Bar’chu
et YHVH ha-m’vorach, Baruch YHVH ha-m’vorach l’O’lam va-ed! Baruch ata YHVH
Eloheinu
melech ha-olam asher bachar banu m’kol ha-amim, v’na-tan lanu eht Torah-to.
Baruch
atah YHVH, noteyn ha-Torah. Ameyn.”
(Bless
YHVH the blessed One; Blessed is YHVH, the blessed One for all eternity.
Blessed are you, YHVH, our Elohim, King of the Universe, you have selected us
from among all the peoples, and have given us your Torah. Blessed are you, YHVH,
giver of the Torah. Ameyn.)
In the
previous portion, the narrative ends with the bleak notice that all mankind was
wiped from the face of the earth, and that Noach and his family were preserved
in the ark. It is against this picture of destruction that our parasha begins,
Noach and his family are preserved because YHVH ‘’remembered.’’ By His actions
we understand that YHVH confirms His commitment towards His people by means of
His covenant and promises.
Gen
8:1 And
Elohim remembered(vayizkor) Noaḥ, and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the
ark. And Elohim made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters
subsided.
א וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-נֹחַ, וְאֵת
כָּל-הַחַיָּה וְאֶת-כָּל-הַבְּהֵמָה, אֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ בַּתֵּבָה; וַיַּעֲבֵר
אֱלֹהִים רוּחַ עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וַיָּשֹׁכּוּ הַמָּיִם.
Exo
2:24 And Elohim heard their groaning, and Elohim remembered(vayizkor) His covenant with Aḇraham, with
Yitsḥaq, and with Ya‛aqoḇ.
Eze
16:59 For thus said the Master יהוה, “I shall deal with you as you have done, in that you have
despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Eze 16:60 “But I shall
remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I shall establish
an everlasting covenant with you. Eze 16:61 “And you shall remember your
ways and be ashamed, when you receive your older and your younger sisters. And
I shall give them to you for daughters, though not by your own covenant. Eze
16:62 “And I Myself shall establish My covenant with you. And you shall
know that I am יהוה,
Eze
16:63 so that you remember. And you shall be ashamed, and never open your
mouth anymore because of your shame, when I pardon you for all you have done,”
declares the Master יהוה.’
”
Gen
8:2 And the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were
stopped, and the rain from the heavens was withheld. Gen 8:3 And the
waters receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of the hundred and fifty
days the waters diminished. Gen 8:4 And in the seventh new moon,
the seventeenth day of the new moon, the ark rested on the mountains of
Ararat. Gen 8:5 And the waters decreased steadily until the tenth
new moon. In the tenth new moon, on the first day of the new moon,
the tops of the mountains became visible.
Gen
8:6 And it came to be, at the end of forty days, that Noaḥ opened the
window of the ark which he had made,
Gen
8:7 and he sent out a raven, which kept going out and turning back until
the waters had dried up from the earth. Gen 8:8 Then he sent out a
dove from him, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the
ground.
Gen
8:9 But the dove found no resting place for its feet and returned into
the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of all the earth. So he put out
his hand and took it, and pulled it into the ark to