October 23, 2020
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Noach’s time in Quarantine
Noach, 5781
In our haftorah this week, Isaiah speaks directly to the current reality of the pandemic world we live in. We look at the landscape and we see death, devastation, and despair. Like the generation of Isaiah, many of us are dispirited and feeling blue. Isaiah also looked around him and saw decline. Isaiah saw the look of defeat in the eyes of his people. To those people he offered a message of hope and redemption.
The passage from Isaiah begins with the words, “Rani akarah, Sing, O, barren one. Break into a song of praise and be jubilant” (Isaiah 54:1).
In this context a “barren” person is a person who is devoid of inspiration. The barren person is a soul so defeated and so down that this poor soul cannot imagine a redeemed world. The barren soul is the soul that has given up all hope of redemption (Haftarot, based upon the words of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, 12).
Isaiah offers nourishment and comfort to the soul of such a person by drawing on perhaps the darkest moment in human history.
Isaiah encourages the Jewish people to turn for inspiration to the flood that Hashem brought upon the world in parashat Noach. Isaiah refers to this flood as the mei noach, the waters of Noach.
According to Isaiah, Hashem says: “For I consider this promise like the promise I made concerning the waters of Noach’s flood. Just as I swore that the waters of Noach would never again submerge the earth, so have I sworn that I will never be wrathful with you and will never rebuke you again” (54:10).
The basic message of Isaiah is that the devastation of the world will never again reach the level of destruction seen in the time of Noach. In other words, just as the world survived the Flood of Noach so too, the world will survive this devastation as well.
The world didn’t just survive the Flood. From the ashes of the Flood arose redemption in the figure of Abraham who taught the entire world how to live a better and purer life. This process of redemption transformed the world forever. Abraham deserves the credit for it, but the process of redemption really began with Noach.
Isaiah refers to the Flood as “the waters of Noach, mei noach.” On one level the waters are called Noach’s waters because the Flood was partially Noach’s fault. Noach could have saved his generation by inspiring them to repent. Instead we do not learn of a single person impacted by Noach’s building of the Ark. So the flood is very much, “Noach’s flood.”
However, the Lubavitcher Rebbe offers a second explanation as to why Isaiah refers to mei noach:
From a deeper perspective, however, calling the Flood “the water of Noach” reveals the Flood’s true intent and effect. If we read the name “Noach” in line with its literal translation – “tranquility” – the idiom the water of Noach is an oxymoron: the flood was the ultimate tool of destruction, not of tranquility. In truth, however, from the inner spiritual perspective, the Flood – despite its outward destructiveness –was a positive force in the spiritual development of humanity, for through it God made full repentance possible (Haftarot,13).
The waters of the Flood were destructive, but ultimately they were also waters of tranquility as through the process of the Flood, and through steps taken by Noach (more about that later), the world began to see redemption and healing.
Isaiah is teaching us that when we read the story of the Flood we must be careful not only to see the bitter devastation and destruction of the flood.
We must also look closer and realize that the Flood is not only the story of the destruction of the world, but it is also (and perhaps primarily) the story of the rebirth of the world. If we draw the right lessons from the Flood story then the waters of the Flood can be for us waters of tranquility that we run towards. As Isaiah states: “Let all who are thirsty go to the water” (55:1).
There was once a hospital in which all the patients kept getting sick with a mysterious illness. The authorities called in a team of scientists to analyze the situation. They discovered that there was an infectious agent living in the walls of the hospital. Their recommendation was that the entire hospital needed to be torn down and rebuilt in order to stop the infections.
That was the state of the world in the time of Noach. The world was infected with a rotten spirituality. Hashem sent Noach into the Ark because the world was broken. Noach’s purpose in building the Ark was not only to save himself but also to dwell in quarantine long enough to learn the necessary spiritual skills that our world needs to survive.
The story of Noach’s time in the Ark is the story of Noach’s hisbodedus—his personal quarantine—to learn how to be a better human being and how to elevate the world spiritually.
The Talmud teaches us that the Flood was brought upon the world because of the sin of theft (Sanhedrin, 108a). The sin of theft at its core is about a total lack of sensitivity for another person. What gives one the right to steal from another person? Theft comes only from a complete disregard for anyone else and an extreme selfishness. Such was the state of the world in the days leading up to the Flood.
Noach’s extended period in the Ark was necessary especially to improve the world in this area of sensitivity to others.
