Parshas Noach

Shlomo opens with a birthday shout-out to his brother and an anniversary one to his parents, then gets into Noach. Was he a real tzaddik or only relative to a generation of bums? Either way, he and his three married sons (Shem, Ham, and Yafes) are the ones Hashem saves. The teva is built from gopher wood with pitch inside and out: 300 by 50 by 30 cubits, or roughly 450 by 75 by 45 feet, three floors, a window (or a light-giving stone), built over 120 years while the neighbors mocked him. Seven pairs of kosher animals and one pair of the rest board by miracle. The flood lasts a full year: 40 days of rain and underground waters that cover every mountain, 150 days of high water, then a gradual drop until the ark rests on Ararat. A raven circles, a dove returns with an olive leaf, and a week later the earth is dry. Noach offers from the kosher animals, Hashem is pleased, and the seven Noahide laws are given to the world.

After the rainbow covenant (which Pharaoh later misreads when he drowns the babies), Noach plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and ends up uncovered. Ham mocks; Shem and Yafes walk backward and cover him. Noach curses Canaan and blesses the other two, then dies at 950. The episode skips the genealogies and moves to Migdal Bavel: one language, a tower meant to show Hashem who’s boss, and the sudden split into 70 languages that scatter everyone. Ten generations later we meet Avram and Sarai. The close covers the first two of Avram’s ten tests: 13 years hiding from Nimrod, the smashing of Terach’s idols with the hammer left in the biggest one’s hand, and the fiery furnace. Haran waits to see if Avram survives before choosing a side; Avram walks out, Haran does not.

What is Parshally Understood?

