When Life Feels Like a Flood, Where Is Your Ark? | 10@9 | 2026.10.12

Good morning. Today is Monday, October 12, 2026. Vayyomere alakim l'noach. God says to Noah, the world is not going the way I want and I am going to bring a flood to destroy the world. But God says I'm going to save you and your family and the animals and in order to do that Aselukha tevah atse gofah. Make for yourself a tevah. We normally translate that as arc, Noah's arc. And it should be made out of wood and it should be sealed in order to be watertight and it will be the place of refuge for you, for you, your family, the animals, the supplies that you'll need in order to survive this flood. Va'ani hinimaviyas amabul mayim ala arats. And then when I bring the flood over the entire world Va'kim osiyas breetitah I'll be able to fulfill my promise to you and you will and you and your family, the animals will go into the tevah uvahse elha tevah go into the tevah and You'll be okay. You'll survive. What does this word tevah mean? I said we translated as arc, Noah's arc. Rishamshanl fo'harsh explains that the word tevah, its literal meaning is a receptacle or a vessel or a box. Tevah is shaped like a box or a chest unlike a boat. It wasn't the God and and and the Torah gives us the dimensions and the details of how it's to be made, but Rav Harsh explains it's not it's not a boat. It's not meant to travel through the water. Rather it is meant to be born on the surface of the water. It's not meant for Noah to move from one place to another to sail from one place to another. It's meant for Noah to find refuge and to survive the waters by by staying on the surface of the water. The word tevah is only used in the Torah referring to two objects, two narratives. This is one the tevah of Noah and the other is Moshe, Wen, Yochaived, the mother of Moshe became pregnant with him. This is at the beginning of Shamos and there was a decree to kill, God forbid, all of the baby boys, so they hid Moshe to save him from that fate. Voloyachla odhatspinu and once he was three months old, it was not possible to keep hiding him in their home. Batikachlo tevahs goma. Goma. They took a tevah. We don't normally translate that as ark. We usually translate that as basket, but again it means the same thing. It's a box. It was also the Torah describes watertight. And so here too it is achieving the same purpose. It's not meant for Moshe to travel like a boat like on a boat from one place to another. It's meant to survive on the water to stay on the surface of the water. Those are the only two times we have the word, only two instances, narratives that we have the word tevah. When we come later, much later to the Talmud, the word tevah is used in a perhaps related sense. The Talmud uses the phrase a number of times about a person who is overelyfneha tevah, one who passes before the tevah this tevah refers to the arankodesh, the ark in which the Torah is kept. So the person who is overelyfneha tevah, the person who passes before the ark, is the person who's leading the davani, the chazan, or the shliyatzibur, the cantor, the person who's leading the prayers. So too, similarly, here, this tevah is not protecting the Torah scrolls inside specifically from water, but generally to protect what's inside. The Torah scrolls are inside. They're very holy. They're very precious. So they need to be protected with the tevah, or perhaps what is inside the tevah, the Torah scrolls, is protecting us. And this may be the bridge from the linguistic connection of these different words to the commentaries who give us insight into how these words and the different usages of them may be connected. Because in all three cases, the tevah of Noah, the tevah of Moshe, and the tevah that holds the Torah, the tevah keeps us safe. It keeps us protected. During a time of chaos, during a time of vulnerability, it is the tevah that is our refuge. And then finally later, during the time of the Talmud in the Gomorrah, this same word, tevah, takes on another meaning. The word tevah means word, like the words of a sentence. Now there is no clear scholarly understanding or explanation for how the same word tevah switches or evolves its meaning from the tevah of Noah and Moshe to the tevah of the Aaron Kodosh and the Talmud to then the very different tevah, meaning word. And so we come to commentaries. We come to insights by our sages that try to find meaning with different possibilities of how this one word is stretched in all these different directions. Rabbi Ruvayn Chaimklyne suggests that the word tevah, which we know is a container, a word is similarly a container metaphorically. It's a container of letters. It holds together letters in a way that make the word meaningful. A written word is a container of meaning. Individuals are individual letters don't mean anything. But when they're connected as a word, as a tevah, when they're inside a