Parshah Noach
SAN DIEGO — This week’s Parshah has two stories. The first is the story of Noah and the big flood. God tells Noah of the plan to “put an end to all flesh” because the earth is filled with lawlessness. God instructs Noah to build an ark and bring aboard his family and two of every animal on Earth, plus enough food to feed everyone. You’re probably familiar with the story.
The rain begins to fall, the water rises, and soon the only thing left is Noah’s family, the animals, and the ark. The rain lasts for 40 days and nights, but the water continues to cover the earth for 150 days before it starts to go down. It takes another 40 days before Noah peeks out and checks to see if it’s safe to leave the ark. He sends a raven, but it doesn’t return. He sends out a dove, and it returns empty-beaked. Seven days later, he sends the dove again and it returns with an olive leaf, showing the water is low enough for them to leave the ark. God creates a rainbow as a sign to show that he will never destroy all life again.
In the second story, the Torah lists the many generations that followed Noah and his sons. The people all settle in the same area and they all speak the same language. They build a big city, then decide to add a tall tower. They start building this tower to show how important their city is. But they build it taller and taller, as if they plan to show God how important they are, and perhaps even replace God with their beautiful tower.
All of their time and effort goes into building this tower. But they aren’t paying attention to their regular work, so things aren’t getting done around the city. Families are being ignored. The tower has become the only thing that matters. God is not happy with the tower. He causes different groups of people to speak different languages, then scatters them throughout the entire earth. Now people must learn to understand each other before they can work together.
What this means: Both stories teach what happens when people think only about themselves. In Noah’s time, the people broke many laws. They were selfish and didn’t care about each other. The second story brings the focus down from world-wide lawlessness to the specific incident of building the tower. But the people in that story also didn’t care about anything other than showing how great they were. They only interacted with each other to continue building. Both stories show there are consequences for being selfish.
What you can do: Being selfish means thinking only about what you want and not thinking about others. For example, if a two-year-old wants a toy, she might grab it from another child. A two-year-old is too young to think about what that other child wants. As we get older, we understand that our actions and our words can make other people feel good or feel bad. Before you do or say something, stop and think: “Am I being a friend or am I being selfish?” Work to be the friend you want others to be.
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Marcia Berneger is a retired elementary school teacher as well as a teacher at Torah school. She is the author of such children’s books as Buster the Little Garbage Truck, and A Dreidel in Time.