Parshat Noach
By one of our Talmidim
Hayim Ani

They say that rain is only a blessing when it falls in little drops.
In Parshat Bereshit G-d makes a separation between water and heaven.
In this week's Parsha that separation is broken. The world opens up its floodgates and for forty days and nights rain falls on the earth, accumulating water that reaches 100 feet above the highest mountain tops. The whole world is destroyed; people, animals, bugs and even the earth is overturned.

The first, obvious question is why? Why create a world only to destroy it one parsha later? What happened to the G-d of mercy and compassion we talked so much about on Yom Kippur? The second question is as
follows: If you can justify the destruction of the whole world why promise never to do it again?

Perhaps an answer to the first question is rooted in a misunderstanding of the event. G-d didn't destroy the world in an act of revengeful anger. Maybe we could even say that G-d didn't destroy the world in an act of punishment at all. Perhaps the flood was merely a consequence. The Earth couldn't take the potency of evil that encompassed the land. The Earth needed to purge itself and G-d allowed it to; for the evil was so complete and stained everything.

The first thing Noach does when he exits the Ark is to build an altar and bring a sacrifice to G-d. The Torah tells us that G-d smelled the pleasing odors of the offering and only then did he promise never to destroy the world again. That is a promise to counteract the course of nature in the situation where we are just as deserving to be destroyed as we were in Noach’s time.

Love stays G-d's hand. As people on earth we feel this love daily with our continual survival even in the darkest of our moments. As Jews it is our job to return this love to the best of our ability. Although one's relationship with G-d must emanate from a place of fear, ahavat Hashem is a level we all need to strive for.

How does one love? Loving can only come through giving to the being/object we lust after. Only once we sacrifice something from ourselves can we reach the ever-lasting, deeply rooted plateau of true love.

The Ramban asks: what are we doing when (like Noach) we sacrifice an animal to G-d? He answers that really we are all sinners, we all deserve to be sacrificed on an alter to pay for our sins and yet human sacrifice is not a Jewish value. We live to make a better tomorrow.
But no sin goes unfixed and therefore we slaughter an animal in our stead. Theoretically, we are actually sacrificing our bodies to G-d. It is the best and only thing we have to give Him. Nowadays the same idea of sacrifice manifests itself in daily prayer in which the true supplication is a self sacrifice in and of itself.

Thankfully we have been getting off to good start here in Israel with the rain. It has rained three times in the past week and many mornings we wake up to cold temperatures, cloudy skies, slippery steps and large puddles. This rain is a blessing and we continue to ask G-d for it every day.

Even after giving us rain, life, health, and sustenance, G-d gives us something else in this week’s parsha, a testament to our love. He gives us a rainbow. This Keshet is a Kesher between us and G-d.

So all those mornings that it's cloudy and does nothing but rain, all we have to do is look up in the sky in the right place and time and know that soon the clouds will clear and there will be a rainbow. Let all of the rain that falls from now on be only for a blessing. Let the winds blow and the rain fall on Israel. Let Hakadosh Baruch Hoo sustain us all.

From Eretz Yisroel I wish you all a Shabbat Shalom Umivorach,