A weekly Parsha podcast by Shlomo Wolbe

0:00 Alrighty, welcome back for episode number two of Partially Understood. We got Parshas Noach this week. It's going to be lit. Stay tuned.
0:07 Real quick, happy birthday to my brother and happy anniversary to my parents. Love you guys. You guys are awesome. Thanks for your support.
0:14 Now, Noach. Was he actually a big tzaddik? That's the real question. So, there's different Mfarshim.
0:22 Some people say in his generation, he was a tzaddik. So all the more so in any other generation where there was other tzaddik, I mean, he could learn from them and he could grow. He'd be an amazing tzaddik. And sons say it's only in his generation they were a bunch of bums.
0:34 So that's the only reason he was considered a tzaddik. But whatever the case, let's look at him for good. He had three sons and they were all wedded. And he was also wedded.
0:45 He was married. So he had Shem, Ham, and Yafes all married, living an amazing life in a terrible, terrible generation. That generation was filled with robbery. They were filled with immorality,
1:00 with idolatry, just all the terrible things into that. Anyway. Hashem, we already discussed this at the end of last week's Parsha. Hashem was like, I'm not chill with this at all.
1:11 These guys need to get abolished. We're going to have to kill them. But Noah found favor in his eyes. This is last week's Parsha.
1:20 And now we're in this week's Parsha where it's like, yo, here's what we're going to do. We're going to destroy the world. But you, Noah, you're going to make an ark. You're going to make a teva.
1:29 And it's going to save you and every species of animal. So you're going to make it out of gopher wood. and pitch. You're going to put pitch on both the inside and the outside.
1:40 And it's going to be 300. Cubits in length, 50 cubits in width, and 30 in height, which is in feet for us Americans. 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. And I just want to help you with the math for a second.
1:59 This is a big, big arc. There's 33,750 square feet on each floor, which totals to 101,250. That's crazy. And it obviously makes sense.
2:14 years to do took 120 years he was building outside everyone's making fun of him and he's like dude you guys are about to die so keep it to yourself he had a window and some say it was actually a stone that gave light which is pretty cool and there were three floors there was the one for the humans there's one for animals and there was one for doo-doo um and they also had all the other plants that they were eventually plant
2:43 And it was just nice and dandy. And he had to bring seven kosher sets of animal and bird and one set of the non-kosher ones. And by the time he's able to do this all, he's already 600 years old. That's an old man.
3:01 And he was still doing it. So first of all, you have no excuses. You're like 15 years old. You could also do a thing or two in your life.
3:09 But let's continue.
3:13 Day comes and Hashem's like, okay, so start bringing these animals onto my ark, my special, special ark. And it takes seven days to get them all on. And obviously, mathematically, they would not fit. But there was a miracle.
3:28 Oh, so why did it have to be such a big ark? Because you don't want to do it too openly. Like, this is a crazy miracle. It's obviously a big miracle.
3:35 But you want to, like, kind of keep it where your imagination could be like, yeah, maybe not, maybe yes, maybe whatever. now we have a ginormous flood for forty days it's absolutely pouring all the the underground volcanoes are exploding everything it's scalding hot somehow the fish are saved but that's A story for another day. Now, it's for 40 days, we said, right? 40 days of rain, of the tsunamis, the hurricanes, everything bad possible with regard to water was happening.
4:09 It was above all mountains. No matter how high you climbed on a mountain, too bad you're dead. And something that you probably weren't taught in... elementary school is it was actually not just 40 days and then water was down and there we go it was actually a full year of water so 40 days of raining 150 until it just it was just chilling
4:35 for 150 days now in this time Noah was taking care of the animals obviously feeding them making sure they're all um not hungry but one time it was late And a lion bit him in the leg. It's pretty sad. Just adding that, it's from Medrash. It's not from the Psikkim, but it's important to know.
4:56 And then after 150 days, in the seventh month, I think that's 150, whatever, it landed the ark. The water started going down, and it rested on Har Ararat, which is the biggest mountain of that time. Obviously, we know Mount Everest is bigger, but...
5:16 Get over it, dude. Seriously. Um The wait about 40 days and all of a sudden no, it's like I have an idea We've been cooped up in this in this arc for a bit too long So let's in the Raven see what happens sends it out circle circle circles Nada nothing happening. All right a week later tries with the dove again.
5:41 Nothing happens. It just comes right back Another seven days. Now we got an olive leaf. Special, special olive leaf.
5:50 And that's a sign. Oh, the water's starting to dry. It's chill. Another week and the dove did not return.
5:58 Obviously the whole earth is dry now. It's been a full. solar year 365 days and now it's completely dry so hashem tells no yo get out the ark it's time to thrive on this planet once again um and to celebrate noah takes one of every kosher animal and um brings it up as a as a carbon for hashem shem's all happy and This is about the point where Hashem gives the seven mitzvot b'nei noach.
6:35 Seven mitzvot b'nei noach, which are, you can't have Eber Menachai, which is a limb from an animal while it's still alive. You can't curse Hashem. You can't steal. No giloy or ayas, no sexual immorality.
6:50 No shvich hasdamim, you can't kill. You have to set up courts and bring offenders to justice.
