Noach: Noah
The world is getting out of control, so G~d turns to Noah, the one righteous person in his generation earth and instructs him to build an ark. Noah is given very precise instructions on how the ark should be build. He is also instructed to bring food and animals on the ark. As with the creation stories, there are two accountings of Noah's Ark. In the first rendition, Noah is instructed to bring 2 of every animal on the ark. In the second story, Noah is instructed to bring seven of each tahor, or ritually permissive, species and only two of each tamei, or ritually impermissive species on the ark.
After Noah has completed his task, and all the animals and Noah's immediate family are on the ark, it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. Humanity is virtually destroyed. After the rain ceases, it takes several weeks before the water has subsided enough for all aboard to return to dry land.
Noah's first act after the flood it to build an altar and sacrifices one of the tahor species. G~d is pleased with the offering and makes a promise never to destroy the earth again. As a sign of His promise, G~d creates a rainbow in the sky. In addition, G~d now permits humans to eat meat (before t his humans were vegetarians), provided the blood is completely drained from the meat, thereby making the meat Kosher.
The parsha ends with the Tower of Babel story in which mankind attempted to build a tower up to G~D, in an effort to become G~d. G~d responds by destroying the tower and scattering the people across the earth, so that each community now speaks in different languages.
In the year 2011, Noach falls on October 29.
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