Parashat Noah - Community

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Noah. This week’s parasha contains many gems to glean, but one that I’m thinking about a lot lately is the importance of companionship that comes up in these sub-plots. 

Noah doesn’t just bring one of each animal onto his ark, he brings two, and in some cases fourteen, of every animal. Obviously, this serves a biological need as the rest of the earth is about to be destroyed, and the purpose of bringing the animals is to repopulate later. But it also takes pains to tell us how they entered the ark in their groupings, of their own accord, and stayed with their kind. This is most often understood midrashically as evidence of the Divine influence that the carnivores did not eat the herbivores but rather stayed with their own during the 40 days of the flood. Additionally, we may understand this as a signifier of their pack logic, and the fact that the animals relied on one another for comfort and guidance in this time of turmoil and confusion. 

After the flood, when Noah is left with no friends or community and is alone in his vineyards, he turns to drink and becomes a messy drunk. We see the effects of the recent trauma and his loneliness weighing in on him. This family has been trapped in close quarters with another for over a month, and now they have some space to escape one another some, but there is literally no one else left on earth to socialize with instead. This leads to his own misery and clearly damages his relationships with his children, especially Ham who ends up cursed largely because of Noah’s foolishness.

At the end of the parasha, we see a potentially negative aspect of community: mob-mentality and the fervor of an unchecked goal. The traditional understanding of the Tower of Babel is to read these people as wicked and deserving of being cut off from one another, but we could also simply admire their ability to communicate with one another and strive toward something greater than themselves. 

Judaism is largely about community. We pray in groups, we study in pairs. We are meant to do Jewish together, making the world better hand-in-hand and not as single efforts by ourselves. Today we blessed our furry companions. Sometimes it is easier to appreciate them because they love us so unconditionally. They never argue or talk back, they don’t stay out late without letting you know they’re safe (usually). They just want cuddles and food. 

But let us learn from our ancestors in this parasha, including their mistakes, and remember to also appreciate those of our own kind - our fellow humans, our fellow Jews, our families and friends - and let us strive toward a great goal together in the spirit of great love and compassion.