What Are We Doing Here? Parshat Noach - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

One of the greatest achievements of modern civilization >> [music] >> is the ability to avoid other people. We have noise-canceling headphones so we don't have to hear them, online shopping so we don't have to meet them, self-service checkout so we don't have to talk to them, and of course social media so we can have thousands of friends without the inconvenience of actually knowing any of them. Never have so many people been so connected and so alone. In Parshat Noach, Hashem commands Noach to build an enormous ark to save himself, his family, and all the animals from the coming flood. For an entire year, Noach and his family lived in what must have been the world's most uncomfortable floating zoo. Imagine the noise, the smell, the feeding schedules, the elephants wanting breakfast, the lions demanding dinner, and the mosquitoes constantly looking for a snack between meals. Once when Noach was late feeding the lion, the lion turned around and swiped him. Not exactly a luxury cruise. But there's something strange here. If Hashem just wanted to save Noach, he could have just whisked him up to the top of the nearest mountain and let the flood pass him by. Why imprison him for an entire year with thousands of creatures needing constant attention? Perhaps the answer lies in understanding what it was that destroyed the generation of the flood. The Torah tells us that the earth was filled with chamas, robbery and violence. The essence of robbery is the belief that the world exists for me. Your possessions, your comfort, your needs are irrelevant when they interfere with what I want. The generation of the flood had turned selfishness into an ideology, into a credo. The ark was the exact opposite. For an entire year, Noach couldn't think about himself for a second. From morning to night, he was busy with all of the animals. The ark wasn't just a lifeboat, it was an academy. Hashem wasn't just rescuing Noach from the old world, he was teaching him how to build a new one. And perhaps that's the greatest irony of our super connected age. [music] We've invented a thousand ways to make life more convenient, but the purpose of life was never convenience. Sometimes the only way to save the world is to feed somebody else's elephant.