We all at times experience the flood. Sometimes it is a sense of overwhelm, that the world is throwing at us more than we can handle, demands being made at every turn, fast and furious, like a swirling storm around us. And sometimes the flood is inside us — someone says something or something happens and we get triggered and suddenly feel flooded by an intense difficult emotion — panic, fear, anxiety, woundedness; it feels, at such moments, like we are completely swallowed up by these floods.
In the face of a physical flood, God instructs Noah: aseh likha teva, “make for yourself an ark.” Perhaps this is what we need to do for our emotional flooding as well, to create a space of safety inside us where we can ride out the storm.
Note that God does not provide the shelter, but instead instructs us to create it for ourselves; we have to take the initiative in self care. Emotionally, this ark-making is akin to the therapeutic concept of “resourcing,” of finding or creating for ourselves resources that ground and support us through difficult moments.
How do we go about constructing such a safe haven inside us? We can bring to mind a safe place, a particular one that is dear to us in real life or an abstract one, like a cozy home on a stormy night or the feeling of being wrapped in a warm blanket, or, to be more Noah-specific, we can imagine a wooden ark floating safely amidst raging rains; we can feel its sturdy walls and the sensation of being rocked gently in the water; we can hear the rain outside and sense the safety of being inside, protected.
We can also come into contact with our experience of divine presence in this ark. God’s instructions to Noah were not to “go” into the ark, but to “come,” bo, as if inviting Noah into a space where God already resided — come here inside with Me. The tzohar which Noah was asked to include in the ark, also implies some divine light, as the word refers either to a window or to a precious stone that brought illumination. The ark Noah built — and the ark we build — is suffused with divine presence and light.
The Hebrew word for ark, teva, also means “word” and there is a Hasidic tradition connecting Noah’s tevah to the words of prayer. Sacred words and letters can also provide refuge; we can take a specific prayer word and use it as an anchor for connecting to the divine, or we can even take the image of a particular letter enlarged, like the ב or the ת of teva, and imagine our whole selves entering into the letter and being enclosed inside it, sheltered by its sacred otherworldly eternal walls.
How does all this ark-building activity help us in a time of emotional flooding? We have a place to go where we can safely ride out the storm. Often, when we are flooded in this way, we don’t have the option of approaching and facing this intense emotion inside us; at that moment, we have no inner resources, not enough distance to be present and hold the suffering as it needs to be held. Before we can do any of that work, we need a place of shelter, a place to retreat and recenter and know that we are safe despite every single nerve inside telling us otherwise.
Noah’s name means “rest,” a root that appears multiple times in the parsha, including, concerning the dove, in the form manoah, a resting place. When we are in the midst of a raging storm of emotions, when we are in total overwhelm, what we need is primarily rest, even a moment of calm where we can pause and remember that we are held, where we can breathe deeply, release the tension of our constant alertness to danger, and hear God calling: “Come in here and rest with me until the waters subside. It is safe here.” When we do that, when we take the time to construct such an ark and to join God in that place inside us, we emerge bigger, stronger, more able, at some later point, to get out and face the waters without drowning in them.
And don’t think this is an optional activity. The Torah says that Noah fulfilled everything that God “commanded” him. The word is tzivah, a mitzvah, a commandment. We normally think of self care as a nice thing, maybe sometimes even as a self-engrossed immoral thing, but it is here described as a commandment. You are commanded to take care of yourself in this way — yes, primarily yourself (aseh likha, “make for yourself”), not others, though you can certainly invite them in, too, once it’s complete — you are commanded to construct for yourself a safe place to weather the flood, to help yourself feel held and protected in the moments you most need it.
(inspired by a talk by Tara Brach)
