Two Minute Torah Podcast

Noah 5771 by Rabbi David Levy

Hello My name is Rabbi David Levy and I am the director of admissions for the Rabbinical and H.L. Miller Cantorial Schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NY. Welcome to KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the Department of Youth and Young Adult Activities of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Dealing with stress is no easy task but this is nothing new, and I would like to suggest that we can learn a lot about stress management, particularly what not to do, by looking at Parshat Noah.

In this parsha we read the famous story of Noah and the Flood. Talk about stress. Could you imagine the pressure Noah was under when God called him? That is a lot to deal with, but Noah takes it like a champ and gets to work on building the ark. So far, Noah handles stress pretty well.

The waters of the flood come and 40 days and 40 nights later they go. Through all of this Noah manages his responsibilities admirably. Finally Noah sets foot on dry land, thanks God and receives the covenant of the rainbow. Now Noah can relax and blow off some steam. What does he do first? He plants a vineyard. This sounds strange, but does it? How many college students make their way to a bar or party to forget their stress for a while and just have a good time?

I would like to suggest that while the story of Noah gives us the idea that we may want to kick back and have a drink after a hard day (or 40), we don't have to read too much farther to see the dangers in using alcohol in stress management. As we read on we find that Noah gets completely drunk and winds up lying naked in his tent where one his son's Ham takes advantage of his compromised state. When Noah awakes he is so furious with Ham that he curses him, basically severing their relationship. We can see here that even though Noah seems entitled to party a little after all he has been through, by taking it too far we learn how regrettably things can end.

I realize that it is unrealistic and probably unwise, to suggest that you never take a drink, so I won't. However, I will suggest that we take a lesson from Noah on not using alcohol as stress management tool. Noah probably needed to confront his stress and issues with God before planting that vineyard, and we too should look for meaningful ways to address our stress before hitting the bar. In the Talmud in the tractate of Sanhedrin there is a clever play on words. We read that Rav Kahanah asks why the word for wine is Tirash but it is pronounce Tirosh? Tirash is defined as being impoverished, and Tirosh is defined as a contraction that is Tehi Rosh, you will be a leader. The Talmud responds to say that if one is worthy he will merit being a leader and if not they will become impoverished. I read this to mean if one can manage their wine they can lead, but if not they can lose it all. This message from the rabbis is clearly applicable to us today, if we cannot manage our stress successfully we can never expect to lead and if we abuse alcohol we risk throwing it all away.