Dvar Torah for Parshat Noach

Based on Rabbi Nachman’s Stories: The Master of Prayer

“‘In our chronicles it is written that there was great hurricane [that] turned the whole world upside-down. Sea was transformed into dry land, and dry land into sea. Deserts became settled and settlements became desert. [The hurricane] made the whole world mixed-up. [Afterwards] mankind decided they wanted to appoint a king. [They concluded] that the person who most strives to fulfill the purpose of life is fit to be king. They then began to consider: what is the purpose of life? They were of different minds concerning this’....”
Rabbi Nachman’s Stories, p.312

In our chronicles, as well, it is written that there was a titanic flood which changed the entire topography of the world. There was an epic dispersal of mankind (Genesis 11:8) whereby deserts became settled and settlements became desert. And it’s a rare person, chronicles or no, who thinks that the world is not mixed-up!

Dry land became sea. Places, ideas and dreams once upon a time full of promise, are no longer available. The sea that has become dry land is still sea, good for fish, not good for human beings. The settled deserts have become self-perpetuating mirages, parodies of the fantasies to which their inhabitants have pledged allegiance. Settlements have become desert–ideas and goals once universally acknowledged and accepted are looked upon as dry, lifeless death traps. Because everyone knows that the purpose of life is to strive to fulfill the goal. Yet there are very few who succeed in ascertaining what it is.

Rebbe Nachman tells of different factions and their conclusions (pp.313-322). With one exception, each group was mistaken. Their mistake was not that their goal was not based on true concepts for it was. Their mistake came about because their desire for pleasure perverted their logic. Yet the flaws in their logic are so subtle and their arguments so reasonable that Rebbe Nachman refused to discuss lest even one person be led astray.

The chronicle of one’s life also contains cataclysmic events. Some are like the Deluge–we are warned, but we do nothing to prepare for them. Some are like the Dispersal–they come unannounced. The results are quite similar: everything has changed, yet life must continue and begin anew. One seeks a “king,” a head full of ideas that will give structure and order to the events of life. One seeks a “king,” leadership and inspiration, from without or within, that will motivate him to pursue the purpose of life.

What is the purpose of life? “The Master of Prayer would speak with people and tell them that in fact, there is no purpose in the world but to serve God as long as one is alive, to pray to Him and to sing His praises...” (p. 280). The people of the Generation of the Deluge served only themselves. They fought and stole from one another and invented ways to deny pleasure from their fellow human beings. The Generation of the Dispersal sought to sing their own praises, not God’s. Such a minyan He doesn’t need. May God help us to gather in peace like the Generation of the Dispersal did (Genesis 11:1) and may He make us aware, as He did Noach, that our gifts are meant to be used in His service (ibid. 8:20, Rashi).

agutn Shabbos!
Shabbat Shalom!