In England, people think 100 miles is a long distance. In the US, people think 100 years is a long time. Don't look now, friend, but your provincialism, your parochialism, is showing.
I am aware of very powerful trends at work among God's people towards new, higher standards of Godliness, of expectation, of achievement. A growing number of us, even here in America, are having large families, home-schooling those children of the covenant, teaching them to think Biblically and optimistically, and launching them against an unsuspecting world. We view ourselves as more than conquerors, through Him who loved us, called upon to fight, and to win, the myriad battles for the popular culture. While your team visualizes the inexorable rise & global triumph of antichrist, our team visualizes a mosquito climbing up an elephant's hind leg intending rape -- and the elephant ain't got a chance!
You are probably too young to remember the Cold War, when all good Christians "knew" that communism was invincible. Even Whittaker Chambers (do you know the name? he wrote the most insightful book about the central struggle of the 20th century, Witness) felt that he joined the losing side when leaving Marx for Christ.
Rather than rejoicing in God's visible triumph over Marxism, your ilk seeks out other foes to cringe and cower before. Do you indeed bring honor to the King of Kings by this stubborn, intransigent, and obstinant love of defeat?
And in addition to your double tongue, your brain must be on falsehood overdrive, because I just read a whole bunch of stuff you made up about what I [supposedly] think. Have you not posted previously, that you used to be one of those Christian zealot types, and you have long since seen the error of those ways/days? I've seen many of your obnoxious posts, and IMO you've merely traded one form of zealotry for another. Get a life and have a nice day.
by Rabbi Baruch Melman
Adam was placed in the Garden by G*d (Gen 2:8- last week's sedra) whereas Avraham (Avram) was directed by G*d to go to a place where He will show him (Gen 12:1- next week's sedra). Noah was asked to chart a middle ground. Whereas with Adam G*d directly placed him where he wanted him, and whereas with Avraham (Avram), it was Avraham who was the active determining agent in causing his arrival where G*d wanted him, with regard to Noah, G*d played an indirect, yet active role in guiding his destiny. Lech lecha, G*d's command to Avraham, then, could be read as G*d telling him to take charge directly of his sojourn. Each central character in the developing story of mankind represents a greater striving for independence and autonomy on the part of mankind vis a vis its Creator.
The text makes pointed reference that Noah was not the captain of his ship, for indeed their was no ship. It was not even a boat. The Hebrew term used for the flotation device is teva -tawf, vet, hey. Teva, literally meaning "box," is a storage receptacle. The English word "tub" quite possibly derives from the Hebrew, as they share the same root letters. According to its blueprint it was built in a rectangular shape, with squared edges and a flat bottom, not like a boat which is designed with the rounded, curved features more useful for navigation. A boat, by design and practice, more readily belongs in the water. A tub, by contrast, more readily belongs on the earth. A man-made mikva must be a tub built into the ground, halakhically. It cannot be a portable spa. The mikva, like the Torah itself, cannot be made impure through contact with that which is ritually impure. Whether we immerse inert vessels (kelim) or living humans, the grounded tub serves as a vehicle for cleansing and salvation.
Noah's ark, then, was built as a receptacle for the salvation of the remnant of all living things, as a refuge from the violence (hamas) which consumed all the earth. The terminology of implicit groundedness by the pointed use of the word teva indicates also G*d's inclination that the ark NOT be used. Rather, it implies that G*d's deepest wishes were for mankind to do teshuva and to pull back from the brink of destruction. In other words, were the ark to have in its design a bias for floating, it would indicate G*d's predetermination to bring on the flood. Because of its design bias for groundedness on the earth, it indicates G*d's preference for mankind's teshuva and healing.
Not being a ship, then, there was no steering mechanism, no rudder, no navigational controls or source of power other than the Divine guidance system. Noah built the box, but G*d steered it. To counteract the feeling of helplessness that Noah must have felt, a skylight was built into the roof to let him feel connected to Heaven even if he couldn't see it for the rain. It was a symbol of hope, of tikva, that the whole earth had become now one mikva, one giant pool of water, consisting of forty (time) units of rain, paralleling the mikva's forty units of volume (seah). The Talmud tells us that the volume of a mikvah is also the volume which could contain 5760 (chicken) eggs. With the spillover of violence with the the New Year 5761, the waters of the mikva are now overflowing, threatening a new flood over all the earth. Not a flood of water which G*d promised would never reoccur, but a flood of fire.
As Adam was ten generations from Noah, who was ten generations from Avraham, mankind needs to incorporate the peace blueprint of the Ten Commandments for her survival. Mankind is ever moving to greater independence, greater autonomy, incorporating G*d's will as its own will, but out of choice rather than coercion. Teshuva exists. Teshuva literally means to return, to come back from the abyss. Noah's generation chose to ignore it. We must learn not to repeat their error.
As Noah looked through the skylight, trusting that all will be good in the end, so too, we must look heavenward and trust in the same.
Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos.
Midrash Tanchuma, Qedoshim.
The waters of the mikva spilled over on Rosh HaShana 5761. It started on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and it will engulf the world.
Matthew 24:37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.