Noach

📜 The Story

A long time after Adam and Chava, the world became full of people who did bad things. Hashem looked down and saw that people were being cruel to each other and doing many wrong things, and He was sad that He had made the world. But there was one good man named Noach. The Torah tells us Noach was a righteous and wholehearted man in his generation, and he walked with Hashem.

Hashem told Noach that He was going to bring a flood to cover the whole earth, because the world had become so full of wrongdoing. Hashem told Noach to build a big wooden box called an ark, three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high, with a roof, a door, and three levels inside.

Hashem told Noach to bring his wife, his three sons, Shem, Cham, and Yefet, and their wives into the ark, eight people altogether. Noach also brought seven pairs of every kosher animal and one pair of every other animal, so that life could continue after the flood. Then the rain began, and it did not stop for forty days and forty nights, until the water covered even the highest mountains.

After many months, the water began to go down, and the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noach sent out a raven, and then a dove, to see if the land was dry. The first time, the dove found nothing and came back. The second time, it returned with a fresh olive leaf in its beak, so Noach knew the water was going down. Finally Hashem told Noach it was time to leave the ark with his family and all the animals.

Noach built an altar and thanked Hashem. Hashem then made a promise, a covenant, that He would never again destroy the whole world with a flood, and He placed a rainbow in the sky as the sign of this promise. Hashem also gave Noach and his family seven important rules for all people to follow, the Seven Noahide Laws. Later in the parsha, the people of the world spoke one language and tried to build a great tower in the city of Bavel that would reach the heavens. Hashem confused their languages so they could no longer understand each other, and they scattered across the earth. The parsha ends with the birth of Avram, who would later become Avraham Avinu.