Parshas Noach: Building a Spiritual Ark | Rabbi Shlomo Finkelman

R’ Avraham Pam, of blessed memory, once said, The world has not been so low since the Generation of the Flood. And R’ Pam left this world 23 years ago. What would he say today? How do we survive in such a world that’s so low, such impurity, such decadence? The truth is, you can ask the same question about Noach. How did Noach survive as a Tzaddik? The Torah testifies, Noach was a righteous man. In a world where the impurity was so pervasive, it affected the animals, it affected the vegetation. How did it not affect Noach? The Slonimer Rebbe shlit”a, in his Darchei Noam, asked this question, and he says that the Torah itself provides the answer. Noach walked with Hashem. Says the Slonimer Rebbe, Noach made a decision, I will not survive spiritually, unless I separate myself from this world. I’m no longer part of this world. The world is dark, but I’m with Hashem, only with Hashem. There’s no one but me and Hashem. The Rebbe says he created an ark within the world, a spiritual ark. And measure for measure, he merited that, physically, he was protected by an actual ark. And, continues the Slonimer Rebbe, this applies to every one of us. We, in this world, in this lowly world, can create a spiritual ark for ourselves, where we’re just with Hashem. We can be walking in the street and we’re not there. Noach walked with Hashem, we’re with the Ribono shel Olam. Sounds easier said than done. Well, the Ba’al Shem Tov famously said, He can be sitting in the Beis Medrash and thinking about the World Series, and his Neshama is actually in Yankee Stadium. Or he could be on the subway and learning from a Sefer, saying Tehillim, and he’s really in the Beis Medrash. R’ Leib Meislik was a Yid in Russia, under the Communists. For two years, the KGB put him into solitary confinement. For two years, in darkness, a pitch-black room with no window and no light. An average person would go insane. He survived unscathed, even greater than before. And they asked him: How did you do it? He said, I may have been sitting in darkness, but with me there was a blazing light. I knew they would arrest me one day. I prepared. I studied Mishnayos by heart, and I committed to memory all of Sefer Tehillim. And I was very busy in that little prison cell, praying and learning all day. That was the answer. He was surrounded by darkness, but there was a blazing light. We can do the same. We can be walking outside in a world of darkness, but with the Ribono shel Olam, like Noach, in our own little world. And in that way, we’ll not only survive, we’ll even grow day by day with our Shmiras Einayim and our pure thoughts.