The Second Week

The rabbis cannot decide whether Noah was great or merely adequate.

The parsha opens with what should be straightforward praise:

אֵ֚לֶּה תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת נֹ֔חַ נֹ֗חַ אִ֥ישׁ צַדִּ֛יק תָּמִ֥ים הָיָ֖ה בְּדֹֽרֹתָ֑יו אֶת־הָֽאֱלֹהִ֖ים הִֽתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹֽחַ׃

This is the line of Noah.—Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God.—

— Bereishit 6:9

Righteous. Blameless. Walked with God. Three endorsements in a single verse. But it's that one phrase — b'dorotav, "in his age" — that the commentators cannot leave alone. Some rabbis read it as praise. He was righteous even in a corrupt generation; imagine what he'd have been in a generation of good people. Others read it as criticism. He was only righteous compared to his neighbors; put him next to Abraham, and he'd be unremarkable.

The Torah doesn't settle it. The ambiguity stays.

I've been thinking about this all week — my second Shabbat in the new Torah cycle.

Last week was Bereshit, the grand opening, Genesis from the top. The whole congregation was still warm from Simchat Torah. The energy in shul was high.

This week is just — Noach. The second parsha. No holiday, no special occasion, no dancing in the aisles. You show up, you read, you daven, you go home.

The holidays do build a structure around you — the sukkah, the schedule, the services, the meals — and then they end, and the structure comes down, and you're standing in your yard and the next holiday is Chanukah, which is two months away and pretty minor.

Everything between here and there is ordinary time.

Tradition tells us that Noah spent a year inside the ark. A full solar year, sealed up with his family and every living species, the rain hammering the roof, the water rising, the world outside gone. And when it was over — when the ground finally dried — the Torah says he sent out a dove. Three times.

וַיְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־הַיּוֹנָ֖ה מֵאִתּ֑וֹ לִרְאוֹת֙ הֲקַ֣לּוּ הַמַּ֔יִם מֵעַ֖ל פְּנֵ֥י הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃

Then he sent out the dove to see whether the waters had decreased from the surface of the ground.

— Bereishit 8:8

The first time, the dove came back with nothing. The water was still everywhere. Noah reached out his hand and took it back into the ark. He waited seven days.

The second time, the dove came back toward evening with a plucked-off olive leaf in its beak. One leaf. That was enough. Noah knew the waters had receded.

וַתָּבֹ֨א אֵלָ֤יו הַיּוֹנָה֙ לְעֵ֣ת עֶ֔רֶב וְהִנֵּ֥ה עֲלֵה־זַ֖יִת טָרָ֣ף בְּפִ֑יהָ וַיֵּ֣דַע נֹ֔חַ כִּי־קַ֥לּוּ הַמַּ֖יִם מֵעַ֥ל הָאָֽרֶץ׃

The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth.

— Bereishit 8:11

The third time, the dove didn't come back at all. It had found somewhere to land.

Three sendings. The patience of that — seven days between each attempt, sitting in the dark, not knowing whether the world outside still existed. The first return is discouraging. The second is a leaf. The third is an absence you learn to read as good news: the dove found dry ground and stayed.

And then Noah steps out and the first thing he does — before planting, before surveying the damage, before anything practical — is build an altar.

וַיִּ֥בֶן נֹ֛חַ מִזְבֵּ֖חַ לַֽיהֹוָ֑ה וַיִּקַּ֞ח מִכֹּ֣ל ׀ הַבְּהֵמָ֣ה הַטְּהֹרָ֗ה וּמִכֹּל֙ הָע֣וֹף הַטָּה֔וֹר וַיַּ֥עַל עֹלֹ֖ת בַּמִּזְבֵּֽחַ׃

Then Noah built an altar to GOD and, taking of every pure animal and of every pure bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar.

— Bereishit 8:20

Gratitude first. Before the vineyard, before the covenant, before the rainbow —

Noah's first act in the new world is to say thank you. The man the rabbis can't decide is great or merely adequate walks out of the ark and builds an altar on a planet that still smells like mud.

I keep coming back to the b'dorotav question. In his generation. It reads differently when you're five months into being Jewish. I am not someone who left everything and walked to a land God pointed at. I am a person who chose this, in this specific time, in this specific city, surrounded by the specific people I'm surrounded by — and I am doing my best to be righteous in my generation. In my context. With the tools and the knowledge and the community I have right now.

Some weeks that looks like carrying a Torah scroll while the whole room sings. Some weeks it looks like standing in the backyard holding a dried willow branch, wondering what to do with it.

Rashi notes that the Torah says Noah "walked with God" — but Abraham "walked before God." Noah needed support. Abraham walked on his own. The implication is that Noah was the lesser figure. But I read it differently. Walking with God means you haven't figured it all out yet. You're keeping pace, staying close, letting the relationship carry some of the weight. That is not weakness.

That is the second week of the Torah cycle — when the music from Simchat Torah has faded and you're just reading the parsha because it's the parsha, and you show up because showing up is the thing.

The dove came back with a leaf. Not a branch. Not a tree. A single olive leaf, plucked off and carried home at dusk. Small evidence that the world survived.

The dove didn't need a forest. It needed a leaf.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham