Revealing Feminine “Ark-etypes”
The story of Noah may seem strange by modern standards for how minimal the role of the wives seems to be, but there is more nuance when you look below the surface of the text.
וַיֹּאמֶר יי לנֹחַ בֹּֽא־אַתָּה וְכׇל־בֵּיתְךָ אֶל־הַתֵּבָה כִּֽי־אֹתְךָ רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק לְפָנַי בַּדּוֹר הַזֶּה׃
“Then (Adonai) said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, with all your household, for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation’” (Genesis 7:1).
Where did Noah’s righteousness come from? Many commentators suggest the answer is in his name. A name represents a person’s spiritual activities. The midrashic collection Bereshit Rabbah (29:5) suggests that his righteousness actually comes from his descendants – a reversal of the more common idea that the merit of our ancestors provides us merit. My own theory below accords well with this idea, and that his wife and daughters-in-law also contribute significantly to these righteous descendants.
In fact, this brings us to something else about this story that is concealed in the Torah: who are these four women. We are not told anything about their roles before, during, or after the flood, but they must have been very busy with a world that is getting destroyed and then needs to be rebuilt, to say the least. And we are not even told their names?
I think that when the Torah focuses on men, it is a mystical suggestion for us to think about a male aspect of God, representing our actions and true emotions (which are interconnected to each other). The husbands represent (in a metaphorical sense) the more-revealed face of God, called Zeir Anpin in Kabbalah – something we can see all the time. I say “more-revealed” because, for example, the idea “you feel …” is often more true than the reason why you feel… This masculine aspect of God can actually be more beneficial to focus on than the feminine, which represents another aspect of the Divine and process of creation. This mate of Zeir Anpin is called the Nukvah and is sometimes hidden.
Now in the story of Noah, the names of the wives are hidden. In fact, I see a pattern within the Five Books of the Torah where female names are hidden whenever there is destruction and then a shift in reality. Some other examples are: Lot’s wife with the destruction of Sodom, Potiphar’s wife when Joseph goes from being an elevated servant to prison (and then to viceroy), and Pharoah’s daughter as Moses takes a similar journey from death sentence to the royal palace. So perhaps a hidden name represents a hidden creation to be revealed in the future – like a fetus in a womb. This symbolism can also be found in our story with Noah’s ark: the seed from the previous world is hidden, surrounded by the water, keeping the future life protected for a period of time as everything goes through a natural transformation.
Just as we refer to God by different names, we also refer to this feminine aspect in different ways that have different implications. While we use “Nukvah” in connection with her relationship as the mate of Zeir Anpin, and we see her as more hidden in that regard, we also use the name “Malkhut” for this same sefirah with the idea that there are times when this aspect of HaShem is more revealed.
Malkhut, as a more revealed feminine aspect, manifests itself in the Torah text with the women whose names are mentioned, and often play a significant role in the narrative in the Torah. One of the most obvious early examples, that also sets the standard of this is as Sarah, In fact, Sarah actually means princess and Malkhut means kingship, so perhaps there is an implication in the name alone.
Now, it is also worth noting that all revealed blessings are also partially concealing more blessings to be eventually revealed. In the story of the flood, though, there is such a complete destruction and shift that there is more hiddenness than other stories, including the names.
In the previous story of Adam and Eve, we know the wife’s name: Eve (or Chava in Hebrew). Her mistake of diverting from HaShem’s straightforward instructions , shows us how humanity disrupted the perfect process of creation from a time when life was understood as absolutely perfect. In fact, there was a time when Adam and Eve were complete because they realized that they had everything, and were living with all the nature and creatures they could possibly desire to satisfy just their basic needs.
They only started to feel lacking when they decided to taste from the tree that tells them what is good and evil. They sadly started to see HaShem as something separate from themselves. He went from a God who gave them straightforward directions to a God that now challenges them with questions, such as “who told you that you were naked?” (and later to Cain with “where is your brother?”) because after tasting from the tree, these humans became too conscious of the physical, by first seeing lack with themselves.
In nature, as in Kabbalah, to maintain balance, there is always a push and pull of masculine and feminine energy. We find both roles equally in the Torah, the book we consider a blueprint of life. The woman represents how we can relate to creation. The absence of a woman’s name in the text can be seen either as a mark of erasure- an Eve-like lens, —or alternatively as the most miraculous aspect of creation; a certain type of transformation. This is like a hidden embryo, growing the womb’s water, quietly budding into a form full of future potential.
