NoachBereshit (genesis)

The Flood
The following are the descendants of Noah. Inasmuch as Noah alone was destined to perpetuate the lineage of the human race that began with Adam, the Torah begins a new history of humanity from him. But before enumerating his offspring, the Torah first describes his righteousness, in order to explain why God singled him out to be spared from the impending flood and to demonstrate that our true “offspring” are our good deeds: Even though his life spanned many corrupt generations, Noah was a righteous man; he remained faultless despite the corruptive influence of his generations. Nonetheless, he did not possess sufficient moral fortitude to remain righteous on his own. Rather, in order to remain righteous, Noah walked with God, that is, he had to keep his mind constantly focused on Him. Thus, on an absolute scale, he would not have been considered exceptionally righteous; he was faultless only relative to the corruption of his generations.

Noah was the father of three sons: Shem, who would play the most pivotal role in the ensuing history of humanity; Ham, the youngest; and Japheth, the oldest.

As recounted above, by the year 1536, the world had become corrupt before God, with idolatry and licentiousness rampant, and in addition, the land was filled with robbery.

God saw the world, and it was corrupt, for almost all flesh – even the animals – had perverted its way on the earth by engaging in cross-species relations.

The Ark
Of all the ways at My disposal to spare you from this destruction, I want you to make yourself an enormous ark. Perhaps when everyone sees what you are doing and asks you about it, the news of the impending flood will inspire them to repent. You are to build it out in the open, and I want you to build it yourself, without any help from your sons or anyone else; this way it will take you a long time to build it, giving your contemporaries ample time to consider repenting. Make the ark out of cypress wood, for the word for ‘cypress’ (gofer) is related to the word for ‘sulphur’ (gofrit), and the floodwater will be sulfurous, a fact that might further encourage the people to repent. You must make the ark with compartments for each type of animal, and you must caulk it both inside and outside with pitch. It will be necessary to caulk it both inside and out because the floodwater will hit it forcefully.

This is how you must make it: The length of the ark will be 300 cubits [144 meters, or 471 feet], its width 50 cubits [24 meters, or 77 feet], and its height 30 cubits [14.4 meters, or 47 feet].

As for Me, I am ready to agree with those angels who opposed the creation of humanity. I am about to bring the Flood of water upon the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh that has in it a breath of life. The water will cause total disorder and disarray, and everything will rot. The surface of the earth will remain submerged underwater for one full year. Everything on earth will expire.

But I will establish My covenant with you: I promise you that the food that you bring with you into the ark will not rot during the entire time that you are in it, and that the people will not kill you when they find out what you are doing. You and your family must enter the ark, but men and women are to live in separate quarters: you will be together with your sons, and your wife will be with your sons’ wives. It is not appropriate to engage in marital relations while the earth is being destroyed. The animals will likewise not be allowed to mate in the ark.

Saving the Animals
Of all incorporeal living beings – the demons – and of all flesh, you must bring a minimum of two of each species into the ark, for that is the minimum you need to preserve its species with you; they must be male and female. I will tell you the exact number of each species later.

From the birds that did not attempt to breed outside their species, from the walking animals that did not attempt to breed outside their species, and from the creatures that crawl on the ground that did not attempt to breed outside their species, two of each kind will come to you on their own to be kept alive; you will not have to trap or gather them. The ark will allow only the animals that did not crossbreed to enter; you are to escort these animals to their designated compartments.

And as for you, take for yourself some of every kind of edible food and gather it in for yourself, so that you and they have food to eat.”

So, on 10 Marcheshvan 1656, GOD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and your entire household, for it is you that I have seen to be righteous before Me in this generation.” Although the Torah records earlier that Noah was both righteous and faultless, God only praises Noah for his righteousness, for it is not appropriate to enumerate all a person’s merits when addressing him directly.

“You must also take seven pairs of the types of birds of the heavens that do not impart spiritual defilement, each pair consisting of a male and its mate, in order to keep its seed alive over the entire surface of the earth.

