Genesis, 6:9-11:32
This Week’s Torah Portion | September 29 – October 5, 2013 – Tishrei 25 – Cheshvan 1, 5774

In A Nutshell

The portion, Noah, speaks of sinful people and the Creator, who brings a flood on the world. “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations” (Genesis, 6:9). This is why he was the one chosen to survive the flood.

But he did not survive alone. Rather, he was commanded to build an ark and move into it along with his kin, and pairs of all the animals, and to remain in the ark for forty days and forty nights until the flood stopped.

The Creator made a covenant with Noah and his family that the flood would never return. As a token of the covenant, He placed the rainbow in the sky.

The end of the portion speaks of the tower of Babel, about the people who decided to build a tower whose head reaches the heaven. The Creator decided to confuse their language so they would not understand one another, and then He dispersed them throughout the country.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, Noah, is long, intense, and contains many details and many events compared to other portions. As this portion takes place in the beginning of the Torah, it also marks the beginning of the spiritual path, the most important time in a person’s development.

These initial stages unfold quite quickly, unlike subsequent events, when one begins the actual corrections and corrects one’s qualities meticulously. Later on, the events are far more detailed, as we will see in the future events unfolding in the Torah.

Our development takes place entirely over our egotistical will to receive, which we must turn into bestowal. Today we are still in the midst of a process where the whole of humanity is to begin to work with its ego in the right connection between people. The work against the ego is always a big problem, and appears as waves of a great sea, called Malchut of Ein Sof (Malchut of infinity).

Each time, the ego surfaces more and more, and at first, a person does not know what to do, so the only option is to hide in a box, an ark. It is not merely an escape; it is a correction. A person builds a kind of bubble, the quality of bestowal, and hides in it from all of one’s terrible egotistical qualities, and this is how one advances.

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• Noah
• Flood
• The Ark
• Forty Days and Forty Nights
• The Crow
• An Olive Leaf
• Rainbow
• The Tower of Babel

Noah

“Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations” means that quality of bestowal that is now appearing in a person. Noah is righteous, from the right side, Hesed, in relation to that flood, in relation to those egotistical desires.

Flood

On the one hand the flood is water. On the other hand, it is water with the force of Gevura, the power of fire, the destructive egotistical power. It is an incorrect connection between left and right, where the left, the ego, dominates the right.

The Ark

The ark is the quality of Bina, bestowal, Hassadim (mercy). It is a mother who tends to anyone who joins her and is under her influence.

Forty Days and Forty Nights

This period marks the difference between Malchut and Bina. Bina is called “blocked Mem” (final Mem in Hebrew). Mem is forty in Gematria. The ascent from the quality of reception into the quality of bestowal, from Malchut to Bina, means ascending to the degree of forty.

The Crow

The crow is the part of the left that requires correction, compared to the dove, which is from the right. Therefore, when the dove governs instead of the crow, when it returns with an olive leaf, it is clear that the correction has been completed, and the ego is entirely under the domination of bestowal.

An Olive Leaf

The olive is used for many things, such as oil for lamps. Oil itself is one of the foundations of life. It is light of Hochma that can be inside the light of Hassadim, when we have come into a state from which we can keep developing. The development takes place through the light of Hochma, although the correction is done by light of Hassadim. These are always two opposing forces.

Rainbow

The rainbow marks the covenant. If I make a covenant with you, it is not because we enjoy being together, because in that state there is no need to sign anything. Rather, it is a guarantee for tomorrow. We fear that our relationship will deteriorate, or that we anticipate that it will, therefore our fore-signing will force us to maintain good and proper relations.

In Hebrew, a rainbow is called “an arch in the cloud.” The cloud does not symbolize a good situation, but the arch, the connection between us, which is over the cloud, ties us in a way that allows us to continue. We need that covenant, which is an everlasting covenant.

The Tower of Babel

This is the big ego that intensified during the time of Nimrod. The ego is constantly growing—evil waters, waters in Gevurot at the time of Noah, then the tower of Babel, and then the ego comes in the form of Pharaoh, then in the form of the Romans and the Greeks. The ego constantly grows and wears different facades.