Noach
Genesis
6:9-11:32
Précis: The story of Noah (Hebrew: Noach)
and Flood appear in this parasha. Noah, called by God, builds the Ark and
collects the animals. It rains for forty days and nights. Noah and his family
are saved, and afterwards leave the Ark, build an altar, and make sacrifices to
God. God sets a rainbow as a promise not to destroy mankind again. Noah plants
a vineyard, makes wine, and becomes drunk. An odd incident with sexual
overtones takes place with his sons. The story of the Tower of Babel is
included in this parasha, and it ends with a genealogy of the ancient peoples
of the Bible, concluding with Abram.
Gen.
11:1-9 “All the earth had the same language…and as man migrated from the
east they settled in the valley… and they said, ‘let us make bricks….and let us
build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let us make us a name,
lest we be scattered all over the earth.’ Adonai came down and said, ‘If, as
one people with single voice this is how they have begun to act, then nothing
will be out of their reach. Let us go down and confound their speech.’ Thus
Adonai scattered them across the face of the earth.”
This parasha includes the story of two different building projects. The first,
of course, is Noah’s Ark, which is built strictly according to the dimensions
and plans that God transmits to Noah. The second is the Tower of Babel, which
is built by the inhabitants of that land (all of humanity!) according to their
own desires. The first succeeds, the latter fails. What are we to make of
this juxtaposition?
Rashi notes that the building materials for the Tower were significant:
the inhabitants had to make bricks, because they lived in a valley where stone
was not available. Ibn Ezra adds that the inhabitants’ use of bricks showed
their belief that they themselves were the creators of their world, and they
were free to ignore God’s role in creation. These commentaries seem to point to
the conclusion that we succeed when we act with knowledge of God’s
involvement in the world, but fail when we ignore His role.
Today tech advances come faster than we can cope with them. It’s a fact that
many alive have witnessed the introduction of radio, television, passenger
aircraft, computers, smart phones, and the internet. The pace of change is by
far the fastest in history. We are also proud that Israel is among the world’s
leaders in technological advancement.
Nevertheless, this reading reminds us that the Tower of Babel was a remarkable
technological achievement for its time. Humanity suffered a disastrous fate
when it forgot God’s role in their achievements. Noah succeeded by following
God’s plan, and that the Tower fell when the people of Babel allowed their
pride in their own achievements to ignore the Divine. In the face of all of the
contemporary achievements, we need to temper our pride and thank the Creator
who has endowed us with the ability to make remarkable progress.
