Sefat Emet on the Parsha

Noach
‫אא"ז מו"ר ז"ל הגיד בשם הרבנים כי תיבת נח הוא תיבות ואותיות התורה‬
‫כו' שיוכל כל אדם להכניס עצמו בכל תיבה מתורה ותפלה ועי"ז יוכל להנצל‬
‫ ואיתא כל שהתיבה קולטתו כי בודאי צריך האדם להיות ראוי‬.‫מכל הסתר‬
‫לכנוס תוך דברי תורה אבל ע"י הביטול בכלל ישראל יוכל כל אדם להתדבק‬
)‫ נח תרל’ד‬,‫ (שפת אמת‬:‫בדברי תורה‬

My master, grandfather, and teacher of blessed memory [R. Yitzchak

Meir Alter] said in the name of other rabbis that the ark [teivah] of
Noah is [like] the words [teivot] and letters of the Torah, etc. [in that]
every person can bring themselves to every word of the Torah and
prayer. And in this way they may be saved from all hiddenness. And it
is brought [in Sanhedrin 108b] “All [animals] that the ark accepted
[were taken on board].” Surely a person must be worthy to enter into
the words of Torah, but through absorption into the collective of
Israel [klal yisrael], every person may cleave to the words of Torah.

We begin this week’s study with a reference to the grandfather of the

Sefat Emet, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, also known as the Chidushei
HaRim. R. Yitzchak Meir Alter (1799-1866) was the founder of the
Gerrer dynasty of Hasidism, so named on account of his location in
Gur/Gora Kalwaria, Poland. Our rebbe, his grandson, R. Yehudah
Aryeh Leib Alter, was orphaned at the age of 8 and raised by his
grandparents. The Chidushei HaRim would be his primary teacher.
1|Sefat Emet on the Parshah
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

The Sefat Emet’s reverence for his grandfather and the deep
influence of his grandfather are evident throughout his work.

Let us begin with the verse from the Torah upon which the Rebbe
builds his commentary (though he does not mention it). Genesis 7:1
reads:

‫יתי צַ ִּדיק ְלפָּ נַי בַ דֹור‬

ִּ ‫אֹּתָך ָּר ִּא‬
ְ ‫יתָך אל הַ ֵּתבָּ ה כִּ י‬
ְ ֵּ‫וַי ֹּאמר ה' ְלנֹּחַ ב ֹּא אַ ָּתה ְוכָּל ב‬
‫הַ זה‬

Then God said to Noah, “Go into the ark, with all your
household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in
this generation.”

This verse stands in quiet contrast to the initial command to Noah to

build the ark, issued in the previous chapter: “‫ֲשׂה ְלָך ֵּתבַ ת עֲצֵּ י גֹּ פר‬
ֵּ ‫ע‬,”
“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood” (Gen. 6:14).

Many hasidic commentators, beginning with the Baal Shem Tov,

found in the latter phrase, “‫“—”ב ֹּא… אל־הַ ֵּת ָּ ָ֑בה‬Go
ֹּֽ [lit. “come”] into...the
ark”—a unique invitation. God says to Noah, “Bo,” come to Me. After
Noah physically executes the enormous construction project of
building the ark, he is still outside of it. So God issues him an intimate
welcome. It is time to enter and begin the journey.

The hasidic tradition cited by the Sefat Emet, however, is not satisfied
with an invitation to a literal teivah (ark). It instead imagines a call
into a teivah of another, far more abstract sort, into the words (teivot)
and letters of the Torah. As the floodwaters rise around him, as the
chaos of the world threatens, Noah is summoned to enter into a
haven of divine language. Letters, as much as a physical ark, may
save him from drowning.

2|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

One might imagine this as an incantation, perhaps the original
“abracadabra” (arguably from the Aramaic: “I will create [abra] that
which I speak [ke’dabra]) moment. God swoops in because Noah
dutifully uttered magic words. But neither the Baal Shem Tov, nor
those who follow him, see the invitation to language in this simplistic
way. They also do not limit this exhortation to Noah alone.

The Sefat Emet says:

‫שיוכל כל אדם להכניס עצמו בכל תיבה מתורה ותפלה‬

[E]very person can bring themselves to every word of the Torah

and prayer.

The call to the teivah/ Word is a call to each and every one of us to
actively bring ourselves, even to forcefully insert ourselves, into the
words of our people—to locate ourselves within its frames; to see
ourselves in the stories we tell and the prayers we utter; to carry with
us our many gifts and burdens and to find space for it all on our
collective ark. Noah was charged to bring all of his baggage on
board—”‫יתָך אל הַ ֵּתבָּ ה‬
ְ ֵּ‫—” ב ֹּא אַ ָּתה ְוכָּל ב‬and so are we. In the search for
safety, we ought to leave nothing behind. There is room for all of our
stuff within the ark of our people.

