No'ach
1) "Generations" of No'ach
a) Continued sins of man
b) The flood
c) Resettlement of the Earth
d) The covenant of the rainbow
2) Episode of No'ach's drunkedness.
3) 70 nations
a) Lineages of Yefet and Cham (non-Semitic nations)
b) Lineage of Canaan (singled out from other b'nei Cham)
c) Lineage of Shem
4) Tower of Bavel
5) Geneaology of Shem
a) Life of Shem
b) Life of Arpachshad
c) Life of Shelach
d) Life of Eiver
e) Life of Peleg
f) Life of Re'u
g) Life of S'rug
h) Life of Nachor
i) Life of Terach
This sedra does not begin with a conjunction, making it one of the only 5 sedros in the first four chumashim to have this quality. Being that the other three, besides the special case of Bereishis, are Pekudei, Bechukosai, and Mas'ei, I would like to theorize that the Torah utilizes conjunctions between most sections as a means of attaching two separate stories together, and that the absence of such a conjunction implies that the Torah does not consider this to be a true break in the action. Being that Parshas Bereishis ended on a very dissonant note (leaving aside the small glimmer of hope of No'ach), and that the subject matter on either side of the break is very similar (see my post on my other blog, HaProzdor, for a further examination of this section), I believe that this possibility may have merit to it.
1 ends with the covenant between God and mankind, representing No'ach's apex, and his potential to build up the world in a way that is more in God's image than that built by Adam.
2 describes No'ach's downfall and death, having failed to reach his potential.
3 describes the world being rebuilt, despite No'ach's downfall, and 4 describes a second failure.
Finally, 5, which does not begin with a conjunction, serves a similar purpose to the last verse of the previous sedra and to the beginning of the first parsha of this week's: to describe the rise of a man who has the ability to fix the mistakes of the generations before him. This time, though, the man succeeds.
The division between this week's sedra and next week's describes the split between Avraham and his family, where he ceases to merely be subsidiary to his father (11:31), and becomes a leader in his own right, driven by the Divine decree. After the failures of Adam and No'ach, the mantle is being passed on to Avraham.
a) Continued sins of man
b) The flood
c) Resettlement of the Earth
d) The covenant of the rainbow
2) Episode of No'ach's drunkedness.
3) 70 nations
a) Lineages of Yefet and Cham (non-Semitic nations)
b) Lineage of Canaan (singled out from other b'nei Cham)
c) Lineage of Shem
4) Tower of Bavel
5) Geneaology of Shem
a) Life of Shem
b) Life of Arpachshad
c) Life of Shelach
d) Life of Eiver
e) Life of Peleg
f) Life of Re'u
g) Life of S'rug
h) Life of Nachor
i) Life of Terach
This sedra does not begin with a conjunction, making it one of the only 5 sedros in the first four chumashim to have this quality. Being that the other three, besides the special case of Bereishis, are Pekudei, Bechukosai, and Mas'ei, I would like to theorize that the Torah utilizes conjunctions between most sections as a means of attaching two separate stories together, and that the absence of such a conjunction implies that the Torah does not consider this to be a true break in the action. Being that Parshas Bereishis ended on a very dissonant note (leaving aside the small glimmer of hope of No'ach), and that the subject matter on either side of the break is very similar (see my post on my other blog, HaProzdor, for a further examination of this section), I believe that this possibility may have merit to it.
1 ends with the covenant between God and mankind, representing No'ach's apex, and his potential to build up the world in a way that is more in God's image than that built by Adam.
2 describes No'ach's downfall and death, having failed to reach his potential.
3 describes the world being rebuilt, despite No'ach's downfall, and 4 describes a second failure.
Finally, 5, which does not begin with a conjunction, serves a similar purpose to the last verse of the previous sedra and to the beginning of the first parsha of this week's: to describe the rise of a man who has the ability to fix the mistakes of the generations before him. This time, though, the man succeeds.
The division between this week's sedra and next week's describes the split between Avraham and his family, where he ceases to merely be subsidiary to his father (11:31), and becomes a leader in his own right, driven by the Divine decree. After the failures of Adam and No'ach, the mantle is being passed on to Avraham.
posted by Josh M. at 11:00 AM
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