Parashat Noach - Fourth Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
The flood has ended, but has humanity changed?
Noah steps into a devastated world. He builds an altar and offers sacrifices, and God decides not to strike all living things again as before. Yet the reason given for this decision contains a surprising statement: the human inclination toward evil remains.
How can a new beginning be possible when the problem that led to destruction has not disappeared?
Going out into the world
The aliyah opens with a command:
tze min hatevah atah ve’ishtecha uvanecha unshei vanecha itach
Translation: Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons and your sons’ wives with you.
After the long wait, Noah and his family leave, along with the animals. The first act of Noah that the Torah describes after his departure is building an altar and offering burnt offerings from the clean animals and birds.
Rashi explains that Noah inferred from the command to bring seven pairs of clean animals that they were also intended for sacrifice. The detail he received before the flood now takes on meaning: even while preparing for rescue, there was room for an act he would perform afterward. Rashi on Genesis 8:20
How should we read a description of God smelling a sacrifice?
The next verse describes God smelling the scent of the sacrifice. Ibn Ezra stresses that this should not be understood as a physical act of smelling. It is language describing the willing acceptance of the burnt offering through an image familiar from human experience: a pleasant scent. Ibn Ezra on Genesis 8:21
This distinction offers a way to read the story: the Torah uses human language to describe the relationship between God and humanity. According to Ibn Ezra, the sensory description expresses that the sacrifice was accepted.
The inclination toward evil: a reason for destruction or mercy?
After the sacrifice, we read:
vayarah Adonai et re’ach hannihoah vayomer Adonai el libo lo osif lekallel od et ha’adamah baavur ha’adam ki yetzer lev ha’adam ra minneurav velo osif od lehakot et kol chai ka’asher asiti
Translation: God smelled the pleasing scent, and God said in His heart: I will not again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I again strike all living things as I have done.
Before the flood, the Torah described human wickedness and the evil thoughts of the heart as part of the background to the decision to destroy the world. Here, the inclination toward evil appears precisely in the reason for deciding not to repeat the destruction. The formulations are not identical, but the tension between them stands out. Genesis 6:5-7
Ramban explains that the verse speaks in humanity’s defense: the inclination toward evil is present from the beginning of youth, and not in old age. He presents this statement as a reason to refrain from striking all living things. Ramban on Genesis 8:21
In this reading, the world’s continued existence does not rest on a promise that people will now be perfect. Their weakness is taken into account. Yet the rest of the aliyah makes clear that this consideration comes with serious limits.
The vulnerable human being is also created in God’s image
Noah and his sons are blessed to be fruitful and multiply. They are permitted to eat animals, alongside a restriction concerning flesh and its blood. This is followed by an explicit warning about shedding human blood:
shofekh dam ha’adam ba’adam damo yishafech ki betzelem Elohim asah et ha’adam
Translation: Whoever sheds human blood, by a human being shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made humankind.
Sforno interprets the carrying out of the judgment as a matter for a court. He explains the gravity of harming a person through the divine image within that person, which he connects to the human rational soul. Sforno on Genesis 9:6
Both descriptions appear in the same aliyah: human beings have an inclination toward evil, and their lives are precious because they were created in God’s image. This combination can be read as the challenge of the world after the flood: to acknowledge human weakness while demanding responsibility and protecting the lives of others.
The world begins again with people who can still cause harm. Its hope rests on the possibility that their weakness will not determine their entire future, and that their worth will oblige them to build a different life.
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