The reward for this audacious assertion is nothing short of revelation:

‫ועי"ז יוכל להנצל מכל הסתר‬

And in this way [we] may be saved from all hiddenness.

3|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

The Sefat Emet does not spell out precisely what is hidden and what
is revealed when we engage in the language game of our people with
courageous honesty and bold assertion. But he invokes a long
hasidic tradition of grappling with God’s seeming concealment
(hester). The Baal Shem Tov exhorted his followers to seek out God
specifically in places where God seems most absent: “ ‫שם אלופו של‬
‫עולם מסתתר‬,” he suggested. “There”—mired in the muck of life which
seems so thoroughly devoid of divinity—“there the Master1 is hiding.”2
His great-grandson, Rebbe Nachman of Breslav (1772-1810),
extended this further:

‫ואפילו בהסתרה שבתוך ההסתרה בוודאי גם שם נמצא השם יתברך‬

Even in hiddenness within hiddenness, God can be found there.

(Likutei Moharan 1:56)

Sometimes God’s hiddenness is itself hidden, which would be true

exile. The mystical tradition urges us to resist the darkness of this
state. Rather, it is our job, through our language and through our
prayers, to experience and so know that even in what appears to be
hiddenness, God is merely hidden, and not beyond our reach.
Becoming aware of concealment can itself be its own kind of
revelation.

When we choose to climb aboard the ship, so to speak, to bring our

full selves into our spiritual awareness, at the very least, we might
become known to ourselves, it seems. At most, we might come to

1 The idiom “Cosmic Chieftain/Alufo shel olam” is used in Jewish mystical literature as an
appellation for God.
2
See Toldot Yaacov Yosef on Breishit 5 and 7.

4|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

know some truths of the sacred universe. And, like Noah, we might
find ourselves on solid ground even when all feels shaky beneath us.

This is no small feat, says the Sefat Emet. Surely one must be worthy
of Torah to truly find oneself in Torah, which may sound as if it
excludes some of us. Yet he closes by reminding us that an ark is not
discerning. It lifts up all that is placed upon it. So too can klal yisrael,
the collective of Israel, carry all who humble themselves to be a part.
Community can hold what individuals cannot.

As we seek refuge from flooding literal and figurative, may we be

blessed to find safety in words and in one another.

Personal Reflection
1. Where do you find yourself inside the stories or prayers of our
people? Where don’t you? When, how, why or why not?
2. Can you think of various ways to “insert” oneself into words or
letters? What are they? Have you, or can you imagine yourself,
doing so? When? What was that experience like? How might
you insert yourself into words that are not your own?
3. What gifts or burdens do you need to invite into your ark?
4. When has community helped you float?

For Practice
For the Baal Shem Tov, one way to “enter the word” is to connect
deeply and visually with the letters of the word. He would stare at the
letters until they shined (as in the passage we cited above). We can
think of it as a spiritual “staring contest”, where we hold our attention
steady in a focused manner on the letter(s) until they ‘blink” (as our
colleague Rabbi Nehemia Polen has framed it). The letter “comes
5|Sefat Emet on the Parshah
Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

alive” in this manner, transformed to an “other” with whom we can
enter into relationship. It can now speak to us of its uniqueness,
inviting our uniqueness in response.

Let’s play with this. Consider the letter aleph:

‫א‬
Give your full attention to the letter. Hold the image fully in your sight,
taking in its fullness. Notice its parts, and how they are joined
together. Notice the black and notice the white surrounding it.
Without giving an answer, consider: which gives shape to which?
Allow the aleph to reach out to you, to say “here I am, see me in my
fullness”.

Now, we can play with some associations with the letter aleph. A
central one is that it is the first letter of the word ‫אנכי‬/anokhi, “I am”,
the opening words of the Ten Commandments. It is a way of
representing the number one, and suggests the Oneness and
Uniqueness of God. It is the “one” before the “many” of Creation
(which begins with the second letter, ‫ב‬/bet, of the word
‫בראשית‬/Bereshit, “In the beginning”).

Hold these associations in mind and go back to your visual

connection with the letter. Stay with it, and allow these other
associations to merge into what you see. What emerges for you as
you enter the aleph now?

6|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021

R, Naftali of Ropshitz teaches that the three branches of the letter
aleph can be viewed as the figures of the human face. Imagine it like
this:

Take this association in, and connect it to the experience of the aleph
as a pointer toward the One.

Return to the original figure of the aleph. Hold it once again in your
visual field. Allow all of these associations to be present as you enter
into the letter aleph. Can it shine for you? Does it wink, to let you
know it feels seen? Can it open, as an Ark, to buoy you as you make
your way through the vicissitudes of life? Can it be a vehicle of
revelation, announcing God’s presence even in the material, the
worldly—even in other people?

7|Sefat Emet on the Parshah

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler

© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021