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נֹחַ
Noach / Noah
Genesis 6:9-11:32
Isaiah 54:1-55:5
1 Peter 3:18-22 

     On the surface, this parsha appears as if it were just a story about Noah, the ark, the rainbow and the Tower of Babel, but within these pieces of history, are hidden gems.
      Genesis 6:9 begins with the character of Noach: ‘This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.’
    Verses in the Brit Chadasha confirm his righteous character. 
    Hebrews 11:7 confirms this: 'By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.   2 Peter 2:4-5 ‘For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher (an example) of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly…’ 
     Genesis 6:11 states that ‘The earth was corrupt before God, the earth was filled with violence.’ This says that the earth was corrupt before God, not corrupt in the sight of man nor before man.  When man is swallowed up in his own lawlessness, he becomes oblivious to the lawlessness.  The Hebrew wording in Genesis 6:11 is V’atimahley ha’aretz chamas’ (And the earth was filled with violence). 
     While God is giving Noach the instructions for building the ark, He includes the instructions to make a ‘window’ in the ark. Genesis 6:16 ‘You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.’
     The Hebrew word for window in this sentence is tzohar   צֹ֣הַר.   Since "tzohar" does not appear anywhere else in Scripture, there is debate on what exactly the word means. The sages agree that it is referring to a light like a source of illumination. They teach that the tzohar is what will give light within the ark itself even in the darkness.  Some say this was a window and would then be related to tzahorayim, meaning midday.  Therefore, the light would come from the sun. Others say that it was a precious stone that would illuminate and shine. The latter view relates the Hebrew word tzohar to zohar (radiance) which suggests something that radiates its own light, hence creating the idea of a miraculous, precious stone.   Another view is that Noah had both, which most agree with, since he would need a light in the darkness.
       Are we not constantly in storms and some in darkness?  Yet, we too have that illuminating light, the tzohar to guide us.  
      Psalm 27:1 ‘Of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’
     Psalm 119:105 ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’
     1 John 1:5-7 ‘This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Yeshua, purifies us from all sin.’
     Noach never questioned the commands of Adonai: ‘Noah did everything just as God had commanded him” (6:22). “And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him” (7:5). He brought pairs of animals into the ark “as God had commanded Noah” (7:9, 7:16). Noah is a representation of obedience. He, by faith, does what he is commanded as we are reminded in the verse in Hebrews 11.
      One of the strangest features of biblical Hebrew is that – despite the fact that the Torah contains 613 commands – there is no word for ‘obey.’ Instead, the verb the Torah uses is shema/lishmoa, ‘to listen, hear, attend, understand, and respond.’   Shema! To listen to God! If we listen to the voice of God, wouldn’t we automatically desire to obey?  One would think, yet how arrogant it is for man to listen to the voice and will of God and then turn away to their own voice, their own will and ego. How much more arrogant to not listen at all. 
     Not too many years after the flood, the desire for power occurred again as we read in the closing of this parsha. 
     In Genesis 10:8 Nimrod is born and in Genesis 11:1-8 there is a small detail about the Tower of Babel, but The Scroll of Yashur gives a better and more detailed account. 
     Yashur states that Nimrod reigned as king over all the earth and the princes of Nimrod gathered together to build a city with a tower reaching to the heavens. These princes and families, over 600,000 divided themselves into three parts; the first to ascend into heaven and fight God, the second to ascend into heaven and place their own gods there to serve them, and the third to ascend to heaven and smite God with bows and spears. Their power was the idol of their hearts and even the bricks became idols: “if a brick would fall and break, they would weep over it, yet if a man fell and died none of them would look at him.”
     God descends upon them, confusing their tongues so one man shall not understand the other. Yashur states that they forgot each other “…and when the builder took from the hands of his neighbor a stone which he did not order, he would throw it upon his neighbor, causing his death.” God punished the three divisions according to their works and their desires.  
   This can be confusing as we read these accounts.  Why did man fall again so quickly?  Is man inherently good or inherently bad?  The Torah suggests we are both destructive and constructive, that we have an animalistic nature, the Nefesh HaBahamit (“animal soul,” “animalistic soul” or “bestial soul”) and one of God’s, Nefesh HaElokit.  The prophet Isaiah references two souls in Isaiah 57:16 ‘For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would fail before Me, and the souls which I have made.’ Whereas the word ru’ach (spirit) appears in this verse in the singular, referring to a single individual, the word neshamot (souls) appears in the plural, indicating that God possibly made at least two souls within us.  
     In the Torah portion, Beresheeth we read that everything in the universe was tov “good.” But humans are not always naturally good.  The answer, according to the Torah, is covenant
     In this parsha, we are introduced to the word and idea of ‘covenant’ which appears no less than seven times. Covenant introduces the idea of a moral law. A moral law is not the same as a scientific law. Scientific laws relate to nature: drop an object and it will fall. A moral law is a rule of conduct: do not murder, covet, rob, steal or deceive. Scientific laws describe, whereas moral laws prescribe, setting our moral compass.  We have the opportunity in our lives to follow the moral compass that Adonai sets before us, and we have the choice to move away.  
     Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ‘I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
     James 1:14 ‘But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.’
     1 John 1:9 ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’
    Not only are we accountable to our fellow man, but more importantly accountable to God. 
    Deuteronomy 10:12 ‘Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul…’
   Joshua 22:5 ‘Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.’

