Parshat Noach: Parshah ResourcesGenesis 6:9-11:32 |
God's Covenants with Noach and Abraham (from the Bnei Noach section of our site)The climax of the flood is God's covenant with Noah, which is the basis of the universal covenant with mankind and the 7 Noahide Laws. The concept of covenant numbers and their meaning is introduced, as well as a discussion of the seven principles of faith for non-Jews. |
Noah's Ark and the Gift of Cosmic SpeechThe gift of speech is much more than a means of communication. It is our God-given talent to reach out to our surroundings — and ultimately to all of creation — to incorporate it into our consciousness and create something new. In this audio lecture, Harav Ginsburgh explains how Noah's microcosmic ark parallels the macrocosmic spoken word, outlining how we can use our spoken words to connect with all the cosmos and create new reality. Read More…
Three Dimensional SpeechIn Hebrew, the word “ark” (תֵּבָה) also means “word.” The Ba’al Shem Tov, the mentor of Rebbe Levi Yitzchak’s master and teacher, the Maggid of Mezeritch, learnt from this that all the instructions for building Noah’s Ark are instructions for how to ‘enter into’ our words by expressing our essence through the articulation of words. The Kedushat Levi expands on this idea. FROM NOAH’S RAINBOW TO ISAAC NEWTON’S PRISMIn the Torah portion that relates the establishment of the covenant between God and Noah (and all generations to come) by means of the rainbow, the word “covenant” (בְּרִית) is repeated seven times. These seven appearances of the word “covenant” allude to the seven colors of the rainbow studied and documented by Isaac Newton, and to the seven Noahide commandments. Surviving catastropheIn Parashat Noach, humanity undergoes two great catastrophes. The first is the flood – the holocaust that annihilates all of humanity and all land-life except those who survive in Noach’s ark. The second catastrophe is the dispersal of humanity to all ends of the earth as a result of the collapse of the Tower of Babel. In last week’s parashah, Parashat Bereishit we learnt of the first crisis in human history – man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden following Adam and Eve’s sin. These are the first three catastrophes that visited humanity. |
Noach: Daily Insight #1Parshat Bereisheet ended with God’s utter repugnance from creation. Mankind was the crown of all of creation and because of its abominable behavior God felt remorse at having created the world. Therefore, God decided to wipe away reality with a deluge, while saving a single righteous individual, Noah, and his family. The rest of the parshah relates how from Noah’s offspring and the animals that were saved with him in the ark, the world was repopulated. It also introduces us to the first covenant made between the Almighty and mankind, the covenant made with Noah (also known as the Noahide Covenant), reinstituting the relationship between God and creation and reaffirming God’s commitment to sustaining the universe. Thus, where the theme of the first parshah of the Torah, Bereisheet, was of course the creation of the world, Chassidic teachings focus on God’s reaffirmation of creation as the main theme of the second parshah, Noach. In this article we will look at these two themes and see how they are joined together in the Torah….Read More… |
Noach: Daily Insight #2Every child (and therefore grandchild) is considered a filling, or fulfillment of the parents. In other words, to completely realize one’s potential requires procreation. Without this, something of a person remains forever concealed (even from him or her self) and sterile. Thus, the two stage filling of a word represents its total fulfillment; its complete realization and extension into reality. The two stage filling of בראשית, the word that represents creation more than any other, represents the total fulfillment of creation itself in both the figure of Noah and in the theme of reaffirmation of creation found in parshat Noach. Noah represents the fulfillment of all the potential inherent within the heavens and the earth, just as the children and grandchildren embody all the potential inherent within their parents….Read More… |
Noach: Daily Insight #3“Ark” (תבה) in Hebrew also means “a word.” Our teacher, the holy Ba’al Shem Tov, stressed time and again, that as an enduring spiritual lesson, the construction of Noah’s ark instructs us on the proper way to construct the words that we speak, specifically, but not limited to, when we pray before the Almighty and say words of Torah. The most important instruction of all, explained the Ba’al Shem Tov, is that just as Noah was instructed to “go into the ark,” so we too must “go into” our words, that is invest our whole self in every word that we utter….Read More… |
Noach: Daily Insight #4Unlike other languages, which have naturally evolved, the Hebrew language is the language with which God created the world and everything in it. Whatever an object’s name is in Hebrew is its essence. Therefore, it follows that if we could access the letters—i.e., the essence, from which an object’s name is constructed—we could manipulate those letters to create a different word, thereby transmuting one object into another….Read More… |
