As you may know, this week is the famous story of Noach and the flood. The entire generation had fallen to the sitra achra (the other side), and Hashem calls Noach righteous and perfect. Noach built an ark and rain fell for 40 days. Hundreds of days later, after a dove was sent out and returned with an olive branch in its mouth, Noach knew redemption had come and it was time to fully move forward. This story represents something that everyone faces at one point or another in their lives. How much each of us has to become the hero in our own story, building our own ark, filling ourselves with hope and reaching redemption. It’s up to each of us to strengthen ourselves continually to do so.
It says in Talmud Sanhedrin, “the World Was Created for Me,” and Rambam teaches that we are to see every one of our actions impacting on ourselves, our communities, and the world at large. We see this clearly with Noach– had he not been righteous, we would have no world at all. It was his very actions and those of his family, and how he chose, despite everyone else in his generation, to walk with God, that saved creation.
There is a famous Mishnah in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) that reads, “.. in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” This is what I take away from the lesson of Noach, whether he was the most righteous in his generation but would not have been in another generation, or he is the most righteous in any generation, I don’t think the distinction is as important as the lesson. From Pirkei Avot we see the importance of rising above your circumstances to act, inspire, and become the most righteous you can be. It is that act that, as we see, will save you from a flood, not only you, but the future of the world. Because the world was created just for you.
Shabbat Shalom!
– Erez
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Thanks for listening/reading.
Much love, Erez Safar
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