 

 

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 נֹחַ
Noah
Genesis 6:9-11:32
Isaiah 54:1-55:5
1 Peter 3:18-22 

      Genesis 6:16 states: ‘You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above…’
     The Hebrew word for window in this sentence is tzohar. Since "tzohar" does not appear anywhere else in Scripture, there is some debate on what exactly the word means. The sages agree that it is referring to a light, like a source of illumination. They teach that the tzohar is what will give light within the ark itself, even in the darkness. But what exactly was it? Some say this was a window and would then be related to tzahorayim meaning midday, therefore the light would come from the sun. Others say that it was a precious stone that would illuminate and shine. The latter view relates the Hebrew word tzohar to zohar -‘radiance’ which suggests something that radiates its own light, hence the idea of a miraculous precious stone.   Another view is that Noah had both, which most agree with since he would need a Light in the darkness.
    This radiant light was guiding Noah by day and by night. Think of our lives without any light to guide us; we wander in the dark, lost in the chaos that we cannot see. Eventually, we would try and make our own light to mark our paths, but that is not the Divine Light as spoken of in Scripture.  
     Psalm 27:1 ‘Of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’
     Psalm 119:105 ‘Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.’
     1 John 1:5 ‘This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’
     John 8:12 ‘Again Yeshua spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
     Revelation 21:23 ‘And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.’
     Proverbs 6:23 ‘For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.’
     Regarding water that covered the earth, Genesis 7:11-12 states: ‘In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.’
      Water destroyed the wickedness that was upon the earth, but is also birthed new life. When we live in the light of the Living Waters, we too are re-birthed. Yeshua speaks of this re-birth in John 3:5-8 ‘Yeshua answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
     Ephesians 4:24 ‘And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.’
     2 Corinthians 5:17 ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’
     God breathed life into the waters, just as He breathes life into us.
     Job 26:10 ‘He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.’
     John 4:10 ‘Yeshua answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
    John 7:38 ‘Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’
    This is The Light and The Living Water that creates the faith within us.  Our faith will waver, but God’s faithfulness will never fade.  Noah had that kind of faith as stated in Hebrews 11:7. ‘By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.’
      Noah obeyed God not only because he knew God, but also because his faith was indisputable in God no matter how foolish it may have seemed to the world around him. The “things not yet seen” also bring out a dynamic in our lives that we “walk by faith, not by sight” as 2 Corinthians 5:7 states.