Monday, October 12, 2026
Noach 2
This class covers Bereshis 7:5–24, from Noach boarding the ark to the 150 days of surging water, and stops at the opening of chapter 8. The main question is what Noach got wrong. He waited until the floodwaters forced him into the ark, and, more seriously, he never prayed for his generation, which Moshe later threw back at him. Around the verses come the scenes at the ark: the crowds and the lions, the re'em and Og who couldn't fit inside, why the rain lasted forty days, and a year of exhausting work caring for the animals. The class ends with a close reading of "ach Noach": the word "ach" (only) also teaches that Noach himself came out of the ark diminished.
The pesukim
- Bereshis 7:5–7
וַיַּ֖עַשׂ נֹ֑חַ כְּכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּ֖הוּ יְהֹוָֽה׃
Noah did all that God had commanded.
וְנֹ֕חַ בֶּן־שֵׁ֥שׁ מֵא֖וֹת שָׁנָ֑ה וְהַמַּבּ֣וּל הָיָ֔ה מַ֖יִם עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Noah was 600 years old when the flood occurred; water was on the earth.
וַיָּ֣בֹא נֹ֗חַ וּ֠בָנָ֠יו וְאִשְׁתּ֧וֹ וּנְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתּ֖וֹ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה מִפְּנֵ֖י מֵ֥י הַמַּבּֽוּל׃
Noah, along with his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives, came into the ark ahead oP the waters of the flood.
- Noach did everything Hashem commanded. He was 600 years old when the flood came, and he went into the ark with his wife, his sons and their wives "mipnei mei hamabul": ahead of the floodwaters, or because of them. Read as "because of them": Noach didn't go in until the water reached his knees (the Me'am Loez; in Bereishis Rabbah 32:6, his ankles), even though he had been told to go in seven days earlier. He believed in Hashem completely. He just couldn't believe that so merciful a G-d would really destroy everyone, or that people wouldn't repent at the last moment once the rain began. The lesson is that when Hashem commands something, you obey on time, even when your own kind reasoning tells you it won't be needed.
- Bereshis 7:8–11
מִן־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ הַטְּהוֹרָ֔ה וּמִ֨ן־הַבְּהֵמָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֵינֶ֖נָּה טְהֹרָ֑ה וּמִ֨ן־הָע֔וֹף וְכֹ֥ל אֲשֶׁר־רֹמֵ֖שׂ עַל־הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃
The clean animals, the animals which were not clean, the birds, and all that walked the earth
שְׁנַ֨יִם שְׁנַ֜יִם בָּ֧אוּ אֶל־נֹ֛חַ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֖ה זָכָ֣ר וּנְקֵבָ֑ה כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה אֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶת־נֹֽחַ׃
came two by two to Noah, to the ark. They were male and female, as God had commanded Noah.
וַיְהִ֖י לְשִׁבְעַ֣ת הַיָּמִ֑ים וּמֵ֣י הַמַּבּ֔וּל הָי֖וּ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃
Seven days passed, and the flood waters were on the earth.
בִּשְׁנַ֨ת שֵׁשׁ־מֵא֤וֹת שָׁנָה֙ לְחַיֵּי־נֹ֔חַ בַּחֹ֙דֶשׁ֙ הַשֵּׁנִ֔י בְּשִׁבְעָֽה־עָשָׂ֥ר י֖וֹם לַחֹ֑דֶשׁ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֗ה נִבְקְעוּ֙ כׇּֽל־מַעְיְנֹת֙*(בספרי ספרד ואשכנז מַעְיְנוֹת֙) תְּה֣וֹם רַבָּ֔ה וַאֲרֻבֹּ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם נִפְתָּֽחוּ׃
It was in the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the 17th of the month. On that day all the wellsprings of the great deep burst forth and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
- The clean animals and the unclean, the birds and everything that walks the earth came to Noach two by two, male and female, just as Hashem had commanded. On the 17th day of the second month of Noach's 600th year, the wellsprings of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the heavens opened. Many animals came to be saved, but the ark itself chose who came in. Because people had corrupted even the animals by mating them across species, the ark took in only purebred animals that had never mated with another species. Only what had kept its true nature was carried into the new world.
- Bereshis 7:12–16
וַיְהִ֥י הַגֶּ֖שֶׁם עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ אַרְבָּעִ֣ים י֔וֹם וְאַרְבָּעִ֖ים לָֽיְלָה׃
It would continue to rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights.
