The Faith That Survives the Flood

From being carried to finding our voice in our relationship with Hashem

Dedicated to the memory of our fallen soldiers: Ephraim ben Liat v'Shmuel, Yosef Malachi ben Dina v'David, Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v'Shimon, Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v'Eliyahu, Netanel ben Revital v'Elad, Yakir ben Chaya v'Yehoshua, Ron ben Sara v'Kenny, Harel ben Yonat v'Shlomo, and Tomer ben Adina v'Izik. May their memories be a blessing, and may their families find strength and nechama.

I couldn't take another minute of it. My heart was cracking open, and I could barely breathe as I tried to swallow the sobs rising inside me. I was sitting in yet another home, with yet another mother who had just buried her beautiful son.

This was Rachel, my friend from CrossFit, whose son Yosef Chaim had been killed by a fellow soldier and friend suffering from post-trauma. I had never met Yosef Chaim, but listening to Rachel speak about him, I began to understand what an extraordinary young man he had been. The circumstances made his death a double tragedy. One young man's life had been taken, while another young man's life had been devastated by the terrible act he had committed.

Rachel sat there like a queen, sharing stories about her precious son, her face filled with love and a sad smile. Her faith in Hashem seemed to pour out of her, even in the unimaginable pain of shiva.

I could not comprehend what I was witnessing. How could she speak about Hashem with such love in the face of such loss?

Eventually, I had to leave. I stumbled to my car, and everything I had been holding inside erupted. I screamed and sobbed all the way home, so overwhelmed that I remain grateful that I made it home safely and that everyone who shared the road with me that day made it home unharmed.

I opened the Chumash because I had nowhere else to turn. It was the week between Bereishit and Noach, and I found myself reading about a world filled with hamas, violence, and corruption, a word that sounded painfully like Hamas, the evil we were fighting and suffering from.

I searched through the words of the parsha, hoping to find some sliver of communication with Hashem, some meaning in what felt impossible to understand.

That week, from a broken heart, I wrote my first Torah essay.

A year later, as we return to Parshat Noach and approach Yosef Chaim's azkara, I find myself returning to the question that brought me to the Chumash that day. What happens to our relationship with Hashem when our world falls apart? How do we continue reaching toward Him when we cannot understand what has happened?

I have been thinking about the way our relationships develop. We begin life being carried. As children, we learn to follow instructions long before we can understand every decision made for us. Gradually, we find ways to express ourselves, until we are ready to question, challenge, and participate in a conversation.

I wonder if the opening parshiyot of the Torah reveal something similar about the ways we relate to Hashem.

The First Lecha

The Torah introduces Noach as:

"נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו"

Noach was a righteous man in his generation.

We often read bedorotav, in his generation, as a measure of Noach's righteousness. But consider another dimension: this was his generation, his people, his world. Noach was about to witness the destruction of almost everyone he had ever known.

God tells him:

"עֲשֵׂה לְךָ תֵּבַת עֲצֵי גֹפֶר"

Make for yourself an ark.

The word lecha, for you, caught my attention. Long before Avraham hears Lech Lecha, Noach hears lecha three times. He is told to build an ark for himself, gather food for himself, and take the pure animals for himself.

Lecha means "for yourself," and can sometimes suggest "for your benefit."

What an extraordinary word to use when a man's entire world is about to be destroyed! How can this possibly be for Noach?

Of course, the ark will save his life. But something can be necessary, even lifesaving, while remaining terribly painful and impossible to understand.

There is something familiar here to anyone who has raised young children. Sometimes one child refuses to get to bed, another insists that wearing a coat violates his fundamental human rights, and a third is enthusiastically clocking his brother over the head. You separate the combatants, get everyone into the car, and hope you remembered the correct number of children.

Our children cannot always understand our decisions. Sometimes we cannot stop to explain them. We act for them and because we must, even when the child experiences our actions very differently from the way we intend them.

Hashem is not a fallible human parent, but the experience of having to trust when we cannot understand is deeply familiar.

