BS”D October 23, 2020 Potomac Torah Study Center Vol. 8 #2, October 23, 2020; Noach 5781 NOTE: Devrei Torah presented weekly in Loving Memory of Rabbi Leonard S. Cahan z”l, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Har Shalom, who started me on my road to learning almost 50 years ago and was our family Rebbe and close friend until his recent untimely death. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Devrei Torah are now Available for Download (normally by noon on Fridays) from www.PotomacTorah.org. Thanks to Bill Landau for hosting the Devrei Torah. __________________________________________________________________________________ Much of the inspiration for my weekly Dvar Torah message comes from the insights of Rabbi David Fohrman and his team of scholars at www.alephbeta.org. Please join me in supporting this wonderful organization, which has increased its scholarly work during the pandemic, despite many of its supporters having to cut back on their donations. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Mazel-Tov to one of my closest friends (who prefers to avoid publicity) on his Double Chai Hebrew birthday this Shabbat, 6 Mar Heshvan. ___________________________________________________________________________________ God created a world for humans out of a world that consisted of darkness with waters covering the world, where God’s spirit acted like a wind over the waters (1:1). Humans could not exist in such a world. God decided, out of love, to create a world for humans and make space for them. God requested that humans walk with Him, make room in our lives for Him, and obey one simple rule (not to eat from one single tree in the garden). Adam and Chava disobeyed this rule and had to leave God’s special place (Gan Eden). Further generations displayed greater and greater evil. God cursed the land. Because the land was evil, God decided to destroy the land that He had created for humans and start again. God reversed the steps of creation so waters covered the earth again. God then recreated the world the same way that he had originally created it. When the world was ready, God told Noach to take his family, spread out, and populate the land. Instead of obeying, the people congregated, first in the mountainous region around the Ararat Mountains, and then in the valley of Shinar (9:1 ff.). Rather than using God’s gifts (stones) to build homes, the people invented bricks and made them as hard as rocks. Their message was that they preferred to make their own items rather than accept God’s gifts. They also decided to build a tower to glorify their name, rather than seeking a relationship with God. Humans focused on sins were unable or uninterested in developing a relationship with God. A relationship with all humans was not an option for God, so His plan B was to focus on a relationship with selected individuals. The world needed an exemplary role model (Avram). God’s hope was that a few special individuals could influence others to work toward a relationship with God, improve the world (tikkun olam), and teach others kindness toward fellow humans (especially those less fortunate then they are). These principles recur throughout the Torah and Navi. Avram’s father, Terach, started obeying God’s desires by leaving Mesopotamia and going southwest toward Canaan. Avram continued that journey, and he devoted his life to correcting the errors (sins) of the generation of Shinar. Avram sought out new areas to populate the land, spoke out in God’s name, and intervened whenever possible to show kindness to others (chesed). When we first meet Avram, he is 75 years old. The Midrash fills in many details of Avram’s early life – details that Rabbi Yitz Etshalom shows have connections to statements in the Torah (see Devar Torah on Avraham’s early life, attached to the E-mail version). 1 The themes that emerge in the first two thousand years, from creation to Avram’s adulthood, reappear throughout the Torah. God continues to demonstrate His love to humans who seek a relationship with Him. As humans continue to fail to meet God’s desires, He lowers His standards – permitting humans to eat animals (but not their blood), finding ways to forgive sins, and offering ways to recreate the closeness that humans originally had with God in Gan Eden. Examples of God’s love for His people come out over and over in the Torah, and God’s focus on chesed as a guiding principle for humans extends beyond the Torah to all segments of Jewish history. The Midrash contains a story in which Noach asks God why He had to destroy the world and so much life. God responds that Noach should have prayed for the people during the 120 years in which he was building his tevah and telling people of the coming destruction. If Noach had prayed for the people, God would not have