Noach walked with G-d

                 (Genesis 6:9)

Tishrei 30, 5778/October 20, 2017

Noach was born into a most unpropitious moment in history. G-d was so discouraged by man's misdeeds and corrupt behavior that He was preparing to put an end to what He had hoped would become the jewel in the crown of creation: mankind. And along with mankind, G-d was intending to put an end to all land, air and sea-based creatures. Man's behavior had become so despicable that, simply by evil example, man had succeeded in defiling the animal kingdom. In short, G-d was ready to erase and delete the entire work of His sixth day of creation. But then, we are told in the final verse of last week's Torah reading, Bereshiet, "Noach found favor in the eyes of HaShem." (Genesis 6:8)

Who was Noach? We are told earlier that he was the son of Lemech, who, upon his birth, named him "Noach, saying, 'This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands from the ground, which HaShem has cursed.'" (ibid 5:29) It is curious that man, whom G-d had come to despise, still shared with G-d one hope in common: Noach.

Noach, whose name means comfort and respite, (and when its two Hebrew letters are flipped, spells chen, meaning grace or favor), managed to span the cosmic, cataclysmic gap which had opened between man and G-d. From either vantage point, Noach spelled a brighter future.

Midrash provides an insight into the healing role Noach played in the years before he caught G-d's attention and earned G-d's praise. Picking up directly from the words Lemech spoke of his newborn son, Midrash teaches us that Noach, taking advantage of the newly discovered technology of metalworking (ibid 4:22), invented the plow, effectively ending the era introduced by G-d in his words of rebuke to Adam, "cursed be the ground for your sake." (ibid 3:17) G-d did not see Noach's invention of the plow as a sleight-of-hand ploy for evading G-d's decree, but as an industrious and forthright initiative, even as a direct appeal to G-d, a holy and sincere gesture toward G-d. A speechless, but profound form of prayer.

No doubt, when G-d first enforced this "curse" on the land it was not intended to be an eternal punishment and source of misery for man. On the contrary, G-d's imposition of this "curse" was intended to prompt man to take positive action, to take his fate into his own hands, to become responsible for himself and for one another. Human responsibility was the name of the game for post-eating-of-the-fruit-of-the Tree of Knowledge man. Man took the bait (ate from the tree), and now he must live up to his potential.

But ten generations hence, just as man was sinking to depths of depravity so loathsome that he could not be redeemed, so much so that G-d is determined to wipe mankind clean from the face of the earth, along comes quiet, industrious Noach, a hope and a comfort, "a righteous man he was perfect in his generations; Noach walked with G-d." (ibid 6:9) Born into so decadent a generation, Noach managed to stay pure of heart, simple and straightforward. With plow in hand, he walked with G-d, who delighted in this man of the earth, this man who took up G-d's challenge to mankind: Let us work together to perfect the world that you live in and that I created.

No doubt a man who can create a plow that can navigate the hard surface of the earth is capable of engineering an ark which can navigate an angry sea. Perhaps this thought was in G-d's mind as he presented Noach with the next great challenge in his life, saying "Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood" and entrusting with Noach the fate of all mankind and the animal kingdom. A man of compassion, Noach performed his task perfectly, physically and spiritually traversing the floodwaters which separated man and beast from a sordid past and brought all to the shores of a brighter future.

Only after emerging from the ark, on G-d's command, did Noach share with G-d and with all of us, his children, an insight into the purity anf integrity with which he led his entire life, quietly, but constructively, in the service of G-d:

"And Noach built an altar to HaShem, and he took of all the clean animals and of all the clean fowl and brought up burnt offerings on the altar." (ibid 8:20)

"And HaShem smelled the pleasant aroma, and HaShem said to Himself, 'I will no longer curse the earth because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will no longer smite all living things as I have done. So long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' And G-d blessed Noach and his sons, and He said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.'" (ibid 8:21-22, 9:1)

Building an altar to HaShem, man's most intimate and tender appeal to his creator, is Noach's most revealing gesture, and constitutes, in and of itself, "the pleasant aroma," the re'ach ni'cho-ach (again echoing in Hebrew the name Noach) that G-d so enjoys, an affirmation that G-d's work of the sixth day was not for naught. Man will fulfill the promise of his creation. Man will become the partner G-d intended!

-The Temple Institute