Parashat Noach Tells the Story of the Flood, One of the Best Known Stories in the Torah

Noach Genesis 6:9-11:32 Parashat Noach tells the story of the Flood, one of the best known stories in the Torah. G-d decides to destroy the whole world because humanity has become so evil, but spares Noah and his family. Noah is described as “righteous in his generation.” The sages disagree on whether this is a wholly positive statement or not. It would seem likely it is damning with faint praise to qualify the statement of righteousness by comparing to an immoral generation. “Good behavior” in prison, for example, is not necessarily exemplary behavior by the standards of society outside prison walls. A high school play that is deemed “great for high school seniors” is likely not a production ready for Broadway. The story of collecting the animals for the ark is full of contradictions. Was there one pair of each species or were there seven pairs of each tahor (pure) species? Richard Friedman in Who Wrote the Bible? shows how the narrative can be split into two consistent and complete stories, lending credence to the Documentary Hypothesis view that multiple narratives were interwoven to write the Torah as we know it. Once the flood is over, G-d tells Noah to come out of the ark along with his family and all the animals. G-d further tells Noah that people may now eat animals (as opposed to Adam and Eve, who were vegetarians), but that they must not eat any of the animal’s blood. Other rules of kashrut come later in the Bible and were embellished in the Talmud and by later commentators, but at this point kol remes - everything that moves - is available to be eaten. G-d tells Noah that all the animals will be frightened of humans because they can now be eaten. Rav Kook taught that the eating of meat is a temporary permission, a way to force the pervasive human desire to kill away from murdering humans. When humans become more evolved and able to live peaceably, he taught, they will practice vegetarianism. Rav Kook was himself a vegetarian except on Shabbat, when he ate a small amount of chicken to highlight his belief that the time of true vegetarianism was in the future. G-d decides in the wake of the Flood to never destroy the world again. Speaking silently (the text says G-d speaks in G-d’s heart) G-d says “I will not curse the Earth again.” However, the promise G-d makes to Noah in verse 9:11 is much more specific, promising only to never destroy the Earth by flood. The limits of the promise are reflected in the lyrics of the well-known spiritual Oh Mary Don’t You Weep: G-d gave Noah the rainbow sign No more water, fire next time We move from Noah to the story of the Tower of Babel. The Hebrew word Bavel is the name given to the city in this story and also the name of the real city known in English as Babylon. The great ziggurat of Babylon was a tower over 300 feet tall and a great feat of engineering at the time. The biblical story is presented as an etiological narrative explaining the fact that people speak so many different languages. The creation story indicates that all people are descended from Adam and Eve. The Noah narrative is a kind of reboot, where G-d starts over again with Noah and his family. So all humans would be from one family and, presumably, speaking one language. Yet those writing – and reading – the bible would know that there are many human languages. So the story of the people of a great city who build a tower with its top in the heavens explains how this proliferation of languages came to be. G-d sees the people as too powerful and makes them speak many different languages so as to confuse them, to make it harder for them to work together. The Israelites who were exiled in Babylon likely saw the great ziggurat, which stood until it was destroyed by Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. His intention had been to replace the tower, which was crumbling by that time. However, his death prevented the new tower from ever being built. The Tower of Babel story is both preceded and followed by a genealogy. As in last week’s parasha, this week’s genealogies serve as a literary device to connect two stories. This week, we learn about the generations from Shem, son of Noah, to Abram. Abram will later become Abraham and be the first of the patriarchs. The genealogy at the same time marks the end of the Noah narrative and connects it to the story of Abraham and Sarah. Haftarah Isaiah 54:1-55:5 The haftarah for Noah is one promising great things for Zion. Michael Fishbane points out that it is divided thematically into three sections. The first is a promise of restoration. Israel in exile is seen as a barren woman, always a symbol of sadness. The Tanakh knows no carefree childfree people. Zion, personified as this figure of tragedy, is told she will have many children, that she needs to expand her tent to the left and right to make room for them. By analogy, the “barren” and forlorn people will flourish. The line about expanding both to the left and the right will be familiar from Lecha Dodi. The second unit foretells a rebuilding of Zion and a resurgence of adherence to G-d’s word. And the third unit describes G-d making a renewed covenant with the people. The haftarah connects thematically to the Noah story through its promise of restoration after devastation. Just as G-d promises Noah that G-d will never destroy the people of the world again, the prophet tells us that G-d is now making a new promise to revive and sustain the people of Israel. .

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