Shnayim Yomi - Noach - Shlishi - #3 - Rabbi Moshe Bamberger - Extending an Olive Branch

[Music] Paras third aliyah. This aliyah teaches us about the actual mabble. The flood begins to gush from the earth and from above for 40 days and 40 nights. And the ark the tavas lifted by the rising waters. And all forms of life on earth perish. All the uh the men, women, and children on earth and all the animals except for the fish, they all die as the waters begin to envelop the earth. And for 150 days, the waters strengthen. And finally, Hashem's mercy stirs and he makes the water levels start going down again. And for 150 days they come down until the ark the tava rests on hararat which is a mountain in Turkey. Uh and 40 days later after the ark finally settles on the mountaintop nyak sends out um from the skylight of the tava first a raven and then the dove and neither finds a resting place. Na waits a few days later, a week later, and sends out the dove once again, and the dove returns with an olive branch in its mouth. And Na then realizes that finally the flood waters have subsided from the earth, and it's okay to begin making plans to leave the TVA. Now, this symbol of the olive branch being in the dove's mouth is a universal sign for peace. And the reason for this is is that when you are in a tava, you're in an arc and there's floodwaters that are devastating the entire earth. And then you have a sign that the olive branch is in the mouth of the dove. That's the sign of peace. That's a sign that the chaos could finally subside and we can rebuild the earth again. that we could look beyond the devastation and understand that now it's the time to settle the earth peacefully once again. And this is of course the dream of Kai Israel. Kali Israel has been on this tava on this boat of gullis now for 2,000 years. We have seen every war. We have sort of like the spotlight of history seems to always follow the Jewish people in every single continent on this globe. uh whether it's in Spain, whether it's in Europe, whether it's in America, there's always been a lot of devastation that surrounds the Jews very often because of the jealousy of the nations of the world, the anti-semitism that sees in the heart of the Gaim that are jealous of us and they don't like the fact that we are the chosen nation and that we have the Tyra. And but Cla never got battleh hardened. We never uh engaged in war and in and in defensive wars just for the sake of battle. We're always hoping and praying for that dove carrying the olive branch in its mouth. We always yearn for peace. We never want war. We always love the ability to be restful and to be able to do our own thing. We never want to engage in the world around us. It's interesting the the mayor of Dinsk said that look at our holidays. All of the Jewish holidays are very different than the non-Jewish holidays. Many of the non-Jewish holidays um D-Day and and you know all of the the gaim they se celebrate victory from war because they want to show their their prowess and their power militarily. The Jews always celebrate the day after the war like Kaneka is when we rested on the 25th day. That wasn't when we won. We won already earlier, but we rested finally on the 25th day of when we celebrate. Purim is the day when we were able to rest and and come back into our own homes and into our own shs, learn again, davin again. That's really what a Jew yearns for. So we're always on this tava and we always seek out that olive branch. We want to make peace with our enemies. We do not want to fight. And that is the symbolic importance of this aliyah.