Noach is given instructions that will preserve his family and the future of humanity. For now, he follows them.

The Faith of Being Carried

Noach builds the ark, gathers food, and takes responsibility for his family and the creatures entrusted to him. Yet the Torah describes no way for him to steer the ark. The waters lift it and carry it wherever they will.

He has tremendous responsibility, but very little control.

Let's look back at the opening of Bereishit:

"וְרוּחַ אֱלֹקִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם"

Before creation takes shape, there is darkness, water, and the presence of God hovering above it.

We begin life this way, held before we can hold ourselves. Even as we grow, that need never entirely disappears.

Noach must continue caring for everyone aboard the ark while entrusting his own survival to Hashem.

There are moments when this is all we can expect ourselves to do. We carry whatever responsibility is ours, while quietly asking Hashem to carry us.

The Fragrance of Faith

Eventually, the waters recede. Noach waits until God tells him:

"צֵא מִן הַתֵּבָה"

Leave the ark.

When he finally emerges, Noach does something God has not commanded.

"וַיִּבֶן נֹחַ מִזְבֵּחַ לַה׳"

Noach builds an altar to God.

Throughout the flood, God has given instructions, and Noach has followed them. Now, for the first time in this story, Noach initiates an offering.

He has no recorded words to explain what he has experienced. He does not question, argue, or even pray aloud. Instead, he brings a korban.

The Torah tells us:

"וַיָּרַח ה׳ אֶת רֵיחַ הַנִּיחֹחַ"

God smells the pleasing fragrance.

Smell has an extraordinary ability to reach us beyond words. A familiar fragrance can awaken a memory or feeling before we even recognize what it is. Jewish tradition also associates smell with a particular purity, as the sense not directly involved in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge.

This blows my mind! After the destruction of an entire world, Noach reaches toward God without language, through fragrance. He doesn't turn away; he reaches out. Hashem receives his offering.

I hear something in that korban: "I am still here, Hashem. I cannot explain what has happened, but I am still reaching toward You."

It reminds me of a child who cannot yet express something painful but reaches toward a parent through a gesture, a gift, or an embrace, hoping to be understood.

Noach has moved beyond simply following instructions. He has found a way to initiate a connection.

Then comes a fascinating detail:

"וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל לִבּוֹ"

God spoke to Himself.

Hashem responds to the korban with a promise never again to destroy the world through a flood. He establishes a covenant and gives the rainbow as its sign.

But notice: God speaks to Himself. He makes a decision, provides reassurance, and creates safety, without bringing Noach into a discussion about His thoughts.

Hold on to that detail. We will encounter something remarkably different with Avraham.

The Man Who Planted a Vineyard

The flood is over, but Noach's story is not.

The man introduced as ish tzadik, a righteous man, is later called ish ha'adamah, a man of the earth. He plants a vineyard, drinks its wine, and becomes exposed in his tent.

I wonder what happened to Noach's understanding of himself after the flood. He had survived, but his entire generation was gone. Could he have looked back and wondered whether he should have done more? Could he have influenced his neighbors, saved another family, or somehow changed the outcome?

There is a particular pain that can accompany survival. We can feel guilty for what we did or failed to do, even when the circumstances were far beyond our control. Sometimes guilt turns into shame, and instead of questioning our actions, we begin questioning who we are.

Noach had been called a righteous man. Could he still see himself that way after everything he had witnessed?

The Torah does not tell us why Noach drinks. We cannot know whether guilt, shame, grief, or something else was behind his actions. But it is worth considering that a person can emerge from an extraordinary experience of faith and still be carrying tremendous pain.

Then comes Cham.

He sees his father exposed and tells his brothers. We do not know exactly what Cham was thinking, but the contrast with his brothers is striking. Where Cham exposes his father's vulnerability, Shem and Yefet choose to cover him.

There is something familiar in the discomfort of seeing a parent vulnerable. Children grow up depending on their parents to be strong, capable, and protective. Discovering that a parent is also frightened, ashamed, confused, or struggling can be deeply unsettling. Sometimes that discomfort becomes rejection or judgment. We distance ourselves from the parent's weakness rather than face what it means to us.

Shem and Yefet offer another possibility. They do not pretend their father is fine, nor do they expose him further. They simply preserve his dignity.

As children grow, they may come to understand their parents' struggles in ways they could not when they were young. That understanding can open the door to compassion and a more honest relationship. But understanding a parent's pain does not make a child responsible for healing it.

Noach's children can cover him, but they cannot live his life or do his healing for him.

What moves me most is that Noach remains Noach. He is still the father who carried his family through the flood, still the man who built the ark, still the man who reached toward Hashem with his korban.

His moment of vulnerability does not erase any of that.

Perhaps this, too, belongs to the development of faith: learning that our relationship with Hashem, and our place within our families, does not disappear when we are no longer the strongest version of ourselves.

When God Invites Us Into the Conversation

Now return to those four words:

"וַיֹּאמֶר ה׳ אֶל לִבּוֹ"

God spoke to Himself.

When we reach Avraham and the impending destruction of Sodom, we encounter an astonishing contrast. God asks:

"הַמְכַסֶּה אֲנִי מֵאַבְרָהָם אֲשֶׁר אֲנִי עֹשֶׂה"

Shall I conceal from Avraham what I am about to do?

With Noach, God speaks to Himself. With Avraham, God chooses to share His thoughts.

Avraham responds:

"הֲשֹׁפֵט כָּל הָאָרֶץ לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה מִשְׁפָּט"

Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?

Avraham questions, challenges, and advocates. Hashem responds. They have a conversation.

What a remarkable development in the Torah's portrayal of our relationship with God!

I think about our relationships with our own children. When they are little, we make decisions for them, often without being able to explain everything. As they grow into adolescence and adulthood, something must change. We begin sharing our thinking, inviting their opinions, and listening to questions that we once had to answer with instructions.

This new stage also allows us to revisit the past. Decisions that were necessary, imperfect, or painful can finally be discussed with a maturity neither parent nor child possessed at the time. Sometimes there is a need for deeper repair, but often there is simply an opportunity to understand one another.

The parent who once held so much inside now opens the conversation.

I am not suggesting that God needed to change or that Noach was incapable of questioning Him. But these encounters offer us a beautiful way to think about the different possibilities within a relationship.

In Bereishit, there is merachefet, the experience of being held. With Noach, there is lecha, the instruction to trust and follow. Then comes the korban, a wordless reaching outward.

With Avraham, we encounter the possibility of dialogue.

We begin by being carried, learn to follow, discover our own ways of reaching outward, and eventually find our voices.

Yet these are not stages we simply leave behind. Even as adults, there are moments when we need Hashem to carry us, moments when we can only reach toward Him without words, and moments when we are ready to question Him.

I return to Rachel sitting shiva for Yosef Chaim, her face filled with love for her son and her extraordinary faith in Hashem.

I still cannot comprehend the strength I witnessed that day, and the similar displays of faith I saw at every single shiva for our fallen sons. But I am beginning to understand that faith and grief can live together in the same heart.

Noach can offer God a rei'ach nicho'ach while still searching for nechama.

The world can be saved while its people are still broken, and a broken heart can continue to carry faith.

For Rachel and Yosef Chaim

Rachel, as we approach Yosef Chaim's azkara, I return to that afternoon in your home. You could not have known what was happening inside me as I listened to you speak about your precious son. Your love for him and your faith in Hashem have stayed with me, shaping the questions I continue to bring to the Torah.

A year later, I am still searching, and I am deeply grateful for what you taught me without knowing you were teaching.

May Hashem hold you and your family with tenderness and compassion. May Yosef Chaim's memory always be a source of blessing, love, and light, and may you be surrounded by people who can sit beside you in both your faith and your grief.

May we all find the courage to continue reaching toward Hashem, whether we come with trust, questions, gratitude, or hearts too broken to find words.

יהי זכרו של יוסף חיים ברוך.