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Parshat Noach
2002
Two Arks
Now that we have turned from the Jewish holidays into October, all of us should be floating comfortably into autumn. Here in Columbus, Ohio, the leaves are turning, beginning to display a hint of their perennial divine journey into their mini-deaths, as they change from their luscious summer green to their weathered edges of yellow, orange and red. They are a reflection of a world that is replaying a familiar script: the hunkering down, the building of protective walls for the oncoming harshness of winter. And we, vulnerable as we are to the winds of winter, also prepare ourselves for being indoors. Our sukkot - our last attempt at summer wilderness camping - have been dismantled and stored, the gutters get cleaned, the fireplace flues are opened, the wood piles accumulate beyond back doors, and Sunday afternoons are spent watching our football teams as afternoon shadows descend in the yard (apologies to the fans of the Fall Classic).
Long ago, our ancestral parent, Noah had his own preparations to make before Nature overcame the world. God asked him to build that ark, for protection against the looming tempest. But perhaps the ark-building project was about more than protection from the rising waters.
About the man Noah, the rabbis wondered, why is his name mentioned twice in the first verse of the parsha, "eilah toldot Noah, Noah ish tzaddik tamim hayah be-dorotav?" "This is the line of Noah, Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age." (Genesis 6:9) They answered: Noah gave birth twice, once to the generation that followed him after the flood, and once to himself. Namely, through lifelong and momentary preparation, he raised himself to become the person that he was meant to be, the one person that could lead a generation through the storm. Just as he fashioned an ark that would serve as his floating zoo, he shaped himself to behave as a righteous person in a lawless world.
In the Torah, the word used for the ark Noah built is "teivah." Only one other time in the Torah is this word used. Can you guess where? Think for a moment. Where else is someone rescued by floating on the water? Yes! Yocheved placed Moses in a teivah to save him from the Pharoah's evil decree of murder. There are two teivot in the Torah, one for Noah and one for Moshe.
Genesis 6:13-14
God said to Noah, "I have decided to put an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy the earth. Make yourself an ark (teivah) of gopher wood; make it an ark with compartments, and cover it inside and out with pitch."
Exodus 2:3
When she could hide him no longer, she got a wicker ark (teivah) for him and caulked it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the back of the Nile.
Your Torah Navigator
1. What did those two teivot have in common?
2. Why is water the medium where the "saving" occurs?
3. Where else in our sacred narrative is water the vehicle to escape from destruction?
A Word
In modern Hebrew, the word teivah is used as a word for "box." In Rabbinic Hebrew, teivah also means a "word" in the Torah scroll. Ever look at the parchment from a little distance? Every word crafted by the sofer (scribe) appears like a little box. Perhaps our sages chose this very word, teivah intentionally to teach us that every word of the Torah is a little box, or ark, or basket that can save us. The words of the Torah are meaningful because they are windows to our past. But they also transmit meaning through our study of them, our meditating on them, our interpreting them and our sailing on them through the storms of our lives.
Like Noah, who built the teivah and in the process gave birth to himself, we give birth to ourselves when we open the teivot of the Torah and allow ourselves to be floated into the refreshing waters in them, with them, surrounded by them. In the process, we sustain Judaism and nourish ourselves as well. Without Noah, his teivah had no purpose. Without Moshe, his teivah had no purpose. Without you, the teivot of the Torah have no purpose and sit lonely inside an ark in a synagogue, which perhaps not coincidentally, is also called a teivah.
Prepared by Rabbi Misha Zinkow, Assistant Director, Hillel at Ohio State University.
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