7:01 gods all logical and that doesn't just apply to noach it's every single goy in the entire world has this command these seven commandments you have to do them otherwise um you're you're not gonna be so comfortable in the next world you're gonna you're gonna be char so that being said hashem's like okay now that we got that kind of out of the way Let's make a sign that I'm never going to do this again. Makes a rainbow.
7:29 And I'm never going to fully flood and destroy the entire world again. Which we'll, by the way, have in mind when Paro is drowning the Jewish babies way later. He was like, yo. We were told that we're not going to be destroyed by floods no more, so Hashem's not going to do mida k'neged mida, and we could drown the Jewish babies.
7:52 And later we know they got drowned because they didn't look at the Pussuk really well. They did not listen to the Partially Understood podcast. If they did, they would know it's only about the entire world getting destroyed, not just one civilization. So they were kind of dumb.
8:06 That's on them. Too bad. Now, Hashem says start planting trees. We've got to have a world, an actual world to exist.
8:13 in and um no it was like you know let's let's start with the vineyard now don't ask me i was asking my rabbi today i did not get an answer but somehow the vineyard had grapes already and they already fermented and he already had wine so he got drunk he got absolutely trashed and he went into his tent and um undressed and he was just chilling there having a good time So Ham, his son, came to check on him.
8:42 And he's like, yo, pops, whoa, oh my gosh, dude. And he calls his brothers over, Shaman Yafes. He's like, yo, guys, check this out.
8:51 And they're like, bro, you can't be looking at that. So they cover their heads. They go backwards. They do like every kind of possible thing necessary to not look in that direction.
9:03 And they cover their father behind their backs so that they don't have to see him in that state. they're rewarded so noach the next morning finds out he wakes up he's like oh my gosh what a what a mess chum is a chum is a bad boy so he curses him right away him and his son canaan are cursed. They're going to be the slaves of the world.
9:27 And then he also gives brachas to Sheim and Japheth, and that's beautiful. And next thing you know, Noah's dead at 950 years old. Okay, that's a couple years later, obviously. But that's besides the point.
9:38 And then we get into a couple of just descendants. You can skip that. Obviously, learn the rest of the Parsha inside. It's very important, even though you're getting everything that's important.
9:48 Almost everything that's important is in this podcast, obviously, but you should still learn inside. It's going to be very, very, very helpful to your growth in Torah. Now. We got the next chapter of this is Migdal Baval.
10:02 So there was a bunch of dudes in Shinar. Again, this is pretty soon after the flood. So they didn't really get too far in the world. So a bunch of people are chilling in Shinar.
10:14 And they're like, you know, let's build a tower. And we'll show God who's boss. And so they build. And Hashem comes down, peeps through the clouds, and is like, yo.
10:27 I gave one language to the entire world, Lashon Akodesh, and you're going to do this with it? I don't think so. So he makes 70 new languages, and all these people are absolutely bamboozled. What is happening?
10:42 This guy is saying Ching Chong, and this guy is saying Spasiba, and this guy is saying Hola, soy bien. And you're like, bro, what is happening? I never heard this before. Trips out, and everyone just goes their own.
10:55 They make their own countries. their own things. They're, they're gone. That's Dara Flaga to the best of my knowledge.
11:01 Then we have 10 generations to the first of our forefathers, Avraham. Now Avraham is, um, married to his niece it's actually avram avram not avraham yet um he gets married to his niece sarai and that's the end of the parsha inside obviously we have a bit of backstory on avram because we're not going
11:26 to get to that later so avram has 10 tests we all know but the first two tests are him um him hiding from nimrod which we'll explain in a second, and getting thrown in the fire. What? He hid from Nimrod for 13 years, and he was thrown in a fire, and he still existed? What is happening? All right, so young Avram, he's wandering around, and he's like, the stars, people are worshiping them.
11:54 They got nothing. And he goes to the sun, and he goes to the moon, and he goes to the trees, and he goes all over, and even to idols, and he's like, this is not God. So he knows there is no God like that, that we can just see, and fathom and comprehend like that so he obviously realizes there's got to be a hashem so he goes and destroys all the idols that his father who his name is tara who was a um
12:19 he's an idol maker he destroyed all of them he's like destroyed them all and um left the hammer actually in one of in the biggest Idols hand and so Tara comes home and like bro. What did you do? He's like I didn't do anything.
12:34 It was the biggest idol It's like idols can't do that. He's like if idols can't do that. How could they save the world? Tara was like oof, that's rough, but I'm still gonna complain to the leader of this community Nimrod Nimrod is like yo, I'm a cash that kid and it takes 13 years I'm pretty sure for him to catch the
12:52 the child who rebelled against idols whoa and finally catches him and throws him in a fire now he has a brother i offer him as a brother haran and he's also there and they're like yo Which team are you on? He's like, let me see if Avram survives this I'm with him totally a hundred percent and Avram walks around in the fire. He's chilling.
13:16 He comes out. They're like, yo, he's not dead. That's crazy. Haran, it's your turn and they throw Haran in and he
13:22 He dies. It's really sad. So that is the Parshas Noah, the best I could do in the least amount of time. So I hope you enjoyed.
13:32 I hope this wasn't too long. I hope the sound quality was much better this week than last week. I'm sorry about that. I did not realize that it was bad quality until it's too late.
13:41 So I'm really sorry. I hope you enjoy this and Shabbat Shalom.