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This week’s Parasha is entitled Noach, Noah, and covers Genesis 6:9-11:32.

In Chapter 6, we read that Noah was a righteous man.  The Bible does not say that he was the only righteous person at that time, but we do know that, overall, the world was corrupt and that man’s thoughts had turned to wickedness and evil, much the same way our world has become today.  To put it more simply, people in that day and age had turned from worshipping the one True God and following His direction, to following their own ways and desires.  Even back in this early time, there was an understanding of the One True God, and there were people who knew that and many others who did not.  In fact, during the time of Enosh, the son of Seth, we read in Genesis 4:26:  And to Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh.  Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

God tells Noah that he is to build an ark.  After receiving this instruction and hearing that God will bring a great flood to destroy the earth, Noah did all that God commanded.

In Chapter 7, God instructs Noah to take his family, which included his wife, his sons and his sons’ wives, as well as male and female of every living thing, birds, animals and insects.  For animals there were clean animals and unclean animals.  Clean animals were those that could be eaten and also offered for sacrifice.  7 pairs of clean animals, male and female, were on the ark for each species of clean animals while there were 2 of each unclean animal, a male and a female.  As God had indicated, the flood came upon the earth and from the start of the flood until the waters dried up on the earth and God told Noah that he could leave the ark, a total of 1 year elapsed.  As God had said, every living creature that was not inside the ark was destroyed from the face of the earth.

When Noah and his family disembark from the ark in Chapter 8, the first thing that Noah does is to build an altar and sacrifice a pair of each of the clean animals and birds on that altar to the Lord.  Smelling this pleasing aroma, the Lord promises the following, in Chapter 8, verse 21: I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.

This is an interesting verse, because Noah and his family were the only humans alive at that time.  Yet, God comments on the evil intent of man’s heart. Not even a new start by this small band of Noah’s family members could keep sin out of the world, and it is only 1 chapter later, in Chapter 9, where we read in verse 21 that after Noah drank some wine and was sleeping naked in his tent, that his son, Ham, looked upon that nakedness and told his brothers, Shem and Japheth.  Shem and Japheth, without looking at Noah, cover him with a robe.  When Noah wakes up, we read that he knew what his youngest son had done to him. The sin that had come into the world at the time of the fall could not even be kept out of the world for even a short amount of time even among the only family to survive the flood.

In Chapter 10, we read about the descendants of Noah.  This is a list of the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Japheth, Shem and Ham.  This may just sound like a listing of names, but through these three sons, the world was repopulated.

In Chapter 11 we read that there was a common, unified language at the time the descendants of Noah were spreading over the earth.  Instead of joining together to worship the Living God, who had saved humanity from total destruction, we find that men gather for a very different purpose, which is given in Chapter 11, verse 4:  And they (men) said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Again, we see the evil intentions of Satan in trying to influence the people of this world to follow his plans.  When we read about building a tower to the heavens, this most likely does not mean a towering structure that would physically travel that high, but more likely refers to a structure where the highest part of the structure would represent heaven.

God, of course, recognized this plan and changed their ability to speak one language into bringing linguistic diversity across the whole of the earth.  From a positive perspective, this broke up the attempt at Babel to replace the True God with idolatry.  As you know, today, the word Babel means to speak incoherently.  One of the possible negative consequences that could be perceived is that language diversity has inhibited the speed at with the Gospel could be spread.

In summary, first off, we see that there are times when we must suddenly make changes to our lives, like Noah did.  He was living his life, but suddenly, God called him for a greater purpose.  Instead of ignoring that, Noah followed what God commanded, even though there was ridicule and scorn heaped upon him by those who surrounded him, until the rains came.

We also see that there has been a rebellion going on between Satan and his fallen angels against God since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden.  Satan’s goal is to get humanity to start sinning and keep sinning so that we end up so far away from God that that we replace God with something else and in the end we destroy ourselves.  Well, that struggle is going on even today.  We can see this theme in several of today’s chapters.  At the beginning of our passage, we see that men had grown so evil that it caused God to decide to send a flood over the earth and start over with Noah and his family.  In the middle of today’s Torah portion, we have the grievous sin that Ham commits against Noah, such a sin that it causes Noah to curse Ham’s son, Canaan.  And, towards the end of our reading, we again see much of the world gathering together again, not to worship God, but to replace God in order to make the name of mortal man greater than that of the True Living God.

So, what should we do?  First, we must recognize that sin is real and that Satan is trying to affect his influence on this world by corrupting as many people as possible.  Secondly, we need to be aware that it is impossible to fight sin with just our own power.  Only through trusting in God and in the Messiah do we have a chance to withstand the influence of this terrible power.  Finally, there are times when we will sin.  It is inevitable.  However, instead of continuing to slide into further sin, we must confess our sins, ask for forgiveness and trust in the Saving Grace of our great and wonderful Messiah.  And then, through His strength, not our own, we need to get back on the path of walking through this world with Messiah Yeshua, heading toward the eternal kingdom of the New Jerusalem.