So how did Noach spend his time while he was quarantined in the Ark?
The Talmud records a conversation between Eliezer, servant of Abraham, and Shem, son of Noach.
One time Eliezer the servant of Abraham met with Noach’s son Shem.
Eliezer asked Shem: “What did your family do all day on the Ark?”
Shem responded that since some animals were up all day and other animals were up all night, his family was therefore required to feed animals all day and all night.
Noach knew how feed all the animals except the chameleon. Noach tried mightily but couldn’t figure out what the chameleon liked to eat. Then one time Noach was peeling a pomegranate and a worm fell out of the fruit. The chameleon jumped and devoured the worm. So then Noach understood that the chameleon liked worms and he used to prepare worms for the chamelon.
All the animals came to Noach with their picky requests and Noach accommodated them. There was, however, one exception. Noach noticed that there was a bird called the avarshina bird that stayed in the corner and didn’t ask for any type of food. Noach asked the avarshina: “What do you like to eat?” The avarshina responed: “I saw that you were so busy feeding all the animals and I decided not to bother you.” Noach was so moved by the avarshina’s sensitivity that he blessed the bird with eternal life. The avarshina is the only creature that never dies.
The lion had a different relationship with Noach. It’s hard to feed a lion on an Ark. So the lion would get a long fever and only eat every twelve days. Still every twelfth day the lion would need to be fed. One time Noach was late feeding the lion and the lion attacked Noach and wounded him.
Noach was in such pain that the entire time he was on the Ark he was groaning and spiting out blood. (Based on Sanhedrin, 108a-109a and Rashi 7:23.)
These fanciful midrashim are actually very deep. They depict an environment on the Ark in which Noach lived his life in total service to other creatures.
He was entirely immersed in serving the world and helping the helpless. When one helps another we call this kindness, chesed. The more helpless a creature is, the greater the chesed. It is hard to think of a creature more helpless than an animal quarantined in an Ark.
Noach’s time in the Ark showed him how much chesed demands of us. The animals were ungrateful to Noach and the lion even attacked him. Noach was attacked for his chesed. So too, we must do acts of chesed not in order to receive any reward but simply because it is the right thing to do. Just as Hashem displays chesed to us as undeserving as we may be, we too must be unconditional with our chesed.
There is an astonishing teaching that makes this point even sharper.
The Talmud says in Berachot that when one sees an elephant or a monkey one must recite the blessing, “hameshaneh et haberiyot, Blessed be the One who has transformed the creatures of the world.”
Why is this blessing specifically linked to an elephant and a monkey?
Rabbi Shlomo Adani (1566-1629) offers a kabbalistic explanation in his classic commentary to Mishneh Kelaim known as Melekhet Shlomo. He writes that in the time of the Flood Hashem punished all the wicked people not by killing them but instead by turning them into elephants and monkeys (Kelaim 8:6; cited by Rabbi Shalom Rosner, Noach, 5779).
What this mystical interpretation means is that Noach was spending his time on the Ark serving those who were entirely wicked before their transformation. Noach was spending life in service of undeserving others who were now helpless.
This is how Noach spent his time during the flood. Every day and every night was a deep immersion into the highest level of chesed and therefore the highest level of service to Hashem.
It is not a surprise that upon leaving the Ark the first thing Noach did was build an altar to Hashem as he understood deeply the importance of gratitude and service to others (8:20).
Noach was not a perfect person and when he left he Ark he regressed and was unable to complete this enormous task of spiritually perfecting the world. But through his time in quarantine he did lay the groundwork for Abraham to continue the process and develop an ethos of kindness to others as the central spiritual responsibility of a servant of Hashem.
We have all been living under the threat of a pandemic in a period of increased isolation since March. Many of us are praying desperately everyday for the pandemic to be lifted and for life to go back to the way it was. But if that’s all we are praying for then we are losing a huge opportunity. Our world surely needs redemption, but redemption for the world will not come when a vaccine is found or even when “covid ends.” For a true redemption to come we need to be using our time in quarantine as a way of improving ourselves spiritually.
We need to be spending all day and night during these days of quarantine working on our attribute of chesed as though the entire world rests upon us. Everyday we should set aside time to serve others. Helping the poor is chesed. Caring for a family member is chesed. Calling a lonely friend is chesed. Now more than ever, every action we take needs to be purposeful and not aimless. Like Noach, we need to make sure that our time in our own Ark is not wasted.
Shmuel Herzfeld
