The Flood: Brief Core Lessons for Humanity

Introduction

From Humanity being in the Garden of Eden, in the perfect space and in the presence of the Lord and direct communication with the Creator Himself, to the decision to destroy humanity and save only 8 souls in order to repopulate this world.

The flood of Noah was a kind of God pushing the reset button on His computer. Something very basic went wrong to where God says that He regrets that He created men: This is probably one of the saddest texts in the Bible. God, the artist, the designer, the sculpture who made man and woman has to regret that He created human beings and push the restart button saving only 8 souls from the multitudes that forgot who the father of all is and what He demands from us, humans.

There were only very few laws and demands that God made in chapter 9 of Genesis. These are the same four laws that were commanded upon the Gentiles by the Apostles in the book of Acts chapter 15; when the Apostles and leaders of the church met in Jerusalem to decided what to do with the non-Jewish brothers and sisters who accepted, believed and joined the community of the Saints. The apostles decided exactly on these four laws that were given to all of humanity long before God chose Abraham. Humans could keep these few and healthy and wise laws that God gave them, and they corrupted the flesh of their humanity to the point that God said:

These are probably some of the saddest words of God.

Pablo Picasso the great painter, may be the greatest painter of the 20th Century, didn’t make each picture that he painted good enough for him to display it or sell it. Some of Picasso’s works didn’t come out the way he envisioned them, but they were his babies, his handy work, his creations: he didn’t destroy them.

He didn’t cast them out into the garbage. He took them to a special and private room in his house and enjoyed them privately. Upon his death, Picasso’s daughter sold these paintings for millions of dollars. They were authentic Pablo Picasso creations.

God didn’t do what Picasso did. He, the creator, pushed the reset button and just left 8 souls to start over. Eight souls that were willing to do something outside the box, something that was never done before, something that has never happened again. Yes, the world will never be destroyed by water, but it will be destroyed by fire, or something else.

The Core Lessons

The lessons that we must learn from the is Torah Portion that is called Genesis, are these;

1) We are created. Yes, each one of us is created by God. God is the only one who gives life to us as humans and to the fly and the bee and the lion and the hippopotami. Yes, also to the birds of all kinds and colors, and to the flowers in the field and the trees in the forest.

2) We are guests in God’s world; tourists, pilgrims and strangers. The only positive mark that we will leave in this world is our families and our good deeds, the things that we did for others, not the things that we did for ourselves.

3) We are given each a number of talents; some are given 10 and others are given 5 and some like most of us are given 1 talent. These talents are not only for safe keeping in the bank. They are given so that we can grow and develop and multiply the talents and gifts that God has given us. We are given life to use it and bless others with it; be it family, neighbors, or just other pilgrims and strangers.

4) This life is our boot-camp – it is the testing ground to prepare us for eternity; to be in the land where the souls of men never die. For those who pass the test of life and the exhibition of the divine that is in us. That is to be used to bless our families and our neighbors and just anyone who gives us an opportunity to do something good and something beneficial with the talents that God gave us originally.

The biggest challenge and the biggest sin that we could do is to waste our gifts and blessings and not to put them to use to show honor and glory to our Father in Heaven for what He gave us. To use the opportunities that He set before us to do good to be a blessing to care for those who are less fortunate. This is our lesson from Genesis!

God even gave us examples of what not to do! How not to live just for ourselves and hate our brothers, and how not do pervert that divine spark, our soul, that was given to us pure and clean. And, of course, how to enjoy our fellowship with God through our fellowship and friendship and brotherhood with our fellow human-beings.

The last lesson from Genesis, my dear brothers and sisters, you can try to hide from God, but He will always find you. You can put on a mask, and He will call you to the task. You can change your name and move to another country and change the color of your hair, but remember God knows us by our DNA and that my dear brothers and sisters, we can’t change.

So, dear brothers and sisters, why not learn to enjoy fellowship with God, in prayer, in silent meditation, in reading the Bible, in worshiping the Almighty, in doing good to those who need us and. Why not show our humanity and our divine nature in just a few simple acts of kindness as we display the nature of God our Father who so loved us human beings, that He sent His son to save us even at the price of death on a cross!

This is not a very difficult lesson to study – but it is the most difficult lesson to preform and live out in practice. Every Year after Sukkoth we start a new cycle of reading and new opportunities to do good and act according to God’s rules and God’s commands. Yes here are the words of the Psalmist of what God’s word ought to mean for us: Palms 19: 6-14,