91快播

Noa Rubin 鈥� Senior Sermon (RS 鈥�26)

Oct 23, 2025 By 91快播 Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Noah

Noah All Class of 2026 Senior Sermons

Species Purity and the Great Flood

Oct 24, 2025 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Noah

Omnicide is a dramatic move, on that we can all agree. But what causes the Creator to grow violently disgusted with the creatures that had just recently been praised as 鈥済ood鈥� and blessed with fertility? 91快播 Bible Professor Emeritus Alan Cooper has suggested that it was interspecies breeding of human women with divine creatures that angered God, and that it was Noah鈥檚 pure genealogy (鈥減erfect in his generations鈥�) that set him apart for salvation. The ancient Rabbis had a similar idea鈥攊t was crossbreeding between species that angered God and caused God to reboot with specimens that were still arranged 鈥渁ccording to their families鈥� (Gen. 8:19; see Midrash Tanhuma, Buber ed., Noah 11).

Living With Difference

Nov 1, 2024 By Naomi Kalish | Commentary | Noah

Is the story of the Tower of Babel about human unity, or about human diversity?At the critical point when the Torah transitions from the story of Noah and its universal themes to the particular family of Abraham, the Tower of Babel conveys ambivalence about both unity and diversity.In doing so, it provides us with a model for how we can navigate our own complex social dynamics, especially in times of crisis and trauma.

What Is the Rainbow Really Teaching Us?

Oct 20, 2023 By Tani Schwartz-Herman | Commentary | Noah

In this week鈥檚 parashah we learn the origin story of the rainbow as a symbol. Following the catastrophic flood in which God destroys nearly every living thing, save for Noah and his family and the animals he brings with him onto the ark, God promises never to bring about destruction on the same scale again. God establishes the rainbow as a sign for this covenant, declaring that it will be a reminder for God always: 鈥淲hen the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures . . . 鈥�

After the Flood

Oct 28, 2022 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Noah

Today it鈥檚 common to find divrei torah that use Parashat Noah to raise awareness about our impact on the environment. Yet I recently discovered a voice from the first stirrings of modernity that seemed to already intuit, within a theological framework, the devastating impact of humans on the global environment. For Obadiah Sforno (1475鈥�1550), the 鈥渓awlessness鈥� during the days of Noah did not just cause God to flood to earth. It was a force capable of ruining the climate and planet, and thereby shaping the course of human history ever after.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Oct 8, 2021 By Kendell Pinkney | Commentary | Noah

When I received the results, I can鈥檛 say I was all that surprised:

67% Sub-Saharan African, 30% Northwest European, 2% Indigenous American, 1% unaccounted for.

I already knew that my ethnic heritage was decently mixed up. I had spent enough years peppering my grandmothers with the kinds of questions only a child feels comfortable pursuing: 鈥淲here was your mother from? Where was your father from? Belize?! Which city? Dangriga? Sounds weird. Never heard of it. Wait, grandma, your grandmother was a white woman from Louisiana?!鈥�

Looking Beyond Our Arks

Oct 23, 2020 By Yitz Landes | Commentary | Noah

It has never been easier to identify with Noah.

In a normal year, we would be reading this week鈥檚 parashah in an entirely different setting: after a summer of sun, camp, and trips, and following the long holiday season, we would be entering our homes and settling into the fall, saying goodbye to the physical togetherness that defines the summer and the holiday season, just as the day gets shorter and the month of Marheshvan commences. 

Feeling the Flood

Nov 1, 2019 By Mary Brett Koplen | Commentary | Noah

As the curtains close on Parashat Bereshit, we find God steeped in sadness.

讜址讬旨执谞旨指郑讞侄诐 讛’ 讻旨执纸讬-注指砖讉指芝讛 讗侄转-讛纸指讗指讚指謻诐 讘旨指讗指謶专侄抓 讜址讬旨执转职注址爪旨值謻讘 讗侄诇-诇执讘旨纸讜:

鈥淎nd Adonai regretted that God had made humanity on earth and God鈥檚 heart was grieved.鈥� (Gen. 6:6)

God is heartbroken. The people whom God formed with such care, the people into whom God exhaled God鈥檚 own divine spark, the people God loved鈥攈ad chosen a path of corruption and crime.