Letters of Protection (Noach)
Action, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell character. -Johann Kaspar Lavater
God is enraged with humanity. They prove to not only be corrupt but they also corrupt their environment. Their evil and vileness scream to the heavens and God answers with a deluge to wipe out all of humanity, with the aim to start anew with Noah and his family.
God instructs Noah to build an ark, where his family and representatives from the animal kingdom will be spared to repopulate Earth. Noah dutifully builds the Ark. The animals arrive two-by-two, leaving a planet about to be destroyed, to then sail upon its destruction, and almost a year later land on a world wiped clean of any other living beings.
The Ark was their transport and protection for the duration of the Flood. The word “Ark” in Hebrew is “Tevah” which is also the same word in Hebrew for “letter”. The Chidushei HaRim explains that these homonyms, these words with the same spelling and the same pronunciation, but different meanings, are not coincidental.
There is a deep, divine and powerful attribute to each of the Hebrew letters, specifically the Hebrew letters of the Torah and of prayer. Just as Noah’s Ark can be a vessel of protection, somehow, each of us can escape a deluge of troubles by seeking refuge within the Hebrew “Tevah”, the Hebrew letters that we learn and recite. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in some mystical way, and most powerfully, the letters of the Torah and of prayer, can provide a certain measure of protection from the elements of the world that seek to drown us.
When trouble comes our way, as it inevitably does, we don’t need to spend years building an ark, we don’t need to gather supplies to survive Armageddon, we can open the Torah, open a Siddur (the Prayer book) and read.
May we find shelter and sanctuary in something as simple as holy letters and words.
To the post-holiday season.