creator at Sinai, and the witness of history to the truth of the Torah's predictions. We are faithful to Hashem and His Torah, not because of leaps of faith, but because of a well-lit highway of transmission from our forbears at Sinai onward. Rabbi Uziel Milevsky ========================================================================= Yachad -Together The Ohr Somayach Electronic Alumni Newsletter. Keep up with the latest happenings at Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem. Find out about current rabbis & former alumni. -> Available via Internet! <- To subscribe, send the message: sub os-alum {your full name} to listserv@jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il The premier issue will be sent out soon, so subscribe today! ========================================================================= Spend this coming Winter Break in Israel for as little as $599 -> JLE Israel Winter Seminar '94/'95 <- 3 weeks of study and touring, optional Ulpan, and structured encounters with Israeli Dignitaries Departure December 22 Optional free week Jan 8-15 For Jewish men between the ages of 19 and 30 with demonstrated academic achievment and a sincere motivation to explore their roots. 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