‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It’ Noach 5786
Mankind, guilty of the most heinous crimes. Each and every human being on earth. Except, that is, for Noach [Bereishit 6:6]: “Noach found favour with G-d”. The reason he “found favour” is described in the very next verse [Bereishit 6:7]: “Noach was a righteous man; he was blameless in his time”. Noach did not participate in the sinning along with the rest of society. According to our Sages in the Midrash, he remained on the sideline, where he could sit just quietly and smell the flowers.
G-d waits but man remains unrepentant and so He decides to destroy mankind. He tells Noach that He will bring a flood on the world such that every human being and every animal will die. Noach will be saved but only if he builds an ark according to G-d’s specifications. Noach does as he is commanded. He builds the ark, gathers two[1] of every species of animal, and loads them onto the ark. Finally, his family enters and then [Bereishit 7:14] G-d Himself slams shut the door. Torrential rain falls and eventually every living organism on the surface of the earth dies [Bereishit 7:19] “All that remained was Noach and that with him in the ark”. A nice guy floating aimlessly on the surface of the water.
Nearly one year to the day after the Flood begins, Noach and his family leave the ark. In gratitude, Noach builds an altar and offers sacrifices to G-d. G-d, pleased by Noach’s offering, says [Bereishit 8:21] “Never again will I doom the earth because of humankind, since the inclination of the human mind is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done.” Apparently, destroying mankind was not such a great idea after all and G-d vows never to do it again. Then G-d adds [Bereishit 8:22]: “So long as the earth exists, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”. Our Sages in the Midrash [Bereishit Rabbah 34:11] understand this verse as meaning that the Flood was far more than an extended downpour. During the Flood, the laws of nature were suspended: “From this we may infer that [day and night] ceased during the period of the Flood, for the planetary system did not function, so that there was no distinction between day and night”. For one year, “E” did not equal “mc2”. For one year, “F” did not equal “m∙a”. And for one year, the pressure and volume of a gas did not have an inverse relationship. When G-d vowed never again to destroy mankind, He simultaneously vowed never again to rewrite the laws of physics[2].
The Ibn Ezra[3] notices something truly astonishing. When G-d promises not to mess with the laws of nature, He promises that this will be the case “So long as the earth exists”. The Ibn Ezra makes the logical conclusion that one day, the earth will cease to exist: “This indicates that an end has been fixed for the earth.” Excuse me? You mean that the planet will one day be destroyed? That we’re all going to die? Didn’t G-d say that’s not going to happen again?
And yet, this is precisely what physicists believe will one day happen. The Big Freeze, also known as Heat Death, is currently the most widely supported theory among physicists for how the universe will end. This scenario arises from the observed accelerating expansion of the cosmos, driven by dark energy. In the Big Freeze model, galaxies drift farther apart at an ever-increasing rate. Over trillions of years, stars exhaust their nuclear fuel and die, leaving behind white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. With no new stars forming, the universe gradually dims and cools. This expansion will ultimately dilute all matter and radiation until the temperature of the cosmos approaches absolute zero. Even black holes will eventually evaporate. At that point, entropy, the measure of disorder, will reach its maximum. No energy gradients will remain to power motion, light, or life. Time itself will lose meaning, as nothing will change. The Big Freeze envisions a quiet, unending twilight: a universe that doesn’t end in fire, but in infinite stillness – an eternal cold wintery night. It sounds almost like G-d is promising that there will be another flood but this time there will be no survivors.
Now, before you panic, let’s remember: we are talking about events that will occur trillions of years from now. I don’t know about you, but I have no plans to be around in another trillion years. So what is the Ibn Ezra’s takeaway? Surprisingly, it is not despair. It is hope. The Ibn Ezra seals his explanation with a cryptic comment, referring to the last verse in the prophet Ezekiel [48:39]: “Its circumference [shall be] 18,000 [cubits]”. He asserts that the Rabbinic interpretation of this verse is “very precious”. However, “even one in a thousand does not know what it means”. What is the Rabbinic interpretation? The Talmud in Tractate Sanhedrin [97b] quotes the sage Rava, who posits this means that the world will come to an end after eighteen thousand generations. Why is this so “precious”?
Let’s zoom in a bit more. Ezekiel is prophesying about a day in the future when the City of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed in his lifetime and lay in ruins, would be rebuilt. The last verses in the Book of Ezekiel give the measurements of the walls of the future city. Its perimeter will be 18,000 cubits. What does this have to do with the end of the world? One would have expected the opposite: After all, the numerical value (gematria) of the Hebrew word chai – life – is eighteen. Shouldn’t the Talmud be a little more upbeat?
Now imagine Noach in the ark, looking out the window. The only thing he sees is water. Far beneath that water he knows lay the bodies of everyone he ever knew outside his family. The loneliness must have been paralysing: “All that remained was Noach and that with him in the ark”. Wait a minute – these words are vaguely reminiscent of words that describe the birth of the universe [Bereishit 1:2]: “The earth was astonishingly void, with darkness over the surface of the abyss, and G-d’s spirit hovered over the surface of the water”. All that remained was Noach? Well, not exactly. G-d was still there. Noach only acknowledges His presence when he leaves the ark and offers a sacrifice but G-d is there the entire time. The universe might have died but G-d ruled eternal, hovering over the surface of the water.
Back to the last verse in Ezekiel. After Ezekiel reveals the length of New Jerusalem’s perimeter, he tells us “The name of the city from that day on shall be ‘G-d Is There (Hashem Shama)[4]’”. The Radak[5] suggests that this name testifies that when Jerusalem is finally rebuilt, G-d’s Holy Presence will never leave it again. But what if the verse is not referring to what is inside the perimeter of Jerusalem, but to what lies outside of it? G-d. He was there before the world began and He will remain after nothing remains but frigid space.
The moral of the story is that there is something beyond mortal life. Something beyond entropy. Beyond physics. Beyond time. G-d is not bound by the laws He created. He is not subject to the Big Freeze. He is not a variable in an equation. He is the constant. The unchanging. The eternal. And here’s the kicker: He’s not just there after we die. He’s there while we live. Especially while we live. G-d is there. In the chaos. In the silence. In the science. In the suffering. In the rebuilding. The universe may one day freeze but our mission is to burn brightly while it lasts. To build arks of meaning. To offer sacrifices of gratitude. To see G-d not just in the aftermath, but in the moment. So long as the earth exists.
And even after.
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5786
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Esther bat Hila, Meir ben Drora, and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.
[1] Fourteen each of every kosher species.
[2] The plague of darkness in Egypt was a temporary local phenomenon.
[3] Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, usually referred to as “The Ibn Ezra,” lived in Cordoba, Spain, at the turn of the 12th century.
[4] Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz comments that this name in Hebrew sounds somewhat like its current name, Yerushalayim.
[5] Rabbi David Kimchi, known by his acronym “Radak”, lived in Provence at the turn of the 13th century.