בְּעֶ֨צֶם הַיּ֤וֹם הַזֶּה֙ בָּ֣א נֹ֔חַ וְשֵׁם־וְחָ֥ם וָיֶ֖פֶת בְּנֵי־נֹ֑חַ וְאֵ֣שֶׁת נֹ֗חַ וּשְׁלֹ֧שֶׁת נְשֵֽׁי־בָנָ֛יו אִתָּ֖ם אֶל־הַתֵּבָֽה׃
On that very day, Noah boarded the ark along with his sons, Shem, Ham "and Yefeth. Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons were with them.
הֵ֜מָּה וְכׇל־הַֽחַיָּ֣ה לְמִינָ֗הּ וְכׇל־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ וְכׇל־הָרֶ֛מֶשׂ הָרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ לְמִינֵ֑הוּ וְכׇל־הָע֣וֹף לְמִינֵ֔הוּ כֹּ֖ל צִפּ֥וֹר כׇּל־כָּנָֽף׃
They [came] along with every separate kind of beast, every separate kind of livestock, every separate kind of land animal, and every separate kind of flying creature—every bird [and] every winged animal.
וַיָּבֹ֥אוּ אֶל־נֹ֖חַ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֑ה שְׁנַ֤יִם שְׁנַ֙יִם֙ מִכׇּל־הַבָּשָׂ֔ר אֲשֶׁר־בּ֖וֹ ר֥וּחַ חַיִּֽים׃
Of all flesh that has in it a breath of life, they came to Noah, to the ark, two by two.
וְהַבָּאִ֗ים זָכָ֨ר וּנְקֵבָ֤ה מִכׇּל־בָּשָׂר֙ בָּ֔אוּ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֛ר צִוָּ֥ה אֹת֖וֹ אֱלֹהִ֑ים וַיִּסְגֹּ֥ר יְהֹוָ֖ה בַּֽעֲדֽוֹ׃
Those who came were male and female. Of all flesh they came, as God had commanded [Noah]. God then sealed him inside.
- The rain fell for forty days and forty nights. "On that very day" Noach boarded with Shem, Cham and Yefes, his wife and his sons' wives, together with every kind of creature that came two by two, and then Hashem sealed them in. "That very day" means in broad daylight, in front of everyone. The people of that generation had planned to stop Noach and even kill him when he went for the ark, and this was one of the reasons he held back. So Hashem brought him in at midday, where everyone could see that Hashem was protecting him and no one could touch him. Then Hashem Himself closed the ark. A seal like that is made from the outside, and no one left outside was going to do it for Noach.
- Bereshis 7:17–18
וַֽיְהִ֧י הַמַּבּ֛וּל אַרְבָּעִ֥ים י֖וֹם עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּרְבּ֣וּ הַמַּ֗יִם וַיִּשְׂאוּ֙ אֶת־הַתֵּבָ֔ה וַתָּ֖רׇם מֵעַ֥ל הָאָֽרֶץ׃
There was a flood on the earth for forty days. The waters increased, lifting the ark, and it rose from on the ground.
וַיִּגְבְּר֥וּ הַמַּ֛יִם וַיִּרְבּ֥וּ מְאֹ֖ד עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַתֵּ֥לֶךְ הַתֵּבָ֖ה עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם׃
The waters surged and increased very much, and the ark began to drift on the surface of the water.
- The flood went on for forty days, and as the water rose it lifted the ark until it drifted on the surface. The ark didn't float right away. It was enormously heavy with every species in the world inside, so like a cruise ship it rode deep in the water. It lifted off the ground only once the water was eleven cubits deep, about 17 to 20 feet.
- Bereshis 7:19–20
וְהַמַּ֗יִם גָּ֥בְר֛וּ מְאֹ֥ד מְאֹ֖ד עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיְכֻסּ֗וּ כׇּל־הֶֽהָרִים֙ הַגְּבֹהִ֔ים אֲשֶׁר־תַּ֖חַת כׇּל־הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃
The waters on the earth surged [upward] very, very much, and all the high mountains under the heavens were covered.
חֲמֵ֨שׁ עֶשְׂרֵ֤ה אַמָּה֙ מִלְמַ֔עְלָה גָּבְר֖וּ הַמָּ֑יִם וַיְכֻסּ֖וּ הֶהָרִֽים׃
The waters had surged upward fifteen cubits and all the mountains were covered.
- The waters rose very high, and all the high mountains under the heavens were covered: "fifteen cubits upward." Many mountains are far taller than fifteen cubits, so this can't mean the water was fifteen cubits deep. It means the water rose fifteen cubits, about 23 to 28 feet, above the highest mountain on earth.
- Bereshis 7:21–22
וַיִּגְוַ֞ע כׇּל־בָּשָׂ֣ר ׀ הָרֹמֵ֣שׂ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ בָּע֤וֹף וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבַ֣חַיָּ֔ה וּבְכׇל־הַשֶּׁ֖רֶץ הַשֹּׁרֵ֣ץ עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְכֹ֖ל הָאָדָֽם׃
All flesh that walked the earth perished: birds, livestock, wild beasts, and every lower animal that swarmed on the land, as well as every human being.
כֹּ֡ל אֲשֶׁר֩ נִשְׁמַת־ר֨וּחַ חַיִּ֜ים בְּאַפָּ֗יו מִכֹּ֛ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר בֶּחָֽרָבָ֖ה מֵֽתוּ׃
Everything on dry land whose life was sustained by breathing died.
- All flesh that moved on the earth died: birds, livestock, wild beasts, swarming creatures and every human being, everything on dry land that breathed. Mankind is listed last because people were the last to die. Hashem let them watch every other creature being destroyed first, to give them one more chance to repent, and still they didn't.
- Bereshis 7:23–24
וַיִּ֜מַח אֶֽת־כׇּל־הַיְק֣וּם ׀ אֲשֶׁ֣ר ׀ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֗ה מֵאָדָ֤ם עַד־בְּהֵמָה֙ עַד־רֶ֙מֶשׂ֙ וְעַד־ע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וַיִּמָּח֖וּ מִן־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּשָּׁ֧אֶר אַךְ־נֹ֛חַ וַֽאֲשֶׁ֥ר אִתּ֖וֹ בַּתֵּבָֽה׃
[The flood] thus obliterated every organism that had been on the face of the land: humanity, livestock, land animals, and birds of the heaven. They were obliterated from the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ark survived.
וַיִּגְבְּר֥וּ הַמַּ֖יִם עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ חֲמִשִּׁ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת יֽוֹם׃
The waters surged on the earth for 150 days.
- Every living thing on the face of the land was wiped out, and only Noach and those with him in the ark survived. The waters surged on the earth for 150 days. The forty days of rain ran from the 17th of Cheshvan to the 28th of Kislev. The wellsprings of the deep and the floodgates of heaven, open since the first day, stayed open after that, and violent currents swept the world until the end of Iyar.
English from The Living Torah by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, used with the permission of the Kaplan family. Hebrew: Miqra according to the Masorah (CC BY-SA).
Takeaways
- Obey Hashem on time, even when your own merciful reasoning says the worst won't really happen.
- Saving yourself isn't enough: a leader prays and puts himself on the line for everyone, the way Moshe did and Noach didn't.
- Watch out for growing indifferent to people who seem beyond help; that is exactly how Noach stopped praying.
- Feed the creatures in your care before you feed yourself.
- Fear at the last minute isn't teshuvah: the crowds at the ark wanted to live, not to change.
Going deeper— the stories, Kabbalah and the reasons behind the reasons
Another reading: Noach couldn't bear to abandon the people
- Some read "because of the floodwaters" as praise rather than criticism of Noach.
- Once Noach went into the ark, he could no longer go around warning people and urging them to do teshuvah (return to Hashem), as he had for 120 years. He couldn't bring himself to close that window, so Hashem had to push him in, telling him in effect to leave the others alone.
- This is not the main reading we follow. We go with the view that Noach made two mistakes.
Noach's deeper failure: he never prayed for the world
- The Zohar names the more serious mistake. Noach built the ark, warned people and accepted the decree, but he never begged Hashem for mercy on the world.
- After the flood Noach brought an offering. Had he brought that offering before the flood, he could have saved the world. Instead he was concerned only for himself and his family.
- Compare Moshe. After the golden calf, Hashem offered to destroy the people and start a new nation from him, and Moshe answered, "Erase me from Your book" (Shemos 32:32). Noach should have said the same: either save the whole world or I go down with them, the way a captain goes down with his ship.
- In Devarim Rabbah, Noach tells Moshe, "I'm greater than you. I survived the great flood." Moshe answers that Noach survived alone and saved no one, while Moshe offered his own soul and saved the entire Jewish people.
Why didn't Noach pray?
- Picture being surrounded every day by corruption, cheating and people who mock and despise you for trying to help them. It is very hard not to become indifferent to them. Still, praying for them was hard work but very doable.
- Rabbeinu Bachya answers that cancelling an evil decree takes ten righteous people praying. Noach had only eight: himself, his wife, his three sons and their wives. It's the same as Avraham, who would later ask Hashem to spare Sodom if ten righteous people could be found there.
- Another reason: Noach had already spent 120 years trying to correct them, without success, and gave up on them. He became indifferent to them, which is exactly the danger described above.
- As we'll see, Noach was punished during the flood for these failures.
The last moments before the flood
- As the flood began, crowds ran to the ark begging Noach to let them in. "Let today be the world's birthday," they said, "from now on we'll improve," the same words we say in Mussaf on Rosh Hashanah. But it wasn't real teshuvah. They just didn't want to die.
- Noach answered that he had warned them for 120 years and they had done nothing but rebel against Hashem.
- Furious, they tried to break into the ark and even to overturn it. At Hashem's command, lions surrounded the ark and tore apart anyone who came close.
- Those who came back as a last effort were swept off their feet by the rising currents. Meanwhile animals from all over the world were running and roaring toward the ark, adding to the chaos, and Hashem kept anyone from breaking in.
Why the generation stayed stubborn to the end
- How could people hold out for 120 years, and right up to the last moment? The Zohar explains that they had gone deep into black magic.
- They believed angels ran the world and that they could control those angels with spells, oaths and incantations. So they assumed they could simply bind the angels in charge of water, and that no flood could touch them. They were badly wrong.
Hashem's promise to Noach
- Hashem had told Noach, "I will keep My covenant with you" (6:18). The promise had two parts.
- First, Noach would be the zookeeper for every dangerous species, and Hashem would protect him from the lions and other wild beasts.
- Second, the food would be enough for everyone for twelve months and would stay fresh, with no refrigerator, so nothing would rot.
Boiling water outside, cool water around the ark
- The flood had two kinds of water: ice-cold rain from above and boiling water from the depths. The sinners were punished by being boiled alive (Gemara, Zevachim 113b).
- Around the ark itself Hashem kept the water cool, so the people inside weren't stuck in something like a Miami summer.
The re'em and Og: the two that didn't fit
- Hashem made a miracle so that every animal fit into the ark, with two exceptions: the re'em and Og.
- No one knows exactly what the re'em was. The Me'am Loez renders it the giant aurochs, and Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan notes that some identify it with a giant unicorn or a rhinoceros. Bereishis Rabbah records that in the days of Rabbi Chiya bar Abba, a baby re'em got loose in the Land of Israel and tore up thousands of trees. The people declared a fast and prayed, and the danger ended only when the baby heard its mother calling and left.
- Noach grabbed the re'em by its horns and put its head into the ark. Only the head fit, and the rest of its body stayed outside (Zevachim 113b; Bereishis Rabbah).
- Og, later king of Bashan, was one of the giants from before the flood. Targum Yonasan says he climbed onto the roof of the ark and sheltered himself from the rain, and Noach passed him food through the window. The Gemara in Zevachim says he was too big even for the roof, so he walked alongside the ark, where the water was cool.
- Og was wicked, so why was he spared? So that humanity would know there was once a race of giants and that Hashem destroyed them for their wickedness.
When the flood began, and how
- The flood began on the 17th of Cheshvan in the year 1656 from creation (October 27, 2106 BCE), Noach's 600th birthday.
- It started as an ordinary shower. That was a hint, giving people a chance to repent and change the decree. When they didn't, the rain grew heavier until it became a destructive force.
Why forty days
- That year Cheshvan had thirty days. The forty full days and nights are counted from the night of the 18th of Cheshvan and end on the 28th of Kislev, although the rain actually started at midday on the 17th. In the Torah, forty days means full days, each with its night.
- The generation's great sin was sexual immorality: men taking other men's wives and fathering mamzerim (children of forbidden unions).
- It takes forty days from conception for an embryo to take human form, and in those forty days Hashem Himself, so to speak, forms it. Quoting Bereishis Rabbah, Rashi says these people "troubled their Creator to form the shape of mamzerim." So the punishment was rain for forty days, matching the forty days they made Hashem spend forming those children.
Why Wednesday, and not setting sail close to Shabbos
- Noach boarded the ark on a Wednesday, the day the sun, moon and stars were created. "That very day" (b'etzem hayom) means the full strength of the day, and the sun is strongest on the day it was hung (Tzeror HaMor).
- The Tzeror HaMor adds that from here comes the halachah not to set sail fewer than three days before Shabbos (Gemara, Shabbos 19a). Noach went in on Wednesday so that there would be three days before Shabbos, and on Shabbos he could rest: for the first three days on a ship, a person is unsettled.
What happened to the fish
- The verse says only the creatures on dry land died, so the fish weren't included in the death decree. How did they survive the boiling water?
- The Ramban suggests they went down to the depths of the ocean, where the water wasn't boiling.
- Some say the fish too were meant to die, and none were brought into the ark, but some survived in the Great Sea, which didn't boil.
- Another view is that the fish weren't affected at all because of the special blessing Hashem gave them when they were created.
Did the flood reach the Land of Israel?
- Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish argue about this in the Gemara (Zevachim 113a–b).
- Rabbi Yochanan holds that the flood never reached the Land of Israel. The people there still died, scorched by the furnace-like heat of the boiling waters all around. Reish Lakish holds that the flood did reach it.
Noach's punishment: a year without rest
- Noach's health was damaged. For twelve months he worked day and night, feeding every animal at its own feeding time and cleaning out every cage.
- Some say Noach did it all himself. Others say his sons helped: Shem with the domestic animals, Cham with the birds and Yefes with the reptiles, all living among wild beasts and snakes.
- The air in the ark was cold and damp, which gave him a cold and weakened him badly.
Feeding the animals: Shem tells Eliezer
- The carnivores couldn't eat the other animals. Ibn Ezra says Noach gave them vegetarian food. The Abarbanel says Hashem decreed that they would be satisfied that way, and an animal that doesn't eat meat is less fierce.
- The Gemara (Sanhedrin 108b) records a conversation in which Eliezer, Avraham's servant, asks Noach's son Shem what went on inside the ark.
- Shem tells him that some animals ate by day and some by night, so for twelve months they never got any rest. The big carnivores gave them trouble, so Hashem sent a kind of fever that nourished and calmed them.
- They didn't know what to feed the chameleon. Then Noach cut open a pomegranate, a worm fell out, and the chameleon snatched it. From then on they let bran go wormy and fed it to the chameleon.
- They found a bird called the chol (the phoenix, see Iyov 29:18) hiding in a corner, not asking for food. When Noach asked why, it said it saw how hard he was working and didn't want to bother him. Noach blessed it that it should never die.
The lion's bite
- Once Noach was late feeding the lion, and it bit him on the foot and crippled him permanently (Midrash Tanchuma).
- This was also a punishment for breaking Hashem's command. "Take for yourself all the food... it shall be for you and for them" (6:21) implied a command to feed each animal at its proper time, and he was late.
- From the Torah's order in Devarim 11:15, "grass in your fields for your animals" and only then "you shall eat and be full," the Gemara (Berachos 40a) rules that one may not eat before feeding his animals.
"Ach Noach": the word that limits
- Verse 23 says "vayisha'er ach Noach": only Noach and those with him in the ark survived.
- On the plain reading, "ach" just tells us who survived: only Noach's household and no one else.
- But "ach" is always a word that limits, so it also teaches something about Noach himself. He came out limited. His physical strength was diminished by that year in the ark.
- So the same word that tells us Noach survived also tells us his survival cost him.
Review questions
- What are the two ways of reading "mipnei mei hamabul" (because of / ahead of the floodwaters), and what does each say about Noach?
- According to the Zohar, what was Noach's more serious mistake, and how does Moshe's answer to Noach in Devarim Rabbah highlight it?
- What two reasons does Rabbeinu Bachya give for why Noach didn't pray for his generation?
- Why did the rain last forty days, and why did Noach board the ark in broad daylight?
- What were the re'em and Og, and how did each get through the flood?
- What does the word "ach" in "vayisha'er ach Noach" teach about Noach beyond the fact that he survived?
Sources
- Me'am Loez — the main text the class follows
- Bereishis Rabbah — Noach waiting until the water reached his ankles, the baby re'em, the re'em's head in the ark, the forty days of forming mamzerim
- Zohar — Noach's failure to pray for the world; why the generation stayed stubborn (binding the angels)
- Devarim Rabbah — Noach and Moshe arguing over who was greater
- Rabbeinu Bachya — why Noach didn't pray: there weren't ten righteous people
- Gemara, Zevachim 113b — boiling floodwaters, the re'em, Og walking beside the ark
- Targum Yonasan — Og on the roof of the ark, fed through the window
- Tzeror HaMor and Gemara, Shabbos 19a — boarding on a Wednesday; not setting sail close to Shabbos
- Rashi — the forty days and the mamzerim
- Ramban — how the fish survived
- Gemara, Zevachim 113 (Rabbi Yochanan and Reish Lakish) — whether the flood reached the Land of Israel
- Ibn Ezra — vegetarian food for the carnivores
- Abarbanel — the decree that the animals would be satisfied
- Gemara, Sanhedrin 108b — Shem tells Eliezer about life in the ark
- Midrash Tanchuma — the lion bit Noach