Parashat Noach 5785

If you ever walk around Jerusalem, specifically Meah Shearim, during Hanukkah, you will hear the unmistakable sound of the Karliner Hasidim. The Karliners are known for their fervent prayers, fervor in the form of screaming. Each word of the blessing for lighting the Hanukkah Candles is given a full breath and full volume. 

There is a famous story about the origins of this practice. A misnagdid, which literally means “opponent” of the Hasidic movement, asked the Karliner Rebbe with a raised eyebrow, “Why do you yell your prayers?” The Rebbe, without skipping a beat, pinched the misnagdid, who yelped in pain. “See?” The Rebbe said. “When you are in pain, you yell.” There is something so human, so real about not only this story but about this type of prayer. Prayer as not only an obligation but an opportunity for catharsis, for expression, for channeling the pain of the world and asking Hashem to take it from us in its most raw form. 

In this week’s parsha, only ten generations from the creation of the first human, the Creator is ready to throw in the towel. God has seen how corrupt humans have become, and although we are not given many specifics on exactly how humanity was violent, lawless and corrupt–we perhaps don’t need to stretch our imaginations too much these days to guess why God was fed up and ready to start over. Once God has made the decision, God instructs Noach–a Tzadik compared to the rest of humanity–to create a teivah. An Ark. A few verses of our parsha read like an Ikea manual, and within the specific measurements and design instructions, we read this small detail: 

֣צַֹהר ׀ תֲֽעשה לתָ֗בה 

Make an opening for daylight in the ark 

The rabbis are immediately compelled by the word tzohar, which means something that illuminates, like the word tzoharaim or mid-day, which is illuminated. A midrash helps us fill in the gaps but in the most unexpected way: 

“You shall make a bright item [tzohar] for the ark..." Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said: It was a window. Rabbi Levi said: It was a [luminous] precious stone. Rabbi Pinḥas said in the name of Rabbi Levi: All twelve months that Noah was in the ark, he needed neither the light of the sun during the day nor the light of the moon at night; rather, he had a precious stone that he had suspended. When it was dim he knew that it was day, and when it shined brightly he knew that it was night. 

This Midrash sounds more like a meditation to me. A meditation on what we need when we are in times of great uncertainty, fear, overwhelm. What we need is a place to retreat within, and a point of light or hope that illuminates within us when it is the most dark, when light is most needed. 

The Baal Shem Tov makes it even more personal, into our very mouths. 

"Make an opening (tzohar) in the ark (teivah)" (Genesis 6:16) --My grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, may he rest in Eden, illuminated this passage. He said that teivah actually means 'word', and the meaning of making an opening for the word is that you should be careful to bring light into the words that come from your lips.” 

What would it change if we knew that our words were truly vessels? What would we want to fill them with, what would we want to transmit to others, to ourselves, to the Divine? How can we install a tzohar–whether that is a skylight, a precious stone– into our words? Remembering that, like the meaning of abrah k’dabrah–we create both our inner and world with speech, and we have the power to fill it with light. 

The Piazetzer grounds this teaching of the Besht for us, saying that he is referring to prayer, “the words (tevah) he speaks being the body, and his passion—which is God’s illumination—giving it a soul. A person gives the soul to the word. “Make a window [tzohar] for the ark [tevah],”—that is, put brightness and light into it [the word], says the Besht. 

Perhaps that’s what the Karliners are doing with their screaming, giving each word a soul of it’s own. Perhaps that’s what we do here at PSJC–especially on the High Holidays, when you can feel that light buzzing in the air for hours after davvening ends. 

I am excited that this month I will begin a nine month Shaliach Tzibbur Fellowship at Hadar to attempt to learn how to do what the Baal Shem Tov is instructing us. To learn how to pour light and soul and passion into the words of prayer, and guide others in a meaningful and noncoercive way to pour their light and souls and passion into the words too. It will mean that I will be doing some more prayer leadership here, and I ask for your curiosity and participation as I experiment with things. I can’t say if we will be doing much screaming, probably not at first, but I can say that I am so excited for this learning, and to share with you all what gems I gather there. 

Just days away from an election that feels like a great stormy sea of unknown, may we be blessed to build an Ark within ourselves, within our prayers, and within this sanctuary. In our construction, may we remember to make a skylight or bring in precious stones to illuminate the dark. And may we know that, no matter what storm is raging outside, we can always retreat there and find safety. 

Shabbat Shalom.