For humanity’s 120-year reprieve expires today. Nonetheless, since Methuselah, your righteous and only surviving ancestor, died today, I will postpone the flood for another seven days in his honor, until the customary period of mourning is over. I will bring rain on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, corresponding to the 40 days it takes for an embryo to be considered a human being, because the wicked people of the earth caused Me to fashion their illegitimate offspring. With this flood, I will obliterate every being that I have made from the surface of the earth.”

Entering the Ark
Noah did all that GOD had commanded him regarding settling the animals in the ark and stocking it with provisions, but he himself tarried at the entrance, because he didn’t fully believe that God would actually go ahead and implement His plan.

Noah was in his 600th year when the Flood occurred and water covered the earth.

When it started to rain, Noah, together with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, came into the ark, fleeing from the water of the Flood.

In contrast, all the animals had already entered the ark before it began to rain: Of the animals that do not impart spiritual defilement, of the animals that are not of the type that does not impart spiritual defilement, of the birds, and of all the creatures that crawl on the ground,

a minimum of two each had come on their own, male and female, to Noah, so he could take them into the ark as God had commanded Noah.

After the seven days of mourning for Methuselah passed, the water of the Flood came upon the earth. During the ensuing 40 days, the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars did not shine, and it was therefore completely dark.

The Flood began in the 600th year of Noah’s life – 1656 – in the second month, Marcheshvan, on the 17th of the month. Because of the gravity of the people’s misdeeds, ordinary rain did not suffice to cleanse the earth. Rather, on that day, all the wellsprings of the great abyss burst open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

Because of the people’s threats, God protected Noah by summoning lions and bears that prevented the people from harming him or damaging the ark. Thus Noah entered the ark in the very midst of that day, 17 Marcheshvan, with Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them. Noah took some vine branches and fig-tree shoots along with him.

With them, every kind of walking wildlife, every kind of domestic animal, every kind of creature that crawls on the ground, and every kind of flying creature – every bird and every winged creature, even grasshoppers.

Pairs of all species of flesh that breathed, i.e., that were alive, came to Noah into the ark. The ark was miraculously able to hold all the animals and birds that needed to fit into it.

Those who came were male and female; of all flesh they came, as God had commanded him, and GOD sealed the entrance behind him. The animals that came to the ark behaved peacefully, even on their way to the ark. Even the wild beasts harmed neither the other animals nor Noah and his family during their stay in the ark.

The Flood was upon the earth for 40 full days, until the night of 28 Kislev. The water increased and lifted the ark, and it rose above the ground.

After the rain ceased, the water miraculously surged on its own, and thus increased greatly over the earth. The ark drifted on the surface of the water, 11 cubits of its height remaining submerged under the surface of the water.

The water surged exceedingly high over the earth, and all the high mountains under the whole sky were covered.

The mountains were covered, and the water surged 15 cubits above the Ararat Mountains, the highest of them in the region.

Of every being that was on dry land, every being that breathed the breath of life died. The fish, however, remained alive.

God obliterated every being that had been on the face of the earth – including humans, walking animals, crawling creatures, and the birds that fly in the sky. They were obliterated from the earth; only Noah and those who were with him in the ark survived and were greatly pained by their isolation. However, one descendant of the giants Shamchazai and Aza’eil, named Og, survived the floodwater. He reestablished the race of supernatural giants, who became known as Rephaim and settled in Bashan.

The water surged over the earth for an additional 150 days after the rainfall stopped, and did not subside throughout this entire period – from 28 Kislev until 29 Iyar.

God remembered Noah and all the wildlife and domestic animals who were with him in the ark. God caused His spirit of consolation and rest to apply to what was happening on earth, and the water began to subside.

When it stopped raining on 28 Kislev, most of the wellsprings of the abyss were sealed, but some of them were left open to serve as hot springs. In contrast, all the floodgates of heaven were sealed. Thus the rain from the heavens was held back.

At the end of 150 days from 28 Kislev, i.e., beginning on 1 Sivan, the water slowly but steadily receded from upon the earth and the water diminished. The water level dropped one-fourth of a cubit per day, so that

The Ark Rests
after 16 days, that is, on the 17th day of the month of Sivan, which was the seventh month counting from when the rain stopped falling, in Kislev, the ark came to rest on the Mountains of Ararat. Since the water reached to a height of 15 cubits above the mountaintop and the bottom of the ark was submerged 11 cubits below water level, the water level only had to drop four cubits to allow the ark to rest on the mountain.

