Entering the Era of Torah
Entering the Era of Torah

Parshat Noach, read this past Shabbat, opens with Noach as a young man – well, relatively young, anyway: at a time when a life-span of eight or nine hundred years was quite normal, the 480-year-old Noach was still a spring chicken in his prime of life.

The reason that the Torah tells us precisely how long each person lived for the first ten generations of mankind and at what age he begat his first son (Genesis 5) is so that we can date every event accurately – vital for any serious historical account. Noach was born in the year 1056 from Creation, and he was 600 years old when the Flood began (Genesis 7:6) in the year 1656 from Creation (2104 B.C.E.).

Three hundred and forty years after the Flood came the Tower of Babel (Seder Olam Rabbah chapter 1).

Eight hundred and ninety-two years after Noach was born, Avram was born in the year 1948 from Creation (1812 B.C.E.). The Talmud (Nedarim 32a) and the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 30:8, 64:4; Tanhuma, Lekh Lekha 3 et. al.) dispute whether Avram acknowledged G-d when he was three years old or forty-eight. The usual understanding is that when he was three, he first realised that a universe as perfect as this had to have a Creator; when he was forty-eight, he achieved full and mature understanding, and was ready to give his very life for his belief. This is what the Rambam seems to imply in Laws of Idolatry 1:3.

(As an aside, the Rambam states there that “Avraham acknowledged his Creator at age forty”. It is not clear what the Rambam’s source is for Avraham’s age being 40: all the sources cite his age as being 48.)

And then, Avram was ready to begin preaching and spreading the message, weaning his generation off idolatry and bringing them to belief in the One true G-d: in this week's Parshah, Lekh Lekha, the Torah records that when Avram left Haran, he “took Sarai his wife, and Lot his nephew, and all the property they had acquired, and the souls which they had made in Haran” (Genesis 12:5).

The “souls which they had made in Haran” means the people whom they had converted to belief in and worship of the One true G-d (Avodah Zarah 9a, Targum Onkelos, Targum Yonatan, Targum Yerushalmi, Avot de-Rabbi Natan 12:7, Sifrei Va-et’chanan 32, Bereishit Rabbah 84:4, Bamidbar Rabbah 14:11 et. al.). The Talmud (Avodah Zarah 9a) records the tradition that at the time, Avraham was fifty-two years old – that is to say, in the year 2000 from Creation (1760 B.C.E.).

So the year 2000 was when the world began a new era: “This world is to endure for 6,000 years: 2,000 years of primordial void, 2,000 years of Torah, and 2,000 years of mashiach” (Tanna de-Bey Eliyahu, Seder Eliyahu Rabbah chapter 2, cited in the Talmud, Avodah Zarah 9a and Sanhedrin 97a). The primordial void (“tohu va-vohu”) out of which G-d had created the world (Genesis 1:2) yet endured, as long as there was no one who recognised Him as the Creator; the darkness from before Creation was only dispelled spiritually when Avram and Sarai began propagating the truth of G-d in His world.

It was only when the light of Torah began to spread forth that Creation actualised its purpose.

The Inverted Letter "Nun"

Parshat Noach concludes with the words: “Terah’s days were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran” (Genesis 11:32). According to the Masoret, the final nun in the word Haran is inverted. (Even though most Sifrei Torah today do not invert the final nun, it appears as a Masoretic note in many printed editions. It is not clear how or why this rule came to be largely disregarded.) Rashi comments on this: “The nun [in the word Haran] is inverted to tell you that until Avram, G-d’s anger [haron] was in the world”.

The 2,000 years of primordial void, of G-d’s perceived absence from His creation, come to an end with the inverted nun which closes Parshat Noach.

In Parashat Beha’alot’cha (Numbers/Bamidbar) the Torah describes the journeyings of the Ark: “And it was that whenever the Ark would journey, Moshe would say: Rise up, O HaShem, so that your enemies be scattered, and those who hate You flee from before You. And whenever it would rest, he would say: Return, O HaShem, to the myriad thousands of Israel” (Numbers 10:35-36). These two verses are set off from the rest of the Torah by two inverted nuns. These two inverted nuns indicate a break: these two verses constitute a complete Book of their own.

The 107th Psalm – the first Psalm in the fifth and final Book of Psalms – is an ecstatic prayer of praise to G-d for redemption and salvation from several kinds of mortal danger (hence it is the Psalm that opens the Evening Service for Yom ha-Atzma’ut and Yom Yerushalayim).

The six categories of people whom this Psalm depicts as being saved are introduced by inverted nuns: “Those who go down to the sea in ships, who perform their work in mighty waters” (v. 23); “They saw HaShem’s works and His miracles in the watery deep” (v. 24); “When He spoke, the storm-wind upraised and lifted its waves” (v. 25); “they rise up to the Heavens, they descend to the depths; when their soul encounters evil, it melts” (v.26); “They circle and they sway like a drunk, and all their wisdom is swallowed up” (v. 27); “They cried out to HaShem in their distress, and He extricated them from their sufferings” (v.28). These all depict people who faced mortal danger, and whose fortunes G-d reversed by rescuing them.

And then there is another category whose fortunes G-d reverses in the other direction: “He pours contempt upon noblemen, causing them to wander in the wasteland where there is no path” (v. 40). Just as He can rescue man from seemingly certain death, so to He can banish even the greatest and most powerful of men into degradation and exile

The Talmud (Rosh ha-Shanah 17b) explains that these seven inverted nuns indicate exceptions to G-d’s salvation and punishment: “If they cried out before being sentenced, they would be answered; if they cried out after being sentenced, they would not be answered”. As the Talmud (Berachot 10a) and the Midrash (Sifrei, Va-et’chanan 29) say, “Even when a sharp sword is already resting on a man’s neck, he must still pray for mercy”. Even as the ship is sinking into the churning waves, even as the executioner’s sword touches the condemned man’s neck, there is still hope for G-d’s salvation.

We can see the inverted nun which closes Parashat Noach in both ways. As with the verses in Parashat Beha’alot’cha, the inverted nun indicates a break: before it, was the 2,000-year era of primordial void and darkness, which came to its end as Avraham’s era began; now begins the 2,000-year era of Torah.

And this inverted nun also indicates that all those who want have the opportunity to cry out in time and to be answered. In Noach’s generation, everyone had the opportunity to repent and to be spared the waters of destruction.

Once Avraham and Sarai began teaching about G-d, everyone had the opportunity to reject the idols of Terah and to join Avram (later Avraham) on the path of truth and Torah.