In loving memory of Menachem Mendel Kaim

Transcription

1 Volume 29 No. 6 Noach cn Artscroll p. 30 Hertz p. 26 Soncino p November Cheshvan 5777 Shabbat ends London 6.42pm Jerusalem 5.32pm In loving memory of Menachem Mendel Kaim 1

2 Sidrah Summary Noach 1st Aliya (Kohen) Bereishit 6:9-22 Noach is introduced as a righteous man who walked with God. The people have become thieving and corrupt. Noach is told by God that He will destroy the world with a flood and commands him to build a wooden Ark with specific dimensions. Noach and his family are to enter the Ark, as well as a male and female of every non-kosher species of animal and bird. Point to Consider: Why did the Ark have to be built with such specific dimensions? 2nd Aliya (Levi) 7:1-16 In addition, seven males and females from each species of kosher animal and bird are to enter the Ark. Noach is 600 years old when the Flood starts. The waters fall gently for the first seven days, then heavily for 40 days and nights. 3rd Aliya (Shlishi) 7:17-8:14 The rising Flood covers the highest mountains and wipes out every living creature. The waters strengthen for a further 150 days, after which they stop and start to recede. Ten months after the start of the Flood, the mountain tops become visible again. 40 days later, Noach sends out a raven and then a dove, to test the recession of the Flood. Question What was the dove holding in its mouth on its final return to the Ark? (8:11). Answer on the bottom of page 6. 4th Aliya (Revi i) 8:15-9:7 Upon God s command, Noach, his family and the animals leave the Ark. Noach builds an altar and brings one of every kosher animal and bird as an offering. This pleases God, Who pledges never again to destroy life on Earth. 5th Aliya (Chamishi) 9:8-9:17 God establishes His covenant never to destroy the world with another flood, with the rainbow as its sign. Whenever a rainbow appears, it is a reminder to God to keep this promise. 6th Aliya (Shishi) 9:18-10:32 Noach s three sons are called Shem, Cham and Yefet. Noach plants a vineyard, eventually drinking its wine and becoming drunk. Cham enters Noach s tent and disgraces his father; Shem and Yefet then protect Noach s dignity. After Noach wakes up, he realises what has happened and curses Cham and his descendants, but blesses Shem and Yefet. Noach dies at the age of 950. Cham and Yefet s descendants are listed, including Cham s great grandson Nimrod, a mighty warrior and conqueror. 7th Aliya (Shevi i) 11:1-11:32 All people share a common language and live in Babylonia. They decide to build a city with a tower that can reach the heavens. The Midrash says that, led by Nimrod, they want to wage war against God. However, God thwarts their plans, dispersing them around the world and introducing different languages so that they can no longer understand one another. Shem s descendants are listed, up to the generation of Avram (later Avraham) and his nephew Lot. Avram marries his niece Sarai (later Sarah) who is not blessed with children. Haftarah Chapter 54 of Yeshaya refers to the Flood, labelling it the waters of Noach. The Zohar, a mystical work, explains that Noach was partly to blame for the deluge, as he could have prayed more fervently for his generation. United Synagogue Daf Hashavuah Produced by the US Living & Learning together with the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue Editor: Rabbi Chaim Gross Editor-in-Chief: Rabbi Baruch Davis Editorial Team: Ilana Epstein, Michael Laitner, Sharon Radley Available also via US website United Synagogue To sponsor Daf Hashavuah please contact Loraine Young on , or lyoung@theus.org.uk If you have any comments or questions regarding Daf Hashavuah please rabbigross@theus.org.uk 2

