Noach 2022
In this week's Torah portion, the people of the world are drowned and Noach — the one tzadik, righteous person — is saved from death in a tevah, an ark. Noach is not the only person in the Torah to be saved from death in a tevah; the other is Moshe, who is floated down the Nile in a tevah to escape death. The Zohar says that Moshe is a reincarnation of Noach, put here to repair Noach’s soul for Noach’s sin of being silent, of not praying for the world or trying to save it from destruction. The name Noach itself in Hebrew means rest or passivity.
Moshe was, at first, not unlike Noach, refusing to take action when he was asked by God to save the Jewish people from Egypt. At Mount Sinai though, when the Jewish people sin through worshiping the Golden Calf and God wants to save Moshe and destroy the people, Moshe says, “If you destroy them, please erase me from your book”. The Hebrew phrase for “erase me” is “micheni”. The Zohar points out that the word micheni is the same letters as the words “mai noach” — “the waters of Noach”. Moshe, by changing and becoming someone who prays for others, someone unwilling to let others perish while he saves himself, has repaired the sin of Noach, the sin of passivity.
Noach is frustrated by his own inability to act, which is why in the aftermath of the destruction he gets extremely drunk, so much so he has no idea what he is doing and remembers nothing. To be depressed and at a loss in the aftermath of destruction is not surprising. Lot, similarly, just after what he thinks is the destruction of the world, also gets so drunk he does not remember what he is doing. To see a world destroyed and not take action leaves one feeling impotent, which is perhaps why both Lot and Noach sin sexually in their post-apocalyptic drunkenness (Talmud Sanhedine 70a). From Lot’s incestuious act comes the people of Moav and eventually Ruth, David, and redemption; but for Noach, no redemption comes until Moshe finds the ability to take action and save the People of Israel.
On this Shabbat we must think about our mission as individuals. How can we not just close ourselves in an ark, but ask what must we do for the Jewish people and the world? What is the source of our soul, our work of repair, which we were put here to accomplish?
