JTS Torah Commentary

Living With Difference

Nov 1, 2024 By Naomi Kalish | Commentary | Noah

Is the story of the Tower of Babel about human unity, or about human diversity? At the critical point when the Torah transitions from the story of Noah and its universal themes to the particular family of Abraham, the Tower of Babel conveys ambivalence about both unity and diversity. In doing so, it provides us with a model for how we can navigate our own complex social dynamics, especially in times of crisis and trauma.

What Is the Rainbow Really Teaching Us?

Oct 20, 2023 By Tani Schwartz-Herman | Commentary | Noah

In this week’s parashah we learn the origin story of the rainbow as a symbol. Following the catastrophic flood in which God destroys nearly every living thing, save for Noah and his family and the animals he brings with him onto the ark, God promises never to bring about destruction on the same scale again.  God establishes the rainbow as a sign for this covenant, declaring that it will be a reminder for God always: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures . . . ”

After the Flood

Oct 28, 2022 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Noah

Today it’s common to find divrei torah that use Parashat Noah to raise awareness about our impact on the environment. Yet I recently discovered a voice from the first stirrings of modernity that seemed to already intuit, within a theological framework, the devastating impact of humans on the global environment. For Obadiah Sforno (1475–1550), the “lawlessness” during the days of Noah did not just cause God to flood to earth. It was a force capable of ruining the climate and planet, and thereby shaping the course of human history ever after.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Oct 8, 2021 By Kendell Pinkney | Commentary | Noah

When I received the results, I can’t say I was all that surprised:

67% Sub-Saharan African, 30% Northwest European, 2% Indigenous American, 1% unaccounted for.

I already knew that my ethnic heritage was decently mixed up. I had spent enough years peppering my grandmothers with the kinds of questions only a child feels comfortable pursuing: “Where was your mother from? Where was your father from? Belize?! Which city? Dangriga? Sounds weird. Never heard of it. Wait, grandma, your grandmother was a white woman from Louisiana?!”

Looking Beyond Our Arks

Oct 23, 2020 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Noah

It has never been easier to identify with Noah.

In a normal year, we would be reading this week’s parashah in an entirely different setting: after a summer of sun, camp, and trips, and following the long holiday season, we would be entering our homes and settling into the fall, saying goodbye to the physical togetherness that defines the summer and the holiday season, just as the day gets shorter and the month of Marheshvan commences. 

Feeling the Flood

Nov 1, 2019 By Mary Brett Koplen | Commentary | Noah

As the curtains close on Parashat Bereshit, we find God steeped in sadness.

וַיִּנָּ֣חֶם ה’ כִּֽי-עָשָׂ֥ה אֶת-הָֽאָדָ֖ם בָּאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּ֖ב אֶל-לִבּֽו:

“And Adonai regretted that God had made humanity on earth and God’s heart was grieved.” (Gen. 6:6)

God is heartbroken. The people whom God formed with such care, the people into whom God exhaled God’s own divine spark, the people God loved—had chosen a path of corruption and crime.

Basic Questions

Oct 12, 2018 By Shira D. Epstein | Commentary | Noah

Early in my teaching career I worked with kindergarteners, incorporating drama into daily Judaics lessons. The holiday cycle offered developmentally appropriate treasure troves of life lessons: practicing ways to say “I’m sorry” to loved ones during Tishrei; exploring Esther’s mustering of courage to speak the truth; hesitations of the Israelites to part from predictable routines in the known and familiar Egypt to try something brand-new and strange.

Lessons of Survival

Oct 20, 2017 By Melanie Levav | Commentary | Noah

וַיְהִי הַגֶּשֶׁם עַל-הָאָרֶץ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וְאַרְבָּעִים לָיְלָה:

The rain fell on the land for forty days and forty nights. (Gen. 7:12)

One need not look hard these days to read of the devastation brought by floods. In recent weeks, powerful hurricanes have caused destruction beyond belief, completely flooding parts of Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and the entirety of Puerto Rico. Beyond the devastation of land and property, such storms leave a lasting impact on the people who survive the experience. How we respond to such disasters can make a difference in how we continue to live.

