Parashat Noach (Genesis 6–11): Summary and Commentary

Parashat Noach (“Noah”) is the second portion of the book of Bereshit (Genesis 6:9–11:32). It is read on the Shabbat of October 17, 2026 and that of November 6, 2027. It is also spelled Noach, Noah or Noé. It takes its name from its first character: “These are the generations of Noach: Noach was a righteous man, whole in his generation” (6:9).

The tradition proposes reading each portion in four steps: what the text says, what it hints at, what the sages explain and what it conceals. Let us take them in turn.

Peshat: the simple meaning

Let us begin with what the text says, adding nothing to it.

First is how it describes Noach: “a righteous man, whole in his generations; with God Noach walked” (6:9). And, opposite him, the earth: “the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (6:11). The text says twice that violence filled the earth (6:11, 6:13).

The command for the ark is very concrete. Three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, of gopher wood, with compartments, pitch inside and out, a window above, a door in the side and three decks (6:14-16). And a sentence that repeats: “And Noach did according to all that God had commanded him; so he did” (6:22; 7:5).

The flood has a precise chronology. Noach is six hundred years old (7:6); “on the seventeenth day of the second month” the fountains of the deep burst open (7:11); the waters prevail for a hundred and fifty days (7:24). And the turning point of the story is a short sentence: “And God remembered Noach” (8:1).

The end of the flood is told with a dove. Noach sends out a raven, which goes back and forth, and then a dove, which finds nowhere to rest; the second time it returns “with a fresh olive leaf in its beak” (8:11). On leaving the ark, Noach builds an altar, and the text says: “The inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth,” but “I will never again curse the ground” (8:21).

The covenant has a sign: “I have set My bow in the cloud” (9:13). And the next scene shows Noach in another light: he plants a vineyard, becomes drunk and lies uncovered in his tent (9:20-21).

The tower of Babel is a brief story with a sung rhythm: “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top reaches the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered” (11:4). The text explains the name of the city: “Its name was called Babel, because there God confused the language of all the earth” (11:9).

Remez: what the letters hint at

Remez means “hint.” Here the reading pauses on letters and numbers: on how a word, when the value of its letters is added up (gematria), coincides with another that illuminates its meaning. The great collector of these hints is the Baal HaTurim, Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (13th–14th centuries), author of the Arba Turim. In Noach he points out, among others, these eight.

The first, in wholeness. “Hayah” (היה), “was” (6:9), adds up to 20: the Baal HaTurim reads it as Noach having been whole during the twenty generations from Adam to Abraham, but that once Abraham arrived he was no longer considered whole.

The second, in the walk. The final letters of “haElokim hithalech Noach” (האלהים התהלך נח, 6:9) form chacham (חכם), “wise,” as the verse says, “he who wins souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30).

The third, in violence. The word “violence” (חמס, 6:11) adds up to 108, the same as “mei Noach” (מי נח), “waters of Noach”: He repaid them measure for measure. And it adds up to the same as gehinnom (גיהנם): they were judged with boiling water.

The fourth, in the destruction. “Mashchitam” (משחיתם), “I will destroy them” (6:13), adds up to 798, the same as “hi shloshah tefachim” (היא שלשה טפחים), “it is three handbreadths”: the flood also destroyed three handbreadths of the layer of soil that the plow turns, as Rashi says.

The fifth, in the light of the ark. “Tzohar” (צהר), “window” or “light” (6:16), adds up to 295, the same as “le’or ha’even” (לאור האבן), “by the light of the stone”: it matches what Rashi relates, that it could have been a precious stone that gave them light.

The sixth, in the animals. “Lechayot itach” (להחיות אתך), “to keep them alive with you” (6:19), adds up to 880, and “lo trefah velo mechusar ever” (לא טרפה ולא מחוסר אבר), “neither with a fatal injury nor with a missing limb,” adds up to 879: with the kolel, they match.

The seventh, in the wine. “Hayayin” (היין), “the wine” (9:21), adds up to 75, the same as yelalah (יללה), “wailing.”

The eighth, in the tower. “Safah achat” (שפה אחת), “one language” (11:1), adds up to 794, and lashon hakodesh (לשון הקדש), “the holy tongue,” adds up to 795: with the kolel, they match. It is the same as what Rashi says.

Drash: the teaching of the sages

Rashi, with the Midrash and the Talmud, gathers here the lessons of the sages.

“Whole in his generation.” Rashi gives two readings of “in his generations”: some sages read it as praise, if he had lived in a generation of the righteous, he would have been even more righteous; others, as a reproach, in his generation he was righteous, but in Abraham’s he would have been nothing (Sanhedrin 108a).

With God and before God. The text says that Noach “walked with God,” whereas of Abraham it says “I walked before Him.” Rashi explains the difference: Noach needed a support to hold him up; Abraham strengthened himself and walked in his righteousness on his own.

A hundred and twenty years of ark. Why did Hashem command him to build an ark, when He had so many ways of saving him? Rashi answers: so that the people of his generation would see him building for a hundred and twenty years, ask him what he was doing, and he would tell them that Hashem was going to bring a flood; perhaps they would repent.

“Of little faith.” “Noach entered the ark because of the waters of the flood” (7:7). Rashi says that Noach too was among the “of little faith”: he believed and did not believe that the flood would come, and he did not enter the ark until the waters pressed him in.

The Name of justice. When the text says “and God remembered Noach” (8:1), Rashi explains that Elokim is the attribute of judgment, and it was transformed into mercy through the prayer of the righteous; but the wickedness of the wicked turns mercy into judgment.

Two generations. Rashi compares the two generations that were punished: that of the flood and that of the tower. He asks which was worse, since the first were lost and the second were not. And he answers: the generation of the flood were robbers, and there was discord among them, therefore they were lost; those of the tower treated each other with love and fellowship, therefore they were not destroyed, even though they rebelled. The peace among them protected them, even in rebellion.

Sod: what is hidden

The Zohar

The Zohar opens the portion with the words “Your people, all of them righteous” (Isaiah 60:21). Rabbi Chiya teaches that all Israel has a share in the World to Come because they keep the covenant on which the world stands; and whoever keeps it is called tzadik, “righteous.” And as an example, Yosef, who for having kept the covenant was called righteous.

On “a righteous man,” the Zohar says: Noach ish tzadik, “the righteous one is the foundation of the world” (Proverbs 10:25). The earth rests on him, he is the pillar on which the world is supported. And “with God Noach walked” means that he never separated from Him. And it adds a detail about “whole”: he was born circumcised, as the verse says, “walk before Me and be whole.”

It also reads the ark. Noach needed the ark in order to join himself to it and preserve the seed of the world. Who is the ark? The ark of the covenant. And until Hashem established the covenant with him (“And I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark,” 6:18), Noach did not enter.

The sefirah: Yesod

For the Zohar, “the righteous one, foundation of the world” is the symbol of Yesod, the foundation: the sefirah that gathers the forces of the higher ones and transmits them downward. You can see where it sits in the guide to the sefirot. Noach, who kept the covenant, is the model of the righteous one who sustains the world.

More weekly commentary in the list of parashiot.