Parshat Noah

"All the fountains of the great deep burst apart,

And the floodgates of the sky broke open."

No, these are not scrolling Hurricane Michael headlines on CNN.

In fact, this is Biblical Breaking news about G-d's decision to "bring the Flood--waters upon the earth--to destroy all flesh under the sky in which there is breath of life; everything on earth shall perish." And Shabbat Mom can't be the only one who finds this parsha's timing more than a little eerie.

Enter 600-year-old Noah "...a righteous man; he was blameless in his age..." whom G-d anoints as the savior of humankind, tasking him with making "'an ark of gopher wood...an ark of compartments...(covered) inside and out with pitch" and ordering him to fill it with "'...your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives. And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the ark to keep alive with you; they shall be male and female.'.. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights."

Finally, after 150 days of history's most brutal storm, "G-d remembered Noa and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and G-d caused a wind to blow across the earth and the waters subsided."

The world is destroyed, but those inside the ark are saved. And the covenant between Noah and the Lord--despite how many natural disasters we continue to witness--remains.

"'Never again will I doom the earth because of man...nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.'"

And so we pray.

Shabbat Shalom!