Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Noach
Noach builds his ark publicly and painstakingly over many decades. He exhorts his generation to repent from its evil ways and warns of the coming apocalypse. For his pains and prescience he is mocked and reviled, rejected and isolated. Some of his own descendants will eventually betray him with their behavior and attitudes. It is not the trauma of the Flood itself that so depresses Noach as much as it is that somehow he has not found a way to communicate his message to his society and even to his own family. We are told little about Noach after his family disappointments upon emerging from the ark. He is apparently sapped of his will to influence others after so many years of being rejected. He sees no basic difference in post-flood humankind than in pre-flood humankind. Avraham will also face many disappointments and failures in his chosen mission of spreading Godliness in a heathen, immoral and violent world. But if Avraham will initially fail with Yishmael he will succeed with Yitzchak. If Avraham cannot enlist Lot to his cause he will at least save him from destruction. If he cannot change Sodom he will strive to see that it is never again rebuilt. The true test of spiritual leadership is what happens after one’s dreaded disappointments were proven to have been accurate. Since Noach could not save his generation prior to the flood he somehow gave up on the generations after the flood as well. Therein lays the undertone of implicit criticism of this great and pious person that is reflected in Jewish rabbinic tradition over the ages.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
