The story in short
This week we read Parashat Noach, the story of the great flood. Humankind had become corrupt, so God decided to start again. Noah was a righteous man.1 God told him to build an ark and to enter it with his family and the animals. Noah did this. The flood came, with forty days of rain, and the waters stayed for about a year. Then Noah left the ark, and life continued.2
But what does this story mean for us today?
The ark is also a word
The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement, taught something special about this story. The Hebrew word for “ark” is teivah. The same word also means “word.”
So when God says to Noah, “Go into the ark,” it is true that He spoke to one man who built a real ark and saved humanity. But to us, the message is: go into the word.3
Today’s flood
Society, with its values and pressures, can be like a flood. In many parts of life it is dangerous.
The speaker gives an example from his own work. He builds mobile apps. When you put an app in the Apple store, the rules say that an app with free access to the internet must be rated for ages 17 and up. Even the big technology companies admit that there is a flood and that it is not safe for everyone. This is not only a problem for Jews or for non-Jews. Everybody has problems with society.
So how do we get saved from the flood? God told Noah to build an ark. In the same way, He tells us to build a word, and to go into it. This means the words of Torah, the words of prayer, the words of connection to God, and the words of morality and ethics. Go into the word, and you will be saved from the flood.
The speaker then points out two details about the ark that teach us two lessons.
Lesson 1: Bring light into the word
God also told Noah to make a tzohar for the ark.4 The commentators explain that this was a source of light.5
If the ark is a word, then we must also bring light into our words: our learning and our prayer. But wait: the Torah itself is already light.6 So what does it mean to bring light into it?
One answer is that it is not enough to learn the text, the stories and the laws. We must learn with enthusiasm and with feeling. We must know that we are learning God’s wisdom. It is holy and very high, and God gave it to us so we can know Him and connect to Him. When you know what you are reading, it is not like reading the sports page of the newspaper. It becomes an uplifting experience.
Lesson 2: Leave the ark
After the flood, God told Noah to go out of the ark.7 This seems strange. First God says, “Go into the ark to be saved.” Now He says, “Go out.”
The answer is simple. It is not enough that we are saved while the rest of the world is destroyed. We cannot stay in our own little room, our own world of Torah, and feel that everything is fine for us. We must go out and influence other people. We must teach, and bring the word out, so that others also have an ark.
Noah’s shortcoming
Our sages say that this is one of the reasons why Noah is not so well regarded in the Zohar in different places.8 He saved only himself and his family: his wife, his children and their wives. He did not influence one single person from the whole world.
Therefore we must also do this. After we enter the word, we must go out into the world, to bring God’s message to all of humanity.