Noach: Zemer of The Week
“Oseh Shalom” (עושה שלום) – The Prayer for Peace
Here’s a fun version featuring Rabbi Sacks, dozens of children, and chazzonim: https://rabbisacks.org/videos/oseh-shalom-israel-home-of-hope/
Here’s the classic version by Aryeh Kunstler: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2322915621440912
The flood ends with God’s covenant of peace (berit shalom) symbolized by the rainbow. This prayer transforms the universal longing for peace into daily liturgy.
“Ivdu et Hashem b’Simcha” (עִבְדוּ אֶת־ה׳ בְּשִׂמְחָה) – “Serve Hashem with Joy”
Benny Friedman’s upbeat version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq9MC5nDjYI
Noach’s post-flood command to rebuild is about joyful action. The song reflects emerging from the ark ready to serve with gratitude.
A traditional Zemer connected to this parsha:
The zemer for this week: שבתון יום
(This was the zemer that kicked off the Wasserman minhag of using zemirot to review the parsha. I had read a dvar Torah connecting this zemer with Parshat Noach, we discussed it and sang the zemer that week, and then decided to try to do likewise the following Shabbat for Parshat Lech Lecha onward.)
This zemer was written by R’ Yehuda Halevi, the author of the Kuzari, who lived from 1075-1140 C.E. (His name is formed by the acrostic across the zemer’s five stanzas.) Originally from Spain, at the end of his life he finally achieved his lifelong dream of living in Eretz Yisrael. The zemer describes the love of Bnai Yisrael for the Shabbos, the way in which Shabbos helps us rest from the challenges of the week, and how the honor given to Shabbos by Hashem on Har Sinai still echoes down to our generations.
Major elements of this parsha include the flood and its aftermath, including Noach’s tapping the dove to explore whether he could disembark from the teiva, his offerings to Hashem, and Hashem’s promises about the post-Flood world.
Some of the connections to the parsha:
· Chorus and 3rd line of 1st stanza: “יונה מצאה בו מנוח ” (“the dove found rest on it [Shabbos]”) – During its final mission from the ark, the yonah (the dove that Noach sent to scout for dry land) found its resting place on Shabbos, according to the Zohar (as cited by Artscroll’s Zemiros).
· 1st line of 4th stanza: “בהר המור” (“on Har Hamoriah”) – Artscroll quotes the Rambam as saying that Noach built his altar (Bereishit 8:20) on the same mountain – Har Hamoriah, the site of the Beit Hamikdash – as Adam, Avraham, David, and Shlomo had built theirs.
· 2nd line of 1st stanza: “ריח הניחח” (“pleasing aroma”) – The pasuk (Bereishit 8:21) tells us that Hashem smelled the הניחח ריח from Noach’s korban/offering after Noach exited the ark.
· Final line of last stanza: “כאשר נשבעת על מי נח” (“as You promised over the waters of Noach”) – After the Flood, Hashem promised to never wipe out every living being (Bereishit 8:21). This line in the zemer echoes the reiteration of this promise in Noach’s Haftarah in Yeshayahu 54:9.
o When Jewish foe Sancheiriv is one of the only survivors of his army’s attack on Yerushalayim, he sees himself as “another Noach,” survivor of the Flood (see Sanhedrin 95b-96a).
o Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out that in the chapter on the re-birth of the world in the aftermath of the Flood, the word “bris/ברית” is mentioned 7 times, mirroring the 7 times that “tov/טוב” is mentioned in the first chapter of the Torah about the birth of the world.
Bonus shir: The core line of the shir "אמר רבי אלעזר" comes from the haftarah for Parshat Noach (in Yeshayahu 54:13):
וכל בניך למודי ה', ורב שלום בניך