The water continued to diminish at this rate for another 44 days, i.e., until the first day of Menachem Av, the 10th month counting from when the rain began falling, in Marcheshvan. In the course of these 44 days, the water level dropped an additional 11 cubits. Thus, in the 10th month, on the first of the month, the height of the water had receded a total of 15 cubits, and the highest mountain peaks became visible.

Once the ark firmly settled on the mountaintop, the water began to recede much faster. Forty days after the highest mountaintops became visible, i.e., on 10 Elul, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark.

The Raven and the Dove
That same day, he sent out the raven to see if the water had receded completely. He assumed that the raven would not return if it would find a place to rest. But because the raven was concerned over the fate of its mate, it went out, but only circled to and fro around the ark until the water dried up from the surface of the earth.

He waited another seven days, until 23 Elul, and once again sent out the dove from the ark.

The dove came back to him toward nightfall, and behold, it had plucked an olive leaf with its beak. Noah then knew that the water had subsided from the earth and it was time to prepare to disembark.

He waited yet another seven days, until 1 Tishrei, and once again sent out the dove, and this time it never again returned to him.

The Earth is Dry
In the year 1657, which was the 601st year of Noah’s life, on the first day of Tishrei, the first month, the water had drained off the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and saw that the earth’s surface was drying, although it was still too damp to live on.

By the 27th day of Marcheshvan, the second month, the earth was completely dry. This was exactly one solar year (365 days) since the rain had first begun to fall, on 17 Marcheshvan. The Flood purified the world of its spiritual defilement and coarseness. For the first time, the world became receptive to the process of self-initiated refinement. From this point on, it would be relatively easy to ascend the ladder of spiritual self-refinement and to repent for misdeeds.

Neither Noah nor the animals wanted to leave the ark, for they knew that once they did, the animals would revert to their naturally aggressive behavior. Their peaceful coexistence was a taste of the heightened spiritual state of the messianic future. Therefore, God spoke to Noah, saying,

Leaving the Ark
“Leave the ark, despite the spiritual descent you will undergo by doing so. Furthermore, you may now resume marital relations: you may live together with your wife, and your sons may live together with your sons’ wives.

All living creatures with you in the ark, from all flesh – birds, walking animals, and all the creatures that crawl upon the ground – have them leave with you, and if they prefer to stay in the ark, take them out forcibly. Outside the ark, they will be allowed to swarm upon the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

Noah went out, but he did not resume marital relations. He continued to live together with his sons, and his wife continued to live with his sons’ wives. Noah was reluctant to have more children, for he was afraid that history might repeat itself: humanity might again sin and bring upon itself another flood. What was the purpose of repopulating the world if it might ultimately be destroyed?

All the walking animals, all the crawling creatures, all the birds, and all the creatures that crawl upon the ground came out of the ark by families. They reaffirmed their commitment not to engage in crossbreeding.

GOD figuratively smelled the appeasing fragrance (i.e., He acknowledged Noah’s appreciation), and in response, GOD said to Himself, “I hereby swear that I will never again curse the soil because of humanity, for the inclination of a person’s heart is challenged by his evil inclination from his earliest youth, i.e., from birth. Never again will I strike down all life as I have done.

As long as the earth lasts, none of the seasons – seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter – nor day and night, will ever cease.”

God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. I promise you that you will be fertile. As for your fear about having more children, I tell you now that I have promised not to destroy the world again.

Furthermore, neither do you need to be concerned that your offspring’s lives will be endangered by animals or murderers. As it was before the degeneration of humanity prior to the Flood, there will be a fear and dread of you upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky, in all that will crawl on the land and in all the fish of the sea. They will no longer try to devour you when you are alive. Rather, they have been placed in your hand:

Every moving creature that lives will be yours to eat; like plant vegetation, I have now given you everything. Until now, I forbade humanity from killing animals for food, because I was afraid that, given this power over life and death, people would delude themselves into thinking that they had godlike dominion over the world. But because humanity has become weaker and needs to eat meat to subsist, I am allowing these health considerations to override this former prohibition. Also, because the spiritual makeup of the world is now more conducive to self-refinement, there is less danger of you becoming coarsened by eating meat.

But nevertheless, you may not eat the flesh of a still-living creature, nor its blood.

The Sanctity of Life
Although I have allowed you to kill animals, nevertheless, do not think that I have given you absolute power over life and death, not even your own. In fact, you may not even cause yourselves to bleed unnecessarily; if you do, I will settle the account of the blood you shed by punishing you. If you take your own lives by committing suicide – even without shedding blood, as, for example, by strangulation – I will punish you in the afterlife. Human life is so precious that, now that I have again forbidden the animals to kill you, I will settle the account from the hand of every wild beast that kills one of you, by killing it in turn. Neither may you kill other people. I will empower the courts to punish anyone who commits a witnessed act of murder: intentional murder is to be punishable by death and unintentional manslaughter is to be punishable by exile. I will settle the account for human life Myself whenever the courts cannot, both from someone who commits an intentional but unwitnessed murder and from someone who commits unintentional manslaughter – i.e., who is on as good terms with his victim as he is with his own brother but kills him accidentally. I will arrange for the accidental manslayer to accidentally kill the murderer in the presence of witnesses; thus the murderer will receive his death penalty and the court will sentence the manslayer to exile to atone for his carelessness. If, however, the unwitnessed manslayer goes into exile voluntarily, I will arrange for the murderer to be killed in another fashion.

In contrast, whoever intentionally sheds human blood, was warned not to do so, and was witnessed doing so, his blood must be shed by the human court, for God made man in the image of God. The murderer is guilty of diminishing the image of God on earth and has thus forfeited his right to live.

As for you, I now command you: be fruitful and multiply, proliferate upon the earth, and make it populous. If you or your descendants refrain from procreating, I will consider it tantamount to committing murder.”

Noah asked God to reinforce His promise not to destroy the world. God therefore spoke to Noah and to his sons with him again, saying,

“As for Me, I agree to reinforce My promise. I hereby establish My covenant to seal My promise with you and with your offspring after you,

Furthermore, I will confirm My covenant with you by giving you a sign that I am bound by it, and thus you can rest assured that never again will any flesh be cut off by the water of a flood. Never again will there be a flood that will destroy the earth.”

God said, “This is the sign that I am providing for the covenant between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all generations that require it (i.e., the sign, in case they themselves not be sufficiently righteous):

The Rainbow
I have placed My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between Me and the world. As part of the overall refinement of reality effected by the Flood, the atmosphere will now be sufficiently purified to refract and reflect sunlight and thereby produce rainbows. The rainbow therefore testifies to the fact that the world is now sufficiently refined to afford the possibility of repentance. Since it is always possible for humanity to repent, it will never again be necessary to wipe out the world.

Thus, when the behavior of any society in any locale degenerates to the point that I regret having created its inhabitants, and I bring clouds over the earth to indicate that they deserve that I bring a flood upon them, just as I did with your generation, the rainbow will appear among the clouds,

and I will recall My covenant that exists between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that never again will water become a flood to destroy any flesh. However, when no part of society is behaving that immorally, it will not be necessary for Me to cause a rainbow to appear.

God said to Noah, showing him a rainbow, “Behold the sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”

Having been promised by God that his progeny would not be wiped out, Noah resumed marital relations with his wife, as did his sons with their wives. The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; they each had a number of children. Ham was the father of four sons, the youngest of whom was Canaan. Ham was incensed that his father, Noah, was trying to have more children. Ham assumed that Cain had killed his brother Abel because he wanted the whole world for himself. Since Noah was the new beginning of the human race, Ham considered himself already deprived enough by having to share the world with two other brothers, and should not be required to share it with any additional brothers.

These three were the sons of Noah, and from them the whole world branched out.

Noah was the master of the soil, and understood the importance of grain as the mainstay of civilized life. Nonetheless, when he came out of the ark, instead of first planting a grain crop, he degraded himself by planting a vineyard, to produce wine for purposes of enjoyment. He had brought vine branches along with him into the ark.

