Kids

Parshat Noach is all about the famous flood which G-d brought to the world as a punishment for a generation which was rampant in sin. For 120 years, Noach faithfully constructed an ark in which he, his wife and family were to be housed for the best part of a year. Two of each nonKosher species were brought in as were seven of each kosher species. The rain fell and the entire generation were wiped out. Eventually Noach sought out life so he sent out a raven followed by a dove following the return of which he understood the flood to have finished. He left the ark and planted a vineyard, which he used its products of to get drunk. When he was found in a compromised position his son Cham mocked him so Noach missed a curse upon the descendants of Cham to be slaves. Shem and Yafes on the other hand were blessed. We also learn of the rainbow and it’s significance as well as the Tower of Bavel which the nations used to imagine waging war with Heaven (as it were). From that point on, different languages developed and nations spread apart (as, some say) did the continents themselves. We have ten generations between Noach and the next hero, our dear ancestor Avram.

Noach

Noach Word Search

D N K U N H G Z A A S L

W O E I H C A O N R N H

J V O V W T Q L T K V A K R Z L A E P P W S Z G

C Q Q C F R L A U U P R L W S V G Y C L Y O D L

S F U F J C F P C E T E

D O V E Z J P S T T B B

H Y R B W I F U N H T A

Z F J V V R A I N G B B

T Q M U Z J L J V I U S Q Q R J S B O A F R U T

ARK • BABEL • DOVE • FLOOD • NOACH • RAIN • RAVEN • RIGHTEOUS

Tangram Challenge!

Using all the shapes on the left can you make the boat on the right?

Chaim was feeling glum. He walked slowly with his head down, trying to concentrate on the pebble he was kicking in front of him.

It was so unfair. He had really tried this year. He had spent time in shul on Yom Kippur davening to Hashem to forgive him for not remembering to say all his brachos and for rushing through davening. How could it be that two weeks later he was already messing up.

Take yesterday for example. He was at school eating his lunch and having a wonderful daydream about flying an aeroplane. Suddenly he realised that everyone had already started benching and that now he would have to rush benching or he would be late for class.

The day before yesterday was even worse. It was a Sunday, packed with going to shul, learning with Abba and then a family trip to Holland Park. When he and Abba had got home to have breakfast before the outing, the house was in chaos. Everyone was running around looking for their backpacks and water bottles and making their lunches. He felt so rushed that he started eating breakfast without saying a bracha. Then he was so mad at himself that he was in a grumpy mood all day and couldn’t even enjoy the park.

He just couldn’t understand. Why couldn’t he get things right? He’d meant what he said on Yom Kippur so how could he still make the same mistakes that he had promised not to?

Chaim was still in a bad mood at the start of the last lesson of the day.

“This week’s sedra is parsha Noach. We have two famous stories of Noach and his teivah (ark) and the Tower of Bavel. There are so many interesting lessons to learn this week, but given that we have just had Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I’d like to pick up on something we can learn from the building of the teivah.” Rabbi Friedman smiled and continued.

“It took Noach 120 years to build the teivah! Why was this? Was he just bad at DIY like me?” All the boys laughed.

“No,” he continued, “Hashem wanted to give everyone a chance to do Teshuva, so Noach built the teivah very slowly to give them as much chance as possible. Noach wanted everyone to know that it wasn’t too late to ask for forgiveness and to start behaving better. Unfortunately, the people of Noach’s time didn’t pay attention and the flood still happened and they weren’t saved. But there is a lesson for us here, that there was still a chance for them to be saved! If only they had taken it.”

“So what can we learn from this? We have spent so much time davening to Hashem to forgive us for what we have done wrong. We promise Him that we will do better in the next year. Then what happens? Life returns to normal. We are human and we make mistakes, sometimes even the same ones we promised we would do better on. But Noach’s slow building of the teivah can teach us, there is always another chance! Even when we make a mistake, we can decide, do we let the yetzer hora bring us down and persuade us to give up or do we pick ourselves up and take the opportunity to try again.”

Chaim thought about what his Rabbi said as he made his way through the playground at the end of the school day. He wouldn’t let the yetzer hora get the better of him, he would keep trying to be better as hard as he could. Even if he made a mistake, there was always another chance.

Another Chance

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