Benjamin Sher - Dvar Torah

Shabbat Shalom,

In my Torah portion – Parashat Noach, we read that Noach was righteous for his generation. Though, Noach was righteous for his generation, the language used in the Torah is often vague so we don't know quite how bad his generation was. It is fair to assume that Noach was the best of a bad bunch. Basically the only one who hasn’t turned completely to the dark side. When I began reading the text, the first questions I had was about just what humanity did to deserve the flood? What could be so bad that G‑d just decided to start over again rather than trying to solve the problem.

I thought of the game: Civilization wherein you get to create your own faction of people, much like Hashem did. When I play though, I build off my mistakes rather than hitting the reset button.

Before the flood, humanity had reached a point where even G‑d couldn't turn the game around.

As humans though, we can’t restart life – we only get one chance to be as good as we possibly can. The lesson the Torah teach us is that we can learn from the flood is not to give up and start again – rather the importance of fixing our mistakes.

I also thought of how Noach didn’t question G‑d even when it was clear that almost everybody around him would perish – I wonder if I would have done the same? We shouldn’t just do things without questioning the consequences of our actions first. People would call Noach a lunatic.

Tikkun Olam teaches us that we should be G‑d’s partners in rebuilding the world, rather than helping him destroy it. The story of Noach also teaches us what happens when good people stop acting good. As G‑d’s creation, our task is not only to survive the flood but to prevent the next one by doing good deeds and learning from our mistakes.

When I read the Torah, I am not like Noach – I am always questioning what is written and what it would mean in the real world. Just like in Civilization, in life we learn by rethinking what we did before. Maybe that is true for Torah too: our task is not just to read the words, but to ask how they can help us build a more just world today.

Shabbat Shalom, may force be with you.