tevah, metaphorically speaking, then they have meaning. And a later scholar, Rabbi Elio Bahur, lived in the early 1500s, points out that within the Talmud there are two different words with similar meanings. There's a word mila. The word mila, Mem Yud Lamidhe, the word mila, and the word tevah. Taf Yud Vet Hei. Mila, Amila refers primarily to the spoken word. Tevah, he says, refers primarily to the written word. So this would make sense in using the word tevah in this metaphoric sense. The written word encloses and organizes the letters that are inside of it to give it meaning. And then to continue this analogy, which words offer us protection? Which words save us in times of chaos and challenge? And here's a famous comment of the Baal Shem Tov, the great Hasidic master, who gives a Hasidic interpretation, an allegorical interpretation, to when God says to Noah, in our Parshah, Bo el Ha Tevah, go into the Tevah. Of course, literally go into the ark, but homiletically go into the word that is going to save you from this flood. And those are the words of prayer. Noah and Moshe entered their Tevah, and they found refuge from the destructive waters outside. Similarly, the Baal Shem Tov means to suggest a person can enter the words of prayer to invest themselves fully in their meaning and find spiritual refuge within the words of prayer. In other words, what the Baal Shem Tov means to tell us is that a word, the Tevah, meaning a word, is not just the container of the letters, but it's something into which we can enter. We can enter into the Tevah of prayer. The most dramatic example of this is the story of Yonah, the book of Yonah, which we read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur. Yonah, who defied God's command at first to travel to Ninve to prophesize there, Yonah is then threatened by the roiling waters surrounding him. And Yonah prayed to God from inside the belly of the fish, surrounded by water, in danger of drowning. By Yom Ere and Yonah said in this prayer, I call out to God from my difficulty, from my danger, from my being surrounded by water that threatens me. By Yonah, and God will answer me, Nahariya Sovaveni, the waters surround me, called Misbarecha, the Galecha, Alli Avaru. The waves are rolling over my head threatening to drown me. Water encompasses me up till my soul. To home, Yisselaveni, the deep worlds around me, Suf Havush Larozi. The weeds are strangling me, wound around my head. Va'ta'al Mishachas Chayyeh Hashem Elokay. And God, you lifted me from this pit, from this danger of water. Bihisatayfo lainafshi, when my soul was faint within me, Zakharti, you remembered me, God. Va'tavo e lechat filosi, and my prayer came before you. We read this on Yom Kippur to remember that this is the model of all prayer, that we can be even mimei hadagah, even in the depths, even threatened by water all around us, that threatens to drown us. And yet still our prayer can reach God. God can lift us from those depths. This sets up the insight of Sivan Rahab Me'ir, who writes, What is to be done when we feel that the flood waters rising outside are about to inundate our world? And this is so real for us today in how many ways, in how many levels, on how many different dimensions do we feel the waters of the flood rising to inundate our world? And she utilizes the insight of the Baal Shem Tov. Bo elateva, God says, come into the ark, come into the place of refuge, come into what will save you, come into the place that will protect not only your body, but also your soul. Come and find shelter in the words, in the Teva, the Tevos, the words of prayer. Every one of us needs a Tevas Noach, a Teva that Noah had, that Moshe had, a Teva that holds the Torah, a Teva of words, a place that secures us, a place to protect us, to protect our spiritual lives. Every one of us needs an ark of prayer to preserve our Jewish lives. And if this is what prayer can do for us, then our intensity, our concentration during prayer, the seriousness with which we take prayer, must reflect the opportunity that is being offered to us to survive the raging waters and chaos that is around us. The waters surround me into my soul to home Yisrova Vene, the deep worlds around me threatening to drown me, God forbid. But God, when I was faint, when I was almost defeated, Esashem Zakhartik, God, you remembered me. Batavu e lechat fylasi. And the words of my prayers came before you. We need to find those words of prayer and we need to understand how they can be our ark, our protective environment to allow us to survive, to stay on the surface of the water so that the chaos and the challenges and the difficulties remain outside and we remain safe. My friends, I wish every one of us a very meaningful Teva that we're able to find to deal with the vulnerabilities and the chaos that's around us today. I wish you all a great day and I look forward to seeing you soon in person.