needed to bring the flood that destroyed so many of them. (This Midrash implicitly compares Noach to Avraham’s reaction when God told him about the coming destruction of Sodom and Amorah.) Noach was a Tzadek in his generation, but he lacked Avraham’s chesed (and insight). Without this chesed, Noach did not merit to be one of our Patriarchs. My beloved Rebbe, Rabbi Leonard Cahan, z”l, spent a huge percentage of his Devrei Torah on aspects of chesed. In those days, I did not know enough to realize that chesed is perhaps the number one theme in the Torah. This conclusion is implicit in Rabbi Hillel’s famous summary of teaching all of the Torah while standing on one foot. The more I study Torah, the more I realize that the lessons I learned from Rabbi Cahan over nearly fifty years really represent the most important lessons of our religion. These themes, which we shall encounter over and over again, already emerge in the beginning of Sefer Bereshis, before there were any Jews in the world. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Please daven for a Refuah Shlemah for Nossan ben Pessel, Yaakov Tzvi ben Liba, Hershel Tzvi ben Chana, Eli ben Hanina, Yoram HaKohen ben Shoshana, Gedalya ben Sarah, Mordechai ben Chaya, Baruch Yitzhak ben Perl, David Leib HaKohen ben Sheina Reizel, Zev ben Sara Chaya, Uzi Yehuda ben Mirda Behla, HaRav Dovid Meir ben Chaya Tzippa; Eliav Yerachmiel ben Sara Dina, Amoz ben Tziviah, Reuven ben Masha, Moshe David ben Hannah, Meir ben Sara, Yitzhok Tzvi ben Yehudit Miriam, Yaakov Naphtali ben Michal Leah, Ramesh bat Heshmat, Rivka Chaya bat Leah, Zissel Bat Mazal, Chana Bracha bas Rochel Leah, Leah Fruma bat Musa Devorah, Hinda Behla bat Chaya Leah, Nechama bas Tikva Rachel, Miriam Chava bat Yachid, and Ruth bat Sarah, all of whom greatly need our prayers. Note: Beth Sholom has additional names, including coronavirus victims, on a Tehillim list. _____________________________________________________________________________ Hannah & Alan _____________________________________________________________________________ Drasha: Noach: Window to the World by Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky © 2001 [Please remember Mordechai ben Chaya for a Mishebarach!] Did you ever stop to imagine what life was like inside of Noah’s ark? There were three floors; the middle floor was filled with a collection of the world’s animals wild, domestic, and otherwise. Birds and critters of all shapes and sizes, vermin and an endless potpourri of creepy crawlers whose pesky descendants bear witness to their survival during that tempestuous period. Then there was a floor of refuse. There was no recycling center, and no sewage system that I am aware of. The humans had the top floor. Cramped in an inescapable living space was Noach, his three sons, their wives and one mother-in-law. I think the rest of the scenario can play clearly in our minds. Surely, it was far from easy. What intrigues are the detailed architectural commands that Hashem gave Noach. Hashem details measurements and design for an ark that took 120 years to build! Why? Are there lessons to be learned from the design of the design of the ark? After all, Hashem promised that there will be no more floods. If there are no more floods, then there need not be any more arks. So what 2 difference does it make how it was built. Obviously, there are inherent lessons we can learn from the design of the ark. Let’s look at one. Noach is told to build a window. It seems practical enough; after all sitting for an entire year can get awfully stuffy. So Noach is commanded to build a window for breathing room. It is a little troubling. Does Noach need a command to add something so simple as a window? Does it make a difference whether or not he had a window? Did that command have to be incorporated into the heavenly plans for an ark that would endure the ravaging flood? A renowned Rosh Yeshiva, tragically lost his son to a debilitating disease at the prime of his life. Not long married, the son left a widow and a young child. The Rosh Yeshiva and his Rebbitzin were devastated at the loss and the shiva period was a most difficult time. One of the hundreds of visitors was the Bluzhever Rebbe, Rabbi Yisrael Spira, whose entire family was wiped out during the Holocaust. He sat quietly, taking in the pain of the bereaved family. Finally, when it was time to say something, Rabbi Spira turned to the Rosh Yeshiva and spoke. “Your loss is terrible, but at least your son will have a living remnant, his child. He will also have a resting place and stone where the family can visit. I do not even know where any of my children who were killed by the Nazis are buried.” Then he added, “yet somehow Hashem has given me the strength to rebuild my family and life.” Those words truly helped console the Rosh Yeshiva.