6 months ago

Noach: Flood of Moshiach

This week’s Torah reading tells the story of a man in a box that saved the world; Noah.
G-d made a flood to destroy all terrestrial life because they all perverted their ‘ways’ except for Noach and family who He floated in a box (aka ‘Ark) for about a year above the flood to eventually re-start the world.
At first glance this is totally not understood. If G-d wanted to kill everyone, why didn’t He just do it quietly when they were asleep, leave Noach and family alone and then re-start the world immediately. Why a flood? What type of a punishment is that? And why an ark?

To understand this, here is a story I read from my friend Dr. Dovid Shalom Pape.
In 1992 an 85-year-old well-dressed woman with a smile on her face, entered the office of Rabbi Jacob Biederman, the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s representative to Austria and took a seat.
She introduced herself as the first emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Vienna! “I know you think you are the Rebbe’s first one here,” she quipped, “but in fact I was before you!”
She began her amazing story. Her name was Margareta Chayos, Before the war her family name had been Hager. She stemmed from the great Holy Rebbes of the Vishnitz Chassidim, but she, like so many other Jews in those days, left home. She travelled to Vienna, the cultural center of the world, and became a successful opera singer and performed during the 1930’s in the Salzburger Festspiele a prominent music and drama festival held each summer in the Austrian birthplace of Mozart.
In the Anschluss of March 1938 when German troops marched into Austria and annexed the country, Nazi ideology took effect and Jewish artists were banned.” But miraculously she was overlooked in the Festspiele of August 1939 and actually performed in two operas for Hitler himself! (Who must not known that he was listening to a Jew)
But when the German army invaded Poland beginning the Second World War gentile friends of hers smuggled her out to Italy and from there she made it on the last boat to the U.S.A and eventually settled in Detroit. There she married a Jewish young man (a grandson of one of the famous 19th century Polish Rabbi and Talmudic commentator, the Maharatz Chayos), and they gave birth to a daughter.
When this daughter grew up she married a prominent Jewish doctor who became close to Chabad, was honored at a fundraising dinner for Chabad institutions in New York and Margareta, as his mother-in-law, attended and even got a private audience with the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

“I walked into the Rebbe’s room,” Margareta related to Rabbi Biederman, “I cannot explain why, but suddenly, for the first time since the Holocaust, I felt that I could cry. The Germans killed my family and everyone I knew and, like so many others who had lost everything to them – I had never cried before. We knew that if we would start crying, we might never stop, or that in order to survive we can’t express our emotions.
“But at that moment, it was as though the dam obstructing my tears was removed. I began sobbing like a baby. I shared with the Rebbe my entire story: Innocent childhood; leaving home; becoming a star in Vienna; performing in front of Nazis; escaping to the US; learning of the death of my closest kin and friends.
“The Rebbe listened with his eyes, with his heart, with his soul, and he took it all in. I shared everything and he absorbed everything. That night I felt like I was given a second father. I felt that the Rebbe adopted me as his daughter.
“At the end of our meeting I expressed my strong desire to go back and visit Vienna. The Rebbe gave his blessing and requested that if I do decide to make the trip, he would like to see me again.
“So a few months later I decided to go and again visited the Rebbe. He asked me to do him two favors and visit two people during my stay. The first was Viennese Chief Rabbi Akiva Eisenberg to give him regards, and the second was a certain Jewish professor by the name of Viktor Frankl at the University of Vienna. The Rebbe spoke in German, so I would understand.
“Send Dr. Frankl my regards and tell him in my name that he should not give up. He must remain strong and continue his work with vigor and passion. If he continues to remain strong, he will prevail’. And he spoke for a while in this vein.
“This was totally strange to me. I had never heard of this doctor and wondered why was the Rebbe sending him this message through me? I did not have an answer to any of these questions, but I obeyed.”
“Once in Vienna, finding Rabbi Eisenberg was simple, but meeting the professor proved far more difficult. When I arrived at his university, they informed me that he had not shown up in two weeks and refused to give more details.
I tried again several times and almost gave up, but feeling guilty at not having fulfilled the Rebbe’s request, I decided to violate Austrian protocol, look up the professor’s private home address, travel there and knock at the door.
“When I did so a woman opened the door and I saw behind her the walls were filled with crosses, I thought this can’t be the home of the person whom the Lubavitcher Rebbe wanted me see but nevertheless I asked if the professor is at home.”
“Yes, please wait.”
“Moments later a middle-aged man came to the door, He was extremely tense, and frankly looked annoyed. I felt very awkward.”
“I have regards from Rabbi Schneerson in Brooklyn, New York,” I told him.
“Who is this?” he asked impatiently.
“Rabbi Schneerson asked me to find you and tell you in his name that you must not give up. You ought to remain strong and continue your work with determination and you will prevail. Do not fall into despair. If you march on with confidence, he promised that you will achieve great success.”
“The professor looked at me like he had seen a ghost, his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped in disbelief. His body began to shake, he put his face in his hands and broke down sobbing like a baby. He could not calm down. I did not understand what was going on.
“I cannot believe this!” Dr. Frankl said repeatedly as he motioned for me to enter. After we sat down and he calmed down a bit he dried his eyes and said, “This Rabbi from Brooklyn knew exactly when to send you here. It is a true miracle! You have saved me!” He began crying again and could not thank me enough. To this day I don’t know what affected him so deeply. This all happened some forty years ago, so you see Rabbi Biederman,” she said with a smile, “I was an emissary of the Rebbe to Vienna many years before you arrived here.”
Rabbi Biederman thanked her but was intrigued. What really was behind this story.
After she left he began investigating and discovered that Victor Frankl was still alive, he was 87 years of age (he passed away in 1997, five years later) was a very famous psychiatrist and was even a regular donor to his Chabad House in Vienna!.
Biederman recalls, “I phoned him, introduced myself and asked him if he remembered the regards Margarete Chajes gave him from Rabbi Schneerson in Brooklyn some forty years ago?”
“’I don’t remember the name Margarete Chajes, but of course I remember that day! I will never forget it. My gratitude to Rabbi Schneerson is eternal. He helped me in a very difficult time.’ He answered emotionally.
“I invited myself to his house and he told me the rest of the story,
“He told me that as a young man in Vienna he excelled in the study of neurology, philosophy and psychiatry and in the early twenties became part of circle of the famous Dr. Sigmund Freud, the “Father of Psychoanalysis”. But then he had developed ideas which were contrary to the dominating, negative theories of Freud and his followers.
“They believed that humans are governed by negative, subconscious frustrations and the sole purpose of therapy was to reveal them. But Frankl taught that the essence, the soul, of man was always healthy and positive and only had to be revealed by meaningful attitude.
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“But after the war, Freud’s nihilistic ideas reigned supreme and Frankl’s stress on conscience, faith and obligation were rejected. It was unpopular for students to attend his courses.
“’Rabiner Biederman!” Frankl exclaimed. ‘ I survived the German death camps and retained my spirit there but I could not survive the merciless derision and taunting of my colleagues undermining my every attempt at progress. Finally, after years of it, I was drained, exhausted and depressed. I fell into a melancholy and decided to quit. I had no friends, no supporters, no pupils. I began drafting my resignation papers.
“‘And then suddenly, a woman knocks on my door and gives me regards, from a Rabbi Schneerson from Brooklyn, New York! Hope! Inspiration! I could not believe my ears. Somebody in Brooklyn, no less a Chassidic Rebbe, knew about me! Appreciated me! He knew my predicament! He cared. I was not alone! This was a miracle! How did he do these things?
‘Indeed, the Rebbe’s words came true. Frankl fought, was shortly thereafter given a Chair at the University, and became one of the most celebrated psychiatrists of the generation.

He went on to write 32 books which were translated into 30 languages, became a guest lecturer at universities on all five continents, held 29 honorary doctorates (more than any other man) and received 19 national and international awards and medals and his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” sold some over ten million copies and became listed by the Library of Congress as one of the ten most influential books of the 20^th century!
And all this would not have happened were it not for the prophetic vision, genius, and unending love of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

This answers our questions about the purpose of hte flood.

The flood and ark were and are necessary for true change. The flood waters are the confusions and difficulties of life that force us to raise ourselves above our present state.
This was what made Noah special; he defied the peer pressure and the selfish spirit of his time and was willing to be different.
This is the message of the Lubavitcher Rebbe: don’t let ANY situation get you down, rather rise above and fix it. Enter the ‘ark’ of truth and make a new world.
Just as G-d purified the negative world with the flood so the Rebbe lifted Prof. Frankl from the flood of difficulties he experienced in his and enabled him to begin making a ‘new world’ of meaning.
In books of Kabala it says that in the Ark reigned the spirit of Moshiach: total peace, security and awareness of G-d. Noach was beginning a new world (Geula) in which he hoped all mankind would participate (therefore the Torah plan for gentiles is called the NOAHIDE commandments).
So also, some 400 years later, Abraham; the spiritual father of all nations, rose above the masses to bring the message of G-d’s goodness and omnipresence.
And today it is being done by the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and those like him; informing us that WE can complete it!!

And not much remains to be done. We are standing on the merits of thousands of years of Jewish prayers and suffering. It’s up to us to enter the ark of ‘Geula’ and do all we can, even one good deed, word or thought, to change the world and bring….
Moshiach NOW!

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