Parashat Noach, Genesis 6:9–11:32
Chaim Dauermann, Brooklyn, New York
Parashat Noach is one of the most familiar portions of the Torah. The story of Noah and the ark transcends its religious context. It is known throughout the world. The imagery is memorable: the animals entering the ark, the floodwaters rising, the ark coming to rest, and Noah sending out birds to determine whether dry land had appeared. But in some ways, the most interesting part of Noah’s story begins after the best-known elements of the story have taken place, after the ark has come to rest and Noah steps back onto dry ground. Genesis 8 tells us that God commanded Noah to leave the ark with his family and all the animals that had been preserved with him:
“Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you: birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 8:16–17)
Noah and his family were stepping into an entirely new world. Everything familiar was gone, and they were faced with the enormous task of beginning again. They needed to disembark, establish shelter, explore the region in which they had landed, care for the animals, and begin rebuilding the fundamentals of human life. There were countless practical matters demanding Noah’s attention, yet the first thing Scripture tells us Noah did was not build a house, survey the land, organize supplies, or begin planning for the future: “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar” (Genesis 8:20).
The first thing Noah did was worship. Noah treats worship not as an optional spiritual activity to be fitted in once more urgent matters have been handled, but as an urgent matter in itself. This challenges how we might think about priorities from our modern perspective. There are practical necessities in life: we need to make money; we need food; we need shelter; we need to provide for our families and prepare for difficult times. Worship doesn’t seem to fit in naturally with these sorts of practical concerns. But it did for Noah.
Yeshua teaches the same priority in the Sermon on the Mount. Amid his teaching about anxiety—worries about food, clothing, and the needs of ordinary life—he says: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
He is not dismissing practical concerns out of hand. Yeshua is not saying that food, clothing, and shelter do not matter. He is teaching us how we ought to order the considerations of life. The kingdom of God comes first. Our orientation toward God forms our foundation.
Paul expresses an adjacent idea when he tells the Colossians: “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Yeshua, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).
Biblically, worshiping God, seeking his kingdom, and giving thanks to him are not secondary matters. They belong at the top of our list.
Noah’s offering also teaches us something about the character of the worship we should offer God. Noah took from “every clean animal and every clean bird” and presented burnt offerings to God. Earlier, in Genesis 7, God had instructed Noah to take additional numbers of clean animals onto the ark:
“You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth.” (Genesis 7:2–3)
That detail becomes significant after the flood. Clean animals were not an unlimited resource. In fact, they were a comparatively small portion of what Noah possessed. Later in the Torah, the distinction between clean and unclean animals becomes much more clearly defined. Even a casual glance at the animal world makes clear that the clean animals are a relatively limited category. And yet Noah took from every one those animals and offered them to God.
In Bereshit Rabbah, the Sages imagine Noah reasoning that there must have been a purpose behind God’s command to preserve seven of each clean animal, rather than two:
Noah built an altar to the Lord. He contemplated and he said: “Why did the Holy One, blessed be he, command me to increase the number of pure animals beyond that of the impure ones, if not to sacrifice an offering from them?” Thereupon, “he took from every pure animal.” (Bereshit Rabbah 34:9)
In this reading, Noah understands the extra provision itself as an indication that God had already made room for worship. He saw what God had preserved as being a part of God’s purposes. So when it came time for an offering, Noah did not simply find something expendable to give God—a creature he felt he could spare, something he wouldn’t miss. Instead, his worship involved real cost. The animals Noah offered were not abundant, but represented some of the best and most valuable resources available to him in the newly cleansed world. And at that moment, those animals were among the only members of their kinds on the entire earth. Yet Noah gave them to God.
Putting God first involves more than simply remembering to worship. It also raises the question of what kind of worship we offer. Noah’s worship cost him something. He offered from the best of what God had placed into his care. There is a principle here that reaches far beyond animal sacrifice. All of us possess resources that must be managed. We have time, money, attention, energy, skills, material possessions. And we are constantly making decisions about how such things should be used. The question is not simply whether attention paid to God should also appear somewhere on that list, but whether he receives priority. Noah’s example invites us to ask not only whether we worship God, but when we worship him, to ask where we place him among our priorities, what we dedicate to him. Do we give God the remainder after everything else has received its share? Do we offer him the time that happens to be left over? Do we give him our attention only after every other demand in life has been satisfied? Or, do we treat worship as Noah did—as an essential matter, to be conducted with the best of who we are and what we have?
Noah stepped out into a world filled with uncertainty and enormous practical demands. Yet his first act was to build an altar. Before he began rebuilding the world around him, he oriented himself toward the God who had delivered him. As we go about our own responsibilities, make plans, solve problems, earn money, care for our families, and manage the resources God has entrusted to us, we should remember that worship is not an interruption of practical life. Biblically speaking, worship is life.
Seek first the kingdom. Give thanks in everything. And when you come before God, do not simply give him what happens to be left. Give him your best.