He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent.

Shem, enlisting Japheth’s help, took a garment and placed it on the shoulders of them both. They then walked into the tent backwards and covered their father’s nakedness. Even when they approached him and had to turn their bodies around, they did so while facing away from him, so that they did not ever see their father’s nakedness.

Noah awoke from his wine and realized what his youngest, immature, and degenerate son had done to him.

Noah’s Prophecy
He said, “Cursed be Canaan! Because of you, Ham, I will never have a fourth son to tend to me, and I no longer want you to tend to me. Therefore, since my two older sons will now have this responsibility, I decree that your fourth son be a servant to servants – a servant to his father’s brothers, Shem and Japheth, who must now serve me alone!”

He then said, “Blessed be GOD, the God who will favor Shem by giving his descendants the Promised Land! Canaan’s descendants will be their slaves and pay them tribute!

May God expand Japheth materially, but may He dwell in the tents of the descendants of Shem. And let Canaan’s descendants be slaves to the descendants of Shem even when the latter will dwell in countries other than their own!”

The Seventy Nations
Having concluded the narrative of Noah, the Torah now details the genealogy of his descendants. Noah lived 350 years after the Flood, which occurred in the 600th year of his life.

All the days of Noah thus came to 950 years, and he died.

The sons of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Yavan, Tuval, Meshech, and Tiras, who later became known as Persia.

The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Rifat, and Togarmah.

The sons of Yavan were Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites, and the Dodanites.

From these, the island-nations, their clans, and their nations branched out, each with its own language, into their lands.

The sons of Ham were Kush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.

The sons of Kush were Seva, Chavilah, Savtah, Ra’mah, and Savtecha. The sons of Ra’mah were Sheva and Dedan.

Kush was also the father of Nimrod [“Let us rebel”], the first man in the world powerful enough to rally the masses to rebel against God, as will be described below.

Nimrod
He was a mighty hunter, “trapping” people by convincing them to join his rebellion against God, and he flaunted his rebellious intentions before GOD Himself. Hence, the saying, “He is like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before GOD” is applied to anyone who intentionally seeks to provoke God’s anger.

His kingdom began with Babylon, and with Erech, Akad, and Kalneih, in the land of Shin’ar.

But when his family began to follow Nimrod, Assyria left that land, moving his family north, and built Nineveh, Rechovot-Ir, and Kalach,

as well as Resen, between Nineveh and Kalach. Nineveh is the great city, the capital of Assyria.

Egypt fathered the Ludites, the Anamites, the Lehavites (“Flames,” so known because of their fiery faces), the Naftuchites,

the Patrusites and the Kasluchites – who engaged in wife-swapping, producing the Philistines, who thus descended from them both – and the Kaftorites.

Canaan was the father of Sidon, his firstborn, and Het,

the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites,

the Arvadites, the Tzemarites, and the Chamatites. From these families, the additional families of the Canaanites later spread out further.

Although Noah had allocated the Land of Israel to the Semites, the Canaanite families extended the border of their territory into it, from Sidon toward Gerar until Gaza, and toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Tzevoyim, until Lasha.

The sons of Aram were Utz, Chul, Geter, and Mash.

Arpachshad was the father of Shelach, and Shelach was the father of Ever.

Their dwelling place extended from Meisha toward Sephar, the eastern mountain.

These are the descendants of Shem, according to their clans and languages, by their lands and their nations.

The Origin of Languages
In order to demonstrate how a person should always humbly seek the counsel of others before deciding upon a course of action – even if they are of lesser status – He consulted with His heavenly court, saying, “Come, let us descend and confuse their speech there, so that one person will not understand another’s speech. This will make them quarrel with one another and break up into separate groups, the very thing they feared would happen to them. Although they have declared war on Me, and thus, theologically, their sin is greater than the sins of the generation of the Flood, I will not destroy them, because at least they were united and acted peacefully towards one another. In contrast, the people of the Flood were contentious and robbed from one another. I value peace among My creatures even more than I value the respect they owe Me.”

Ever was 34 years old when he fathered a son, Peleg, in the year 1757.