Parashat Noachפָּרָשַׁת נֹחַ

Noach (“Noah”) begins as God decides to destroy mankind with a flood. At God’s command, the righteous Noah builds an ark, where Noah, his family, and select animals survive the flood. Noah’s children bear children, and several generations develop. God confounds the speech of people building the Tower of Babel. Noach is at heart a portion about divine judgment, renewal, and covenant. Humanity's corruption and violence (hamas) provoke God's judgment, but once the waters recede the parashah pivots decisively from destruction to a fresh start: God blesses Noah and establishes the Noahide covenant binding all humanity, setting the rainbow as the eternal sign that He will never again destroy the earth by flood. A recurring tension runs through the portion: God repeatedly offers humanity a clean slate, yet people quickly relapse into sin, whether through Noah's drunkenness, the cursing of Canaan, or the prideful overreach at Babel. The closing genealogy from Shem to Abram quietly sets the stage for Abraham and the next parashah, Lech-Lecha.

The Haftarah for Noach comes from Isaiah 54, a prophecy of consolation and restoration. In most Ashkenazi communities the reading is the longer Isaiah 54:1-55:5, while in most Sephardi communities it is the shorter Isaiah 54:1-10, ending at God's promise of an everlasting covenant of peace; both share the same opening and the verse that directly invokes Noah. The thematic link is God's eternal, unbreakable covenant after a period of destruction: Isaiah 54:9 makes it explicit, comparing the promised redemption of Israel to God's oath that "the waters of Noah" would never again flood the earth. Just as the world is reborn after the flood, the prophet depicts exiled, barren Zion (a once-childless woman) being restored, her children returning and her ruins rebuilt, pointing toward an ultimate, messianic redemption grounded in a permanent divine promise.

The most famous passage is the rainbow covenant (Genesis 9:8-17), in which God sets the rainbow in the clouds as the eternal sign of His promise never again to destroy all flesh by flood; it is the source of the blessing traditionally recited upon seeing a rainbow. The Tower of Babel narrative (Genesis 11:1-9) is also widely known as the origin story for the diversity of human languages. The opening description of Noah as "a righteous man, blameless in his generation" (Genesis 6:9) is classically debated by commentators: was he righteous only relative to his corrupt generation, or righteous in any age? The portion also grounds the later tradition of the Seven Noahide Laws derived from God's commands to Noah's descendants. Noach carries no special-Shabbat designation in the standard cycle and is typically read in October, during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan.