Waters of Noach

The Haftarah of Noach says:

מֵי נֹחַ זֹאת לִי
אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי מֵעֲבֹר מֵי נֹחַ עוֹד עַל הָאָרֶץ
כֵּן נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי מִקְּצֹף עָלַיִךְ וּמִגְּעָר בָּךְ:
For it is like the Waters of Noach to Me,
as I swore not to let the Waters of Noach pass over the land,
so too I have sworn not to be angry at you, nor to chastise you. (Yeshayahu 54:9)

When it comes to finding the connection between the Parsha and the Haftarah, it doesn’t get clearer than this. Noach is mentioned explicitly. By what is his relevance here?

Of all the promises G-d ever made, why was the promise to Noach chosen for this prophecy of comfort to Jerusalem? Why not the promise to Avraham, “I will give this land to your descendents” (Br’ 16:18)? Why not the promise to Moshe, “Hashem will bring you to the land of your ancestors, and give you more goodness even than your ancestors” (Dev 30:5)?

The Haftarah is meant to reassure and comfort the Jewish People. In order to be truly healing, words of comfort must address specific problems, must allay specific fears and anxieties. It is not enough to hear that “soon Moshiach will come”, or “everything that G-d does is for the good”. Yeshayahu, whose book the Talmud calls “purely comfort” , does not attempt to soothe us with platitudes and generalities. Part of our task in understanding Yeshayahu is figuring out which wounds, which traumas of Jewish History, his words of comfort are meant to heal.

If G-d’s words of comfort, the answer to an aching question is, “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again”, then the question must have been: “How do we know that there won’t be another rejection, another exile?”

How do we know that when G-d looks at the society that we have built in Jerusalem, at the problems that we have not solved and the new ones that we have created, what reason do we have to believe that He will not destroy it all again?

In that case, G-d’s promise to Noach is very relevant indeed:

(יד) וְהָיָה בְּעַנְנִי עָנָן עַל הָאָרֶץ
וְנִרְאֲתָה הַקֶּשֶׁת בֶּעָנָן:
(טו) וְזָכַרְתִּי אֶת בְּרִיתִי אֲשֶׁר בֵּינִי וּבֵינֵיכֶם וּבֵין כָּל נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה בְּכָל בָּשָׂר
וְלֹא יִהְיֶה עוֹד הַמַּיִם לְמַבּוּל לְשַׁחֵת כָּל בָּשָׂר:

14) In My cloud, there will be a cloud upon the earth,
and the rainbow will be visible in the cloud.
15) And I will remember My covenant that is between Me and you,
and all living beings of flesh,
and there no longer be water in a flood to destroy all flesh. (Breishit 9)

G-d swore not to let a flood destroy the Earth ever again. Unlike the other covenants mentioned above, this covenant is not about what G-d would do, it’s about what G-d would not do: He would not destroy the world by flood, even if the world deserves it.

In the Haftarah of Noach, G-d refers to the promise that He made to Noach. He reassures us that just as He has kept that promise, and has not destroyed the world again by flood, He will keep this new promise to Jerusalem, and will not reject us again. Not even if we deserve it.

Copyright © Kira Sirote
In memory of my father, Peter Rozenberg, z”l
לעילוי נשמת אבי מורי פנחס בן נתן נטע ז”ל