The power and challenges of freedom

The story of the flood is very complicated. The more we reflect on it, the deeper the connections are to the present-day situation. Like any other story, we should do a quick recap of the events leading to this part of the story.

We learnt that the reason for the flood was hamas. This is usually translated as corruption. For everyone who is following the current situation, you will see and know the similarities between that type of corruption and a particular branch of a terrorist organisation. We will try to go back to this point in our later discussions.

For now, as we are recapping the story, we remember Noah and his family being saved from the waters, because Noah was a righteous man in his generation. The whole family is floating in the ark that Noah built, preoccupied with taking care of the animals day in and day out. We have touched on the idea of them staying strong regardless of the events outside the ark.

At last, after a year of floating in the waters of the flood, Noah can step out of the ark. The peaks of the mountain are clearly visible, and Noah is taking certain steps to ensure that the ground is dry enough to get back to living on the land. From sending a raven and later on sending doves three times, it looks like Noah is trying to collect information about the state of affairs. The story of the dove letting out of the ark and eventually returning with the olive branch in his beak is well known, however, it is only after the third dove not returning to the ark that we are even introduced to the idea of the earth supporting life again.

Yet Noah is still staying in the safety of the ark, up to the point of Divine commandment to leave. Why is he still waiting for the Divine to tell him that it is safe to disembark? And if the idea was to wait, what was the point of sending doves out? This is something that puzzles not only us, but even our sages had very different views on it. What was the right thing to do? Like in our everyday lives, there is no clear-cut answer.

Maybe there are some clues in Noah’s behaviour prior to this point? We learn that even after constructing the ark, Noah was waiting for the rain to start before entering the ark. It is clear that doing an unpopular, hard laborious job like building the ark for 120 years shows dedication and a deep belief in the Divine message. Yet Noah is still waiting for the clear instruction to enter the ark, even though the rain is starting. Now we see the pattern of behaviour, which allows us to connect to the narrative even more.

Although it might be tempting to criticise Noah for borderline procrastination, we should remember a few things, like our ability to read the story in full, go back to it to learn more, as well as knowing the history before and after the events described. It might look like an easy choice; however, Noah did not have this perspective, so it is only reasonable to be slightly doubtful – after all, it is more than just his own life, it is the lives of all his family members.

Above all, our beloved Torah is always telling us the truth, regardless of how it can be viewed later on. In my personal opinion, this allows us to be hopeful in our own abilities to fulfil our mission in this world. We are not perfect, we will not be able to achieve such highs – yet we watch character developments and relate to the way to overcome our challenges.

Now Noah is off the ark. He is grateful to the Almighty for saving him and his family. At this point, it is reasonable to assume that Noah appreciated being saved throughout the entire journey; however, the chain of miraculous events is getting clearer now. Noah makes a decision to build an altar for the purpose of bringing sacrifices to the Almighty.

For anyone who has been brought up with the idea of having only one pair of animals on the ark, this might become surprising. Learning without preconceptions and prejudices is not a simple task, especially when we think we know the story from childhood. Yet the answer is there if we are ready – Noah took care of seven pairs of clean animals. In addition, the idea of providing clean animals as an offering to the Divine is not original to Noah; we saw it previously in the story of Cain and Abel.

Maybe it is a good point for us to stop here for now and see the lesson learned in today’s discussion. It is clear that the story is multidimensional, and we need to be able to see it from a number of vantage points as well as realise that the characters of the Biblical stories are real people with everything that comes with it. Noah is no exception.

The idea of bringing sacrifices to the Divine is an example of a wholesome choice made. It is rather fascinating, providing Noah is the first man allowed to consume meat. How did Noah go from that to planting a vineyard? This is something we will address in our future discussions.