A Righteous Man: Noah

A Righteous Man

D’var Torah for Parashat Noah

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In modern Hebrew, the word teiva has several meanings.  It’s a geometric shape—a six-sided rectangular container; it’s a musical measure, marked off by vertical bar lines.  It also signifies a word, one unit of a sentence.  A common denominator is that teiva is some sort of vessel or container, ready to be filled as necessary.

In Jewish ritual and tradition, however, the word has three meanings—and only three.  In the Noah story, teiva signifies the ark that will be filled by all the living creatures Noah will bring with him and save from the raging flood.  In a later story, teiva is the little wicker basket that Moses will be placed into and set on the waters of the Nile River. 

The third use of the word is to indicate the Holy Ark, the container which houses a temple’s Torah scrolls.

Since the word itself remains the same, it becomes clear that what we fill the teiva with is of the essence in understanding its purpose and meaning.

Noah’s Ark is one of the world’s oldest and most beloved stories.  It contains just the right amount of darkness as light, as much despondence as hope.  It is key in understanding the Jewish view of God and God’s role in the world.  It is, in its own right, a teiva—a container—for one of the most important messages passed down by humanity through its generations and evolution.  Saving life is our purpose, this story teaches us.  All life, down to that which has the merest breath of life in it.

Of course, saving a life doesn’t mean only hauling it on board (and perhaps, as in Life of Pi, learning to live with whatever form it takes, no matter how fierce and dangerous).  What Noah learns in this week’s Torah portion (simply called Noah, Genesis 6:9—11:32) is to sustain and nurture the living creatures he had saved and suddenly found himself responsible for.  It becomes up to him to feed the animals; to clean up after them; to heal them if they became sick; and to take care of any young ones born during the year or so that they all share a football-field-size boat without portholes, doors or open-air decks.

From largest to smallest, Noah learned to nourish and take care of them.

It must have been “fun” to be a zoo tender for that year.

Except for the roaring of the floodwaters outside, the thunderclaps and wild howling of the wind, the screaming of the drowning animals and humans, and the wailing of their children.

Noah learned all about responsibility that year.  With deep sadness, he understood the mistakes he had made in the past.  He realized how distracted from his true mission he had become.  Long ago, he was expected to be a great man, a righteous man, one who could talk with God.  One who would become the world’s savior.  But he was sidetracked by his callousness, maybe even narcissism.  He failed by not teaching his neighbors about the power of repentance.  He failed by being content with the knowledge that he was the only one judged righteous enough to have God talk to him, save him and his family, and entrust him with the noble task as being a savior.

Now Noah saw himself as a failed messiah.  Far from being a savior of all life, he found himself in a single teiva, a single, walnut-shell sized vessel in a vast deluge, storm-tossed and miserable, caretaker of a minute sampling of all that once existed all that had been alive just a short time earlier.

It was a humbling lesson and one which, ultimately, crushed Noah.  Disembarking from the ark, he became a gardener, a vineyard keeper who, at night, alone, would get drunk in his tent and lose himself in the sweet oblivion that soon became his only solace. 

It’s a sad ending to a life that had begun so brilliantly, with so many great expectations.

For the Torah tellers, however, this legendary moral tale becomes the precursor for a whole new storyline.  It took ten generations from Adam to Noah; ten generations from the first mindless murder of one human being by another to the understanding that there simply had to be a way to control the Evil that resided with us.  Now, with the ending of the Noah story, it would take yet another ten generations—the ten generations between Noah and Abraham—to lead us to the next step in our spiritual evolution.

It would be a journey not on water, but across land and desert; a journey taken not in silent remorse, but rather filled with an ongoing conversation, an unfolding discussion with God about the world and how it should be run.

But it will take a man more righteous than Noah, a man righteous not only in his own generation, but for all generations.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman