Parshat Noach – a meditation on a name
The Midrash is a repository of Torah wisdom by our sages and forms a major part of the oral tradition.
It is important to understand how to approach the Midrash which has its own unique language and lexicon.
The sages used metaphor, humour, sometimes even exaggeration in order to convey and clothe spiritual concepts in a language that is palatable to mere mortals. By doing this they were able to teach Torah to all people whether scholarly or unlettered, child or old.
Here is a beautiful example of a debate about the origins of the name Noach. Source Midrash Bereishis Rabba:-
Composed in Talmudic Israel/Babylon (500 CE)
(note that a persons name refers to his/her essence and to what they are primarily about hence the importance of this debate)
‘And HaShem smelled the sweet aroma (hebrew Nichoach) of the sacrifice'(Bereishit, 8: 21).
Rabbi Eliezer said No’ach was named after this sacrifice. ‘
And the ark rested ‘nach’ on Mt. Ararat’ (ibid, 4). Rabbi Yose taught that he was named after the resting of the Ark’ ( Bereishit Rabbah 33).
Rabbi Yose saw No’ach’s essence as flowing from the distance he set between his soul and that of the generation of the Flood. This separation was expressed through his attachment, as it were to the Ark and therefore he was named for the ark’s settling on Mt. Ararat. This explanation relates to the beginning of Noach’s spiritual development and Rabbi Yose sees the beginning of spirituality as the most important and hence the origin of Noach’s name. As we have mentioned before Noach is not seen by all the sages in the best of lights. His spiritual growth in a certain sense was stunted as he was unable to redeem his generation. Thus his ark symbolically sat on top of Mt Ararat away from the rest of society.
In contrast Rabbi Eliezer saw Noach’s name deriving from the “sweet smelling aroma” of the sacrifice. Perhaps Rabbi Eliezer saw that although Noach failed his generation who did not repent, he did still maintain his faith and attachment with God as expressed through sacrifice (the key mode of worship in the ancient world). Rabbi Eleizer therefore sees Noach’s name (and hence his essence) as deriving from after the flood when Noach can start afresh building a new society.
Here we have an example where on the surface two Rabbis are simply looking for a source for Noach’s name in Scripture. But dig a little deeper and we see two Rabbis with two different world views.
Do we see Noach as a person holding onto the past (the ark) unable to adapt to the new world order, or can we see in Noach the potential for change.
Eventually Abraham emerges as a direct descendant from Noach. It would take ten generations for the soul of Abraham to emerge and take the world forward on its journey to discovering the True God.
Shabbat Shalom
