Breathing Praise: Noach

Parshat Noah, 6:9-11:32

This week’s parsha, Parshat Noach, is another one of those jam-packed parshiot in which we can spend days or weeks thinking and discussing it, still not completing the discussion or immersing ourselves fully into the text. However, just like any other parsha, we spend a week studying it, with the culmination being on Shabbat.

Speaking of Shabbat, Alyssa Gray, a Talmudic scholar writing about Shabbat liturgy in Lawrence Hoffman’s My People’s Prayerbook, Volume 10: Shabbat Morning, comments that the words נשמת כל חי (click for English translation) (found at the end of פסוקי דזמרא, as the introduction to the concluding blessing) literally mean the breath of every living being. However, That breath is not just referring to humans. Rather, it refers to all creatures that breath the air of the earth. The proof text for that comes from our parsha this week. In Genesis 7:22, it is written that the Flood destroys everything with a “breath of life.” The very same breath of life with which every living being praises God in נשמת כל חי(Nishmat Kol Chai) (Follow link for Hebrew and musical versions of this prayer).

So then, what do these contrasts mean, especially relative to this part of the prayer service, which is all about enumerating praise for God. It would seem, that Genesis 7:22 is pointing out that God needed to destroy every living thing, even the animals, because they too were capable of doing evil and wrong. Maybe God made a mistake. In Genesis 6:6-7, we read: "And God repented that God had made man on the earth, and it grieved God in God’s heart. And Adonai said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air, for I repent that I have made them.” It would seem that God made a mistake and now is attempting to rectify it through the Flood and destruction of the earth. The classic commentator, Rashi (France, 1040-1105) has a suggestion about this: "Although it was known to God that [humans] will sin and be destroyed, God nevertheless created them for the sake of the righteous who will descend from them.” (Berashit Rabah 27:4) In that sense, it would mean that God didn’t make a mistake and instead needed to “redo” creation in order to give people a better chance to become righteous. In that sense, every living being needed to be reformed, so that their breaths could indeed praise God.

The contrast is in the praising. Everyone on earth, save for Noah, his family and then all the animals, is destroyed. The rest of the peoples had become so wicked that they could not feasibly praise God with their living breath. Therefore, God needed to render everyone incapable, by wiping them out, in order to afford them the opportunity to learn and grow again. From that, people begin to praise and acknowledge God, recognizing that God does have a place in the world and in their lives. Through the praise of God, both in this introductory segment of our morning service, and throughout our daily lives, we keep the world good and eliminate the need for another Flood or negative action of retribution by God.

Shabbat Shalom.