3 Solutions in the Sidrah: The Oldest Name by Rabbi Yoni Birnbaum, Hadley Wood Jewish Community According to Hebrew University Professor Yuval Noah Harari, in his international bestselling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York, Harper Collins, 2015), the earliest named individual discovered in the archaeological record was someone from ancient Sumeria, named Kushim. Dated to approximately 5,000 years ago, Kushim appears to have been an ordinary businessman, signing his name on a clay document in proof of the receipt of 29,086 measures of barley. As Harari notes, it is perhaps telling that this first recorded name belongs to, an accountant, rather than a prophet, poet or great conqueror. It was often economic necessity which pushed the development of civilisation forward in antiquity. As societies grew and became ever more complex, the need to record transactions in writing became essential; with that came the need to record people s names. not know the names of the animals, whereas Adam did. According to the Midrash, names are not assigned at random. They reveal the essence of a person, animal or object. Adam s talent lay in his ability to understand the inner spiritual essence of each creature and name it accordingly, something the angels were unable to do. With this, we can perhaps appreciate the reason why Shem was called a name. Whereas others, such as his brothers, Yefet (meaning beauty ) and Cham (meaning warmth or emotion ), received names that reflected a particular aspect of their personality, Shem was called a name, because his entire role, as the forefather of Avraham, was to bring an inner spiritual core, through the Torah, into this world. He was, simply and profoundly, just a name. Names have a very prominent role in the first two sidrot of the Book of Bereshit. God Himself names Adam and Eve, and Adam is tasked with the naming of all living creatures (Beresihit 2:19). In this week s sidrah, the names of each of the original 70 nations are spelled out in detail, together with a genealogical record of the names of Noach s descendants until Avraham (ibid 10:1-32, 11:10-30). In this context, therefore, it is striking that the name given to Avraham s own ancestor, Shem, the son of Noach, is simply shem meaning a name. Why, despite the prominence given to names, was Shem given the most ordinary sounding name of all? Perhaps one answer to this can be found in the Midrashic depiction of the earlier naming process of creatures by Adam. The Midrash describes how the angels asked God what the nature of man was. G-d responded by contrasting Adam s insight and ability in naming with their own. The angels did In loving m emory of Aharon Libe ben Yisroel Zvi 3

4 Knowing in our Hearts by Rabbi Chaim Kanterowitz, Senior Rabbi, Borehamwood and Elstree United Synagogue Noach with his sons, his wife, and his sons wives with him, went into the Ark because of the waters of the flood (Bereishit 7:7). The time had finally come, after decades of building and construction. The word of God was about to come true. For 120 years, Noach had been making the Ark for all to see. He had preached repentance, but to no avail. Now, as the waters began to fall, he faced the reality of all that he had forecast. Yet Rashi (d. 1105), based on a Midrash, sees within the above verse a negative comment on Noach s faith: Noach was a man of small faith, who believed and yet did not believe that the flood would come. So he did not enter the Ark until the rising water forced him to do so. who also claimed to believe in God, he retorted, you say it, but I know it! Knowing something and saying something are not necessarily the same. Noach had the first level, of saying something, but the sages of the Midrash were sceptical as to whether or not he knew it as well. Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik (d. 1993) writes that this is the reason we ask forgiveness during the confessional part of the prayers during the Yamim Noraim (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) for the utterances of our lips. We might say and preach faith and even honesty mean it, but do we know it to be true? With the Yamim Noraim behind us and our renewed declaration from those days of faith in the Almighty, we should strive to go beyond our words and know in our hearts that what we say is truly what we mean. Here was a man who stood alone against the world, teaching the word of God, beseeching people to repent. He undertook a momentous task, of constructing an Ark, according to precise instructions from God. How can it be said of him that he had small faith? Moreover, the Torah itself testifies that he was a righteous man, perfect in his generations (6:9). Through his merit, Noach and his family alone survived the Flood and populated the earth in its aftermath. Rabbi Meir Tzvi Bergman (a renowned Rosh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak) answers that this teaches us a powerful lesson about faith. We can believe in something, preach it and say what we will about it to others. Yet to act on it, to actually know it is true, is a far higher achievement. A story is told of the famed Chasidic master Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev (d. 1809). When he was confronted about his level of faith by the cook in the tavern, In loving memory of Rivka bat Leah 4