Building a Boat and a Tower

Nov 4, 2016 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Noah

Does it feel lately that the fate of the world is at stake? If so, the Torah seems intent to validate and deepen our concern. Here we are just days before one of the most disconcerting elections in American history, and we have also arrived at Parashat Noah, the original dystopian tale. 

Seeing the Faces of Noah’s Neighbors

Nov 4, 2016 By Anne Lapidus Lerner | Commentary | Noah

I am a farmer, I love my wife,
My sons are many and strong, my land is green.

—from “Flood” by Irving Feldman (Collected Poems 1954-2004)

With these words, the narrator of Feldman’s poem characterizes himself as a hardworking family man—not perfect, but not a sinner. Of Noah he says, “Just like the drunk, the fool, that slut- / Chaser to think of no one else.”

The Dove

Oct 16, 2015 By Daniel Heschel Silberbusch | Commentary | Noah

This is part of a larger painting/collage that in turn is part of a children’s book I am making inspired by “Had Gadya,” the song we sing at the Pesah Seder’s conclusion. The piece this paper cut-out comes from interprets the song’s final verse “And God came and killed the angel of death.” The verse presents an obvious challenge to a Jewish artist reluctant to “portraitize” God. It also echoes this week’s parashah: God steps in after destruction and promises an end to such destruction (Gen. 8:10-22). Perhaps for this reason I gravitated toward recycling this image.

Before the Deluge

Oct 16, 2015 By Marc Gary | Commentary | Noah

Parashat Noah raises difficult questions about the relationships between the natural world, humanity’s morality, and God’s justice.

Species Purity and the Great Flood

Oct 24, 2014 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Noah

Omnicide is a dramatic move, on that we can all agree. But what causes the Creator to grow violently disgusted with the creatures that had just recently been praised as “good” and blessed with fertility?

And Now, You Pray?

Oct 21, 2014 By Michael R. Boino | Commentary | Noah

“And Now, You Pray?” explores both human and Divine responsibility in Parashat Noah. The piece utilizes several sources that explore voices of protest or requests for help, both those which are voiced as well as those suppressed or ignored.

Why Did God Flood the World?

Oct 1, 2013 By Alan Cooper | Commentary | Noah

The end of Parashat Bereishit finds God regretting the creation of humankind and resolving to wipe it out along with “beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky” (Gen. 6:7). A note of optimism creeps into the concluding verse (6:8), however, with the statement that Noah, whose birth and naming were noted in 5:29, “found favor” with God.

The Noah of Genesis and the Noah of the Rabbis

Oct 1, 2013 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Noah

Parashat Noah, the Torah reading for this coming Shabbat, is renowned for the annual debate on Noah’s character that is sparked by the opening verse.

Daydreaming Out the Window

Oct 17, 2012 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Noah

The ark’s window bothered the Rabbis. It is a technical problem: in Genesis 8:6, Noah “opened the window (chalon) of the ark that he had made,” but in the very thorough account of the construction of the ark earlier in the parashah, no window was ever made. “What window?” the Rabbis wonder. 

A Tiny Point of Hope

Oct 17, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Noah

Unrelenting human wickedness leads to the collapse of humanity and the world.

Small Crimes, Big Punishment

Oct 29, 2011 By Charlie Schwartz | Commentary | Text Study | Noah

This week’s midrash has a rather shocking answer to the question of why the world deserved to be wiped out in the days of Noah.

A Sabbath Song for Parashat Noah

Oct 29, 2011 By Judith Hauptman | Commentary | Noah

It is a lovely Jewish practice to sing songs at the Shabbat table. The little booklets that contain grace also provide the words of many zemirot, Sabbath songs. If we look at two of the more popular ones, Yah Ribbon and Mah Yedidot Menuhatekh, we find that their common theme is a plea to observe the Sabbath in the present, and a hope for a future in which God redeems the People Israel. But there is one song that differs from all the rest. It makes reference to this week’s Parashat No·ah. The name of the song is “The Dove Found a Place to Rest on the Sabbath (Yonah Maz’ah Bo Manoah).”