This week we read the famous story of Noah’s Ark. The Torah teaches that the world had become lawless, violent, and corrupt. But in the midst of all the evil, there was a pure righteous man in that generation – who shared a close intimacy with God.
So the Holy One instructed Noah to build an Ark – in Hebrew called a תֵּבָה – Tevah. God is explicit in the instructions: “This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make an opening for daylight in the ark, and terminate it within a cubit of the top. Put the entrance to the ark in its side; make it with bottom, second, and third decks.” (Genesis 6:14-16).
The ark was to be a vessel, a holy container that would carry Noah, his family, and the animal kingdom through the storm and into the future.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov, a grandson of the Ba’al Shem Tov, remarks that the Hebrew word תֵּבָה – Tevah, which means “ark”, can also be translated to mean “word”.
What makes a word an ark? How are words holy vessels?
The Ark, he teaches, is made of three decks, each of which alludes to a different dimension of meaning and holiness. So it is also with words.
Every word is comprised of letters. Each letter has a physical form – a body and shape that makes it recognizable – unique and different from other letters. That is the bottom deck – the first rung of its holiness.
The second deck is not the physical form, but the soul of the letter.
Each letter is vocalized by what we call in Hebrew the Nekudot, the vowels and punctuation marks we find underneath, aside and above each letter. For example, the letter ב – Bet has its own physical shape. But place a patach vowel underneath – בַּ – and you hear a different sound – Bah.
Looking inside a Torah scroll you will not see the Nekudot. Instead, as Rabbi Sam Feinsmith notes, “Unlike the body of the letter, the punctuation and cantillation marks are more subtle and internal, a function of one’s inner experience—feeling, thought, memory. As such, they are functions of soul (Neshamot), the inner life.”
The third deck, is God’s realm. God, the author of Creation, is everywhere, in everything, at every moment. God is the white space that surrounds each letter, the parchment on which the story of existence is written.
When you combine letters together, they form words – and words are vessels of meaning.
Words have the power to convey ideas, thoughts, propositions, explanations. They evoke joy or anger. They confuse or clarify. They transmit falsehood or bear great truths.
In ancient times, our ancestors believed that God summoned all Creation into existence through the power of words. And indeed, words are what allow us not simply to be present in Creation, but to be aware of our place and purpose within Creation.
In a world filled with lawlessness and corruption, Noah took refuge in an Ark – a Tevah – a vessel to carry him through to a more promising future.
Today we face a different kind of flood. Our world is flooded with pain and suffering, flooded with corruption and injustice, flooded with indignation and rage, flooded with ignorance and hatred, flooded with selfishness and conceit.
To meet the floods that beset us today, like Noah, we need a vessel – a Tevah. And for us, that vessel will be our words.
We need words that describe a future that is better than our present – words that stir us to compassion, patience, understanding, and love. We need to use words not to demean or dehumanize, but to uplift and inspire.
We need words that will open us to insight and awareness, the perspective and wisdom to see ourselves honestly for who we truly are, and offer us a vision of who we truly ought to be.
If we can find those words, and proclaim them loudly and with conviction, they will be the Ark that will shelter us from the storms of our day, and carry us through to the promise of tomorrow.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Dan Levin
Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
