Parshat Noach - Clear Warning Signs
by Rabbi Lobel

Make for yourself an Ark... three hundred cubits its length, fifty cubits its width, and thirty cubits its height (Genesis 6:14-15)

Rashi (6:14) asks, G-d has many ways to offer salvation and relief, why did he make Noach build an Ark? The magnitude of work was unprecedented for that time - it took Noach one hundred and twenty years of hard labor to build the Ark. Furthermore, during construction, people ridiculed Noach and accused him of being old and mentally deranged. (Talmud Sanhedrin 108B)

Rashi states the purpose of the Ark was for people to see Noach and ask him what he was doing. Noach would answer, “In the future, G-d will bring a flood upon the world.” The answer was intended to inspire the world to repent.

If everyone despised Noach, how would it help to build an ark?

As the Torah explains, humanity was completely corrupted of all values. The world was deserving of punishment. However, without sufficient warning it would have been an injustice. G-d gave the world proper notice but the people were too focused on Noach’s craziness to realize “perhaps we are corrupt and vacant of morality.”

G-d was ready to spare the world and provided a one hundred and twenty year opportunity to repent. But the people preferred to preoccupy themselves with ways to denigrate Noach.