NOACH_GENESIS VI:9-XI
Noach represents a second chance for the human being. After ten generations, starting from the time of Adam and Eve, God decides to destroy humanity, start again, and populate the earth with the seed of Noach. This decision was due to the immoral behavior of a man who violated the laws that the first one had received. According to Jewish tradition, God had entrusted six basic standards of conduct to mankind through Adam, but his offspring quickly turned away from their fulfillment.
Debauchery reigned, the fundamental laws against incest were violated, and the property of others was disrespected. God selected Noach because he had not been infected by the behavior of his contemporaries and demonstrated that it was possible to adhere to be different and faithful to the teaching of his ancestors. Although the Tora qualifies Noach as an Ish Tsadik, “a righteous man,” some expositors consider that denomination to be relative. It was so when compared to his peers of the time, but had he lived in the generation of the patriarch Avraham, he would not have received the same recognition.
God decided to eliminate humanity by way of a flood. It would rain steadily for many days, and waters would also gush from the interior of the globe. The surface of the earth would be flooded and only fish would survive the disaster. To ensure the continuity of the human being and the animal world, God ordered Noah to build an ark, a boat, of considerable dimensions to house a pair of each species so that the earth could be repopulated. From some animals, he managed to gather seven pairs.
The Tora specifies the dimensions of this ark, which was approximately one hundred and eighty meters long, thirty meters wide, and eighteen meters high. A huge boat for that time. However, Ramban questions these dimensions and suggests that they were totally inadequate to shelter specimens of each of the animals and birds. Especially when we take into account that it was also necessary to carry enough food for a whole year, the dimensions mentioned are insufficient. What did Noach do to include specimens of each of the species?
According to Ramban, it was all due to a miracle. Wonderfully, the ark was able to include all these animals. Ramban goes on to ask: if a miracle was necessary, why was such a large ship built? Any boat would have been enough since everything depended on a supernatural event. Ramban replies that the dimensions of the ark were intended to attract the curiosity of the people, who constantly inquired why it was being built. In this manner, Noach could warn everyone about the Divine purpose of destroying the world, unless men and women altered their immoral behavior. According to the Midrash, Noah took one hundred and twenty years to build the ark, long enough for every human being to realize the danger that awaited from the breach of the laws that Adam had received.
The flood occurred because mankind did not respond to Noah’s warnings. Ramban asks: why was it so? Why didn’t the people respond to this Tsadik’s exhortations? Ramban suggests that the attitude of the people was a consequence of Noah’s lack of conviction. According to him, Noah did not believe that people would react to his warnings; therefore, his approach was not effective. He thought his attempts were in vain beforehand. Noah’s lack of confidence in the possibility of Teshuva, and his fatalistic notion about the impossibility of change in human behavior was additional factor that led to the disaster.
According to an interpretation by Rabbi Meir Shapira, founder of the Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, the rainbow that appeared in the heavens after the flood was a sign – a Brit – that God would never repeat a flood to exterminate mankind, at the same time was a message addressed to Noach. The rainbow appears many times after a storm when clouds come between the sun and the earth’s surface and unleash their fury through thunder and lightning. The rainbow is a demonstration that, even in moments of greatest daytime darkness, there is a possibility for the sun’s rays to penetrate through the clouds so that the sky looks illuminated and in full color. The rainbow was a sign for Noah and his offspring.
Just as nature can change from darkness to light, so is the capacity of man to regenerate, to embark on a process of Teshuva, a return to the ethical roots that Judaism preaches, and this should not be underestimated. The light of study and spirituality can penetrate and eliminate the clouds of intolerance and aggressiveness, the result of ignorance and adulteration of values. The Noach rainbow represents a second chance for human being.
