Parashat Noach - Sixth Aliyah
Read the biblical text and try to understand it on your own, before reading the commentary.
Noah survived the flood, saved his family and preserved the animals. Yet his story does not end in triumph. After the covenant and the promise of a future, the Torah takes us into his tent, to a moment of drunkenness and exposure.
The man described as righteous now appears in his weakness. His sons’ response becomes the center of the story.
A new beginning, or the beginning of a decline?
vayachel Noach ish ha’adamah vayita karem.
Translation: Noah began to work the soil and planted a vineyard. Genesis 9:20
Rashi reads the opening as criticism: Noah made himself profane, because he should first have planted something else. The criticism concerns his choice to begin with a vineyard, before the drinking and drunkenness described next. Rashi on Genesis 9:20
Ramban offers another reading. In one explanation of Noah as a man of the soil, he describes someone who devoted himself to sowing and planting because he found the earth desolate. He explains the verse’s opening as an agricultural innovation: earlier people planted vines, while Noah began planting many rows of them as a vineyard. Ramban adds that Noah wanted wine, so instead of planting a vine like other trees, he made a vineyard. Ramban on Genesis 9:20
The readings illuminate different aspects of this beginning. Rashi examines Noah’s priorities; Ramban understands the description in relation to agriculture and the planting of a vineyard. The Torah moves from the planting to its painful outcome: Noah drinks, becomes drunk and uncovers himself inside his tent.
What do we do when we discover someone’s weakness?
Ham sees his father’s nakedness and tells his two brothers outside. Shem and Japheth respond with an action:
vayikach Shem vaYefet et hasimlah vayasimu al shechem shneihem vayelchu achoranit vayechasu et ervat avihem ufneihem achoranit ve’ervat avihem lo rau.
Translation: Shem and Japheth took the garment, placed it on both their shoulders, walked backward and covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. Genesis 9:23
The Torah dwells on their walking, the carrying of the garment and the turning of their faces. Rashi explains that they avoided looking even when they came close and had to change position to cover their father. Rashi on Genesis 9:23
Their action holds a delicate combination: they know what happened and approach to help, while taking care not to look at his exposed body. These movements can be read as the substance of the respect they give their father precisely when he cannot preserve his own dignity.
Why is the curse directed at Canaan?
When Noah wakes, he curses Canaan, Ham’s son. The difficulty is striking: Ham is the one described as seeing and telling, yet the curse is directed at his son.
Rashi brings an opinion that Canaan saw first and told Ham, which is why he is mentioned and cursed. This is a midrashic explanation of Canaan’s involvement; the verses themselves do not explicitly recount this action. Rashi on Genesis 9:22
The distinction matters. The midrash seeks to bridge the gap between the person described in the incident and the person cursed. Read on their own, the verses leave that gap as a question.
How does a family become a world?
After Noah’s death, the story turns to a long list of the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth. It includes names of peoples, lands and kingdoms, among them Egypt, Canaan, Assyria and Babel. What began as one family expands into the map of nations in chapter 10.
The transition can also invite us to remember the shared origins of peoples who separate. Before the languages, lands and kingdoms, the Torah presents brothers and relatives.
Alongside the broad account of the world’s development, a small image remains from the tent: two sons carrying a garment and walking backward. The world after the flood is built also through moments like these, when one person discovers another’s weakness and chooses how to respond.
More Questions on the Parsha
More questions on this parsha are on the way. In the meantime, explore our daily Torah learning.
Daily Torah learning