5 Parallel Thinking Part 3: Information Theory and the Written Law by Rabbi Dr. Moshe Freedman, New West End United Synagogue In 1948 the American mathematician, electrical engineer and cryptographer Claude E. Shannon published a paper entitled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which determined the process of how information is coded and transmitted through different media. Shannon broke down the process of information transfer into five parts: There is (i) an information source which produces a message; (ii) a transmitter that processes the message into a signal; (iii) this is carried over a channel; (iv) the receiver then converts the signal back into the message so that (v) it can reach its destination, the person or machine for whom the message is intended. However, this process does not occur in a vacuum. There is accompanying noise, meaning unintended effects which disturb the signal and may corrupt the message. All modern communication devices contain technology to reduce noise and maintain the integrity of the message. In essence, Torah is information; the integrity of God s message can in theory be tested through applying the same principles of Information Theory which provide the basis for satellite telecommunications, mobile phones and digital broadcasting. corruption, copying errors, mistakes in understanding or a failure to remember parts of the message. We have laws to protect the Torah from corruption. We are forbidden to deliberately alter the text (Devarim 4:2). In addition, our Sages relate that shortly before Moshe died, he wrote 13 Torah scrolls, one for each of the 12 tribes and one to place in the Ark of the Covenant, so that if someone tried to forge something, they could refer back to the original (Midrash Devarim Rabbah 9:9). A Sefer Torah is invalid unless the entire text is precise. A scribe must copy from an existing Torah; if even one letter has been written by heart, the scroll is invalid. Israel Prize laureate and Bible scholar, Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Breuer (d. 2007), tested Torah scrolls and manuscripts from across the world for textual differences. He revealed only twelve variances between them; these only reflect differences in spelling, equivalent to colour versus color in English. Remarkably, over a period of 3,300 years, the Torah we have, copied thousands of times since Moshe, is essentially the same. In the next article we will evaluate the Oral Torah s transmission. However, unlike modern telecommunications, the messages of Torah were not only intended to be transmitted over space, but also over time. The medium through which this is achieved is the Jewish people itself; the receivers of that information is each generation of young Jewish minds. The transmission of the written Torah contains elements that are essential for good information transfer. The system also contains ways of eliminating sources of noise, such as deliberate Sponsored by an anonymous donor 5

6 Insights into Jewish History Part 50: The Growth of Hellenism by Rebbetzen Ilana Epstein, Cockfosters & N Southgate United Synagogue; Head of Project Development, US Living & Learning Last week, we discussed the origins of the sectarianism that plagued the Second Temple period. Alexander the Great, after granting permission for the Jews to worship freely in the Temple in Jerusalem, also granted the Samaritans (Kutim) permission to build a temple on Mount Gerizim, near the city of Shechem. This alternative temple would become a thorn in the Jews side. Along with sectarianism, the other predominant theme of the Second Temple period was increasing Hellenistic influence. Rabbi Zvi Ralbag of New York writes that Jews have rarely, if ever, aspired to cultures that they viewed as lower than themselves. We do not find reports of substantial acculturation during the Babylonian exile and even less so during the Persian exile. In fact, the Jews viewed the Persian conquerors as barbarians. The Greeks, in contrast, with their love of sciences and knowledge, appealed to the Jews. Slowly many Jews assumed the dress, names and culture of the Greeks. Greek influence did not die with Alexander the Great s untimely death in the year 323 BCE, at the age of 32. Alexander s empire was divided between four of his generals. General Seleucus I Nicator took the northern area of the huge Greek empire. He was described by Roman historian Appian of Alexandria as: always lying in wait for the neighbouring nations; strong in arms and persuasive in council, he [Seleucus] acquired Mesopotamia, Armenia, 'Seleucid' Cappadocia, Persis, Parthia, Bactria, Arabia, Tapouria, Sogdia, Arachosia, Hyrcania and other adjacent peoples that had been subdued by Alexander, as far as the river Indus, so that the boundaries of his empire were the most extensive in Asia, after that of Alexander. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus. The southern half of the empire mainly Egypt was ruled by General Ptolemy I Soter I. The other two generals ruled much smaller areas. The death of Alexander, before the formulation of any clear succession plan, meant that the borders between the Seleucid kingdom and the Ptolemaic kingdom were not clear. This had an impact on Jewish life. The Northern forces wanted Judea to act as a buffer zone for the escalating ambitions of the Southern Ptolemaic kingdom, while the Ptolemies felt that Judea had historically been under the influence of Egyptian rule, as far back as the time of Yosef and his brothers. The ensuing division and wars of the Diadochi (the rival generals), rather than weakening the Greek influence, actually strengthened the Greek hold on Judea and captured the imagination of the Jews. Answer: An olive leaf In loving memory of Yosef ben Moshe HaCohen 6

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