Noah 5785: The Rest of the Story

GOOD MORNING! While everyone is familiar with the biblical story of Noah’s ark and has most likely seen cartoon drawings of the ark, there are many aspects of this story with which the vast majority of people are unfamiliar. I therefore decided to compile a list of facts culled from the Torah and rabbinic sources that you likely did not know about this seminal tale.

• Noah is the only person in the entire Scriptures to be described as a tzaddik – wholly righteous.
• Noah lived a very long life. Abraham, born ten generations later, was 58 when Noah died.
• According to one opinion, the ark contained 900 rooms each 12x12 (the typical size of a room on a modern cruise ship).
• Noah even took demons on the ark to save them from the flood.
• According to one opinion, the light inside the ark was generated by a precious stone (no, there weren’t any flood lights).
• Noah came out of ark limping because a grumpy lion was annoyed that his food arrived late and swatted him.
• The general living conditions on the ark were fairly horrible – imagine a year of 24-hour animal feeding schedules handled by only a handful of people in a mostly dark and smelly environment.
• The raven refused to reconnoiter at the end of the 40 days and 40 nights to see if the land had dried because he was concerned that Noah would elope with his mate. Noah sent a dove instead.
• The dove found an olive tree and came back with a branch signifying that the flood was over and that things had started growing again. God had made peace with the world, and forevermore an olive branch came to be a symbol peace.

This week's Torah portion opens with:

“These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9).

As mentioned, Noah is the only person in the entire Holy Scripture to be described as a tzaddik – a “righteous” person. It is, in my mind, equally fascinating that the only person in the entire Torah to be called a tzaddik is in fact a non-Jew. God actually tells this to Noah directly, “You and your family shall enter into the ark; for you have I seen to be righteous before me in this generation” (Genesis 7:1).

The Almighty goes on to tell Noah that he should gather all the animals and birds and bring them onto the ark. Noah did as he was told; “And Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him” (Ibid 7:5).

Finally – and only as it began to rain – Noah gathered his family and entered the ark, “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.” (Ibid 7:7).

The famous Biblical commentator known as Rashi quotes a rather astonishing teaching from the sages on this verse. The midrash states that Noah – like the rest of his generation – was lacking in emunah (often described as “faith”). For this reason, he did not enter the ark until the waters began to run over his ankles. In other words, he didn’t enter the ark after God told him to go in; it was the waters of the flood that compelled him into the ark.

This is a stunning statement. How is it possible for Noah – who the Torah describes as a tzaddik – a wholly righteous person, to have a lack of faith? What exactly was he missing in his faith – he was quite literally having a conversation with the Almighty! What does he not “believe”? How is there any possibility for him to have any kind of doubts whatsoever?

Maimonides (1138-1204), the great Jewish philosopher and codifier of Jewish law, authored a work known as a Sefer HaMitzvot – a complete listing of the 613 commandments found in the Torah and a brief description of each.

This compilation of all the mitzvot begins with the very first mitzvah, “The first commandment is that we are commanded in belief – emunas – of God. That is; He is the origin and cause of all that exists and He is the power behind all of existence. The source of this mitzvah is found in (the first sentence of the Ten Commandments); ‘I am the Lord your God […]’” (Exodus 20:2).

Nachmanides (1190-1270), another famous medieval Rabbinic scholar and philosopher – and widely regarded as the greatest of his generation – wrote a commentary on Maimonides’ Sefer HaMitzvot. Nachmanides comments on the points in the work with which he disagrees.

On this very first commandment Nachmanides asks an absolutely devastating question: How is it possible to have a commandment requiring a person to believe in God? A commandment by definition implies a “commander” – so if you have a commandment then you already believe in God who issued the command. If you do not believe in a “commander” then you cannot have a commandment. It is circular logic.

For this reason, Nachmanides disagrees and says that belief in the Almighty is a requirement and prerequisite to all the commandments, and it is therefore not to counted as a separate mitzvah.

I believe that Maimonides has a fundamentally different understanding of what emunah means and it does not mean belief or faith.

It is important to understand that Judaism is not a religion of “belief,” it is a religion that requires a knowledge of God. This is, in fact, what Maimonides writes in his magnum opus on Jewish Law known as Yad HaChazaka, “The foundation of all foundations and pillar of all wisdom is to know that there is a First Being Who brought everything into existence” (Mada 1:1).

Maimonides clearly states that we are commanded to “know” that there is a God and not to merely “believe” in a God. Knowledge is a much higher level of certainty, and that is the very foundation of Judaism. In a prior edition I explained this in greater detail (for more information, see Shabbat Shalom on Parshat Eikev).

Every translation is an interpretation. For this reason, it is particularly important to always look at the origin of words and their usage in their original context. A full accounting of the sources for the word emunah in the Torah is beyond the scope of this article, but it seems to be rooted in the concept of being ever-present. A man with his faithful servant or his faithful dog refers to the fact that they are always with him.

The word for this in English is immanence – and a very obvious cognate of the Hebrew word emunah. I believe that Maimonides is describing that the first commandment is to affirm the immanence of the Almighty. In other words, we must constantly be aware and act as if we are continually in the presence of the Almighty. We are commanded to affirm the ever-presence of the Almighty in our lives. (This is also why the word amen (also related to the word emunah) means, “I affirm.”)

Man was created with a desire for self-fulfillment and self-achievement. This is often manifested in the negative trait of self-indulgence. Simply put, we want to do what we want to do and not be constrained by an outside source. At a basic level, when we sin we are saying to God: “You’re not the boss of me and I can do whatever I want.”

Like Noah in this week’s Torah portion, every time we do something that we know is wrong or particularly bad for our health (smoking, overeating, etc.) it involves a cognitive dissonance – some version of “I know this is wrong, but I want to do what I want to do.” Thus, when we sin we are actively ignoring the ever-presence of the Almighty, and it is a failure of the responsibility of affirming His immanence in our lives.

This means that, of course, Noah knows that God told him to go into the ark. The fact that he does not go into the ark until the waters compel him to enter is not a failure of him not “believing” that the flood was coming. Rather his action is one of defiance – like every sin of every human – an assertion that he wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. It’s a failure of affirming of living in the ever-presence of the Almighty.

The only human to ever overcome this and achieve living in the ever-presence of the Almighty is Moses – but that’s a conversation for another time.

Noah, Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

Noah is the story of one righteous man in an evil generation. The Almighty commands Noah to build the ark on a hill far from the water. He built it over a period of 120 years. People deride Noah and ask him, “Why are you building a boat on a hill?” Noah explains that there will be a flood if people do not correct their ways. We see from this the patience of the Almighty for people to correct their ways and the genius of arousing people’s curiosity so that they will ask a question and, hopefully, hear the answer.

The generation does not do teshuva – returning from their evil ways – and God brings a flood for 40 days. They leave the ark 338 days later when the earth has once again become habitable. The Almighty makes a covenant and makes the rainbow the sign of the covenant that He will never destroy all of life again by water. When one sees a rainbow it is an omen to do teshuva – to recognize the mistakes you are making in life, regret them, correct them/make restitution, and ask for forgiveness from anyone you have wronged as well as from the Almighty.

Noah plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and then occurs the mysterious incident in the tent after which Noah curses his grandson Canaan. The Torah portion concludes with the story of the Tower of Babel and then a genealogy from Noah’s son, Shem, to Abram (Abraham).