Most ships have captains. Most ships have rudders. Many ships have sails. Most ships have a wheel.
In fact, a ship without any of the above is not much of a ship at all.
Yet this is precisely the type of ship we read about in this week’s parsha, Noach. When the Almighty decided to destroy the world – sparing Noach and his family – He did so with a flood. Noach was commanded to build a teivah, an ark. The teivah had no wheel, no sails, no rudder and no captain.
Why did G-d instruct Noach to build an ark and not a ship? Wouldn’t it have been easier to navigate the challenges of the flood in a boat?
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Perhaps G-d purposefully designed the ark so that Noach would not be able to navigate. The only objective was to float above the water. In fact, ibn Ezra explains that this is why it is called a teivah as opposed to a sefinah or aniah (ship or boat).
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As we look at the chaotic world around us – with the government shut down and in political disarray, tragic wars, alarming assimilation, and a culture that can produce zombies – we wonder how can we escape the floodwaters? The entire earth seems to be flooded. Wherever we turn another challenge lurches.
The message from this week’s parsha is clear. Even if we don’t yet have a path forward, we can prevail. We don’t have rudders or a captain at the helm – but we can find safe shelter. All we need is to rise above the frenzied waters. For that goal, even a teivah suffices.
The Sages explain that entering the teivah means entering the words of Torah and prayer. If we immerse ourselves in these holy words, we will form a wall of protection from the harmful waters raging around us.
Interestingly, the teivah was also different from a boat in that it was covered on all sides, like a capsule. This signifies the true protection the teivah affords when we are inside it.
Yes, we ultimately need rudders, a wheel and a captain. For that we need to wait until next parsha…
Saving ourselves from the nearby destruction, however, can be accomplished by simply entering the teivah.