Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Noach
Having decided to re-boot Creation (again beginning with water!), G-d tells Noach, "Asey l’cha" - build for yourself an Ark. I’m intrigued by the superfluous expression, "L’cha" - for yourself. G-d could simply have said, "Build an Ark." What is being added by this tiny word "L’cha?"
Rashi explains that Hashem wanted the local populace to focus on Noach, a well-known figure in his community, & seeing him building this massive boat, they would inquire about it. Hopefully, they would then be motivated to pursue a higher moral level when told that they were standing, literally, on the Eve of Destruction.
Others explain the l’cha as an indictment of Noach: YOU failed to influence your neighbors, allowing them to continue their animalistic behavior; now YOU will forced to keep the company of real beasts & animals in the ark!
But there is a more positive view of the "you." Note that Noach is connected & compared to his successor Avraham, as well as to his future descendant Moshe (he also survives in a Tayva, an ark!) by the word L’Cha: Hashem tells Avraham, Lech-L’cha; YOU go to Israel; & He tells Moshe, P’sal L’Cha; YOU hew stone tablets (for the Luchot of the 10 Commandments). But what exactly is the connection between them and the word "you?"
These 3 heroic figures were loners. Avraham is called Ha-Ivri, he who lives on the other side. This is not just a geographical note (he lived across the Euphrates). It’s also philosophical: Avraham was prepared to uphold his belief in One G-d even if he was the only one in the entire world who believed it, even if he was on one side of the divide & everyone else on the other.
Moshe also was a solitary figure. "Am I an Egyptian, or a Hebrew?" he asks himself as he question his identity. He cries to G-d: How can I bear this People alone?! Clearly, he stood apart. Noach, too, is very much left on his own. A decent man in a corrupted, perverse world, he cannot convert a single person in the course of 120 years. But you know what? Sometimes, a hero must davka stand apart from the masses, blazing new trails rather than simply going along with the crowd.
Tennyson said it best: "Nothing is better than this, when known; that every hard thing is done alone."
Rabbi Stewart Weiss
Was ordained at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois, and led congregations in Chicago and Dallas prior to making Aliyah in 1992. He directs the Jewish Outreach Center in Ra'anana, helping to facilitate the spiritual absorption of new olim.
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