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here was a very big tzaddik named Noach. Noach obeyed everything Hashem said and did many good deeds. Hashem liked Noach very much, more than all the other people in the world. Noach’s neighbors were bad, wicked people. They did not listen to Hashem and did many bad things. Noach’s neighbors used to steal and they taught their children to steal, too. The children would go to the marketplace and stand near the fruit stand. The woman selling apples would call out to them cheerfully, “Hello, children, have you come to buy apples?” Each child would then take an apple, eat it quickly, and then run away. “Hey, children!” the woman would cry. “You didn’t pay for the apples!” “Oh, we didn’t come to buy apples,” the wicked children shouted. “We each took only one apple to taste!” And the woman was left without any apples! Hashem said to Noach, “I am going to punish all these bad people. I will punish them with a mabul, very strong rain. All the bad people will die. The houses and trees will all fall down and break apart. I want you to build for yourself a teivah, an ark, so that you will be safe.” So Noach got to work right away and spent many days building a big ark made of wood.
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Every day, his neighbors watched as he worked, and they asked him, “What are you building, Noach?” “I am building a teivah,” he answered. “A teivah? What for?” So Noach told them, “Soon Hashem will bring a flood and all the bad people will die. “Ha, ha, ha,” they laughed. They didn’t believe him at all. The wicked people did not do teshuvah; they continued behaving badly.
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Noach’s teivah had three floors. On the first floor, he kept food and set aside some space for garbage. The second floor was for all the animals, and the third floor was for Noach and his family.
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Noach brought all the different kinds of animals into the teivah: giraffes and bears, lions and tigers, cows, sheep and even birds. Finally, Noach and his sons went in and shut the door behind them.
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When the wicked people saw that Noach had gone into the teivah, they wanted to break it. So Hashem sent tigers and bears to guard the teivah and bite whoever tried to come close.
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Suddenly, it began to rain. At first, the rain was not very strong, but it became stronger and stronger until it was stronger than the strongest rain you’ve ever seen. A lot of water gushed out from the earth, too. The water ruined all the pretty flowers. It destroyed the trees and the fields, the gardens and even the houses. All the animals drowned in the water, and all the bad people died. There was so much water that it covered the whole earth and you couldn’t even see the tallest mountain. Only the teivah floated above the water with Noach, his family and all the animals safely inside.
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Throughout the mabul, Noach worked hard, Giving the animals food and drink, And making sure no one starved. Bananas for the monkeys, The cows just loved the hay. This kept Noach busy, Every single day. But what did the chameleon1 like to eat? Noach had no clue. He tried to give it meat, Fruit and vegetables too. Straw it wouldn’t touch, Though it was getting very hungry, Milk it didn’t like too much, And by now it was pretty angry. One day, Noach cut open a pomegranate, and out crawled a worm. He was on his way to throw it out, When he heard the chameleon shout, “I’ll eat that worm, it’s the perfect food!” It ate the worm up and was in a great mood! From then on, Noach knew, The problem was solved. He knew what to do, So the chameleon need not starve.
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A type of salamander.
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On the other side, A lion was waiting. “Where is Noach already, Oh! How irritating! Doesn’t he know, I haven’t time to wait? My stomach is rumbling from a quarter to eight!” But Noach was busy; he wasn’t just resting, He was making sure the others were eating. When he got to the lion and gave him his food, The lion bit his foot; what an angry mood! “How dare you be late with my meal again!” But Noach didn’t hear, his foot was in such pain. And from that very day, His limp never went away! Finally, after many days, the rain stopped. The earth dried up and Noach was able to leave the ark. The first thing he did was thank Hashem for saving him and his family.
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