“What did the mama tomato say to the baby tomato? Ketchup, baby tomato!” My son told me this joke when he was about four, and I am trying to “ketchup” to the current Torah Portion. Noach is the next Torah Portion for us to unpack and is found in Genesis 6:9-11:32. Just as in Beireshit, there are multiple enemies described in Noach, including a flood symbolizing God’s judgment, nakedness or shame, the sin of uncovering someone’s nakedness, and the rebellion of Nimrod that caused the scattering of the nations and dividing of languages. The reason for the judgment of the flood was human violence and evil. Here in Noach is the one time in the Bible when God says He regretted making humanity.
Genesis 6:5-6: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
When humans fill the earth with violence, we instigate a de-creation cycle laced with darkness or chaos, famine, and death. The good news is that every de-creation ends in a new creation, instigated when humanity fills the earth with the right choices or righteousness. Humans can cause the world to thrive, making all creation sing with one voice-hallel-Yah, which means Praise the Creator God.
I will focus on the enemy of an unclean heart. In the beginning creation narrative, Adam produces sin by disobeying the instructions God gave to him and his wife out of a desire to protect them.
1 John 3:4: Everyone practicing sin also practices lawlessness—indeed, sin is lawlessness. (breaking God’s law or Torah is lawlessness)
Romans 5:12: So then, just as sin (breaking God’s commandment) came into the world through one man and death through sin, in the same way, death spread to all men because all sinned.
God also took Chavah, or Eve, from Adam’s side. I believe the first human had equal male and female attributes before God separated them so they could re-unite and produce fruit or seed or children.
Genesis 5:2: He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind (Adam), in the day they were created.
Genesis 2:23-24: And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Both sin and Chavah came from Adam, creating a pull for them to return to oneness with him. For this reason, sin sits at your heart’s door with a desire for you. Remember that Yeshua doesn’t sit sinister at your door waiting for a crack to slip through. Rather, He knocks and waits for an open door. (Rv 3.20) Within the curse Chavah incurred, her desire was for her husband.
Genesis 3:16: To the woman, He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain, you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
Genesis 4:7: “ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” (bold accents added)
In this Torah Portion, following Adam and Chavah’s sin of disobedience and Cain’s sinful murder of his brother, sin not only filled hearts but drenched the earth, bringing the curse of death upon it. Hence, the flood. God chose Noach and his family to repopulate the known world because of his righteousness. Yeshua’s righteousness is an Ark or a shelter that takes a remnant of creation into the New Heaven and Earth spoken of in Revelation 21.
Genesis 6:9: This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
When God created humans in His image, it was so that we could govern the earth He placed under our care with truth and justice. It was so that we could rely on His Wisdom or Spirit to help us produce life as He did. God’s very being is Light; wherever His Presence dwells, there is life. When we go rogue and use personal agendas to build and produce, we propagate chaos and destruction. The world became evil and violent, often connected to deceit. It is violent and oppressive if we breathe out deceitful and manipulative words.
Deuteronomy 19:16: If a false (violent) witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing.
Psalm 27:12: Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; For false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence.
Isaiah 60:16: Violence shall no longer be heard in your land, neither wasting nor destruction within your borders; But you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. (bold accents added)
I like to think of the flood as cleansing waters. God calls Himself living waters, and Yeshua said that anyone who follows Him will pour out living waters. The living waters of the Holy One are His knowledge or His word.
Psalm 119:9: How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.
Jeremiah 2:13: “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
John 7:38: “Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, ‘out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'”
Habakkuk 2:14: For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
What can we do so that He floods our hearts and produces life inside and around us? Can we be an Ark that brings our children, friends, family, and pets into the Kingdom of God, symbolizing divine space where God’s Spirit reigns? We acknowledge Him, turn from rebellion, and accept the gift of a renewed heart that pours out living words instead of violence and evil.
1 Samuel 10:6: Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
It was the Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit, that changed Solomon into a new man. God’s Ruach passed through and purified the earth that was satiated with violence and evil intent (Gn 8.1: wind = Ruach). Yeshua cleanses our hearts and makes us a new creation.
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