וַיָּבֹא נֹחַ… מִפְּנֵי מֵי הַמַּבּוּל — “אף נח מקטני אמנה היה, מאמין ואינו מאמין שיבא המבול, ולא נכנס לתיבה עד שדחקוהו המים.” (רש”י בראשית ז’ ז’)
[Note: Claude built the superstructure; I edited.]
Outside the teivah. A drizzle.
SHEM: Abba, did you hear? It’s drizzling.
NOACH: Shem-si Tzvi! What are you implying?
NA’AMAH: But Noach, dear. The animals are marching inside. Twos and sevens. Animals have no bechirah, so doesn’t that prove…?
NOACH: Bah, animals are Amei Ha’aretz!
NA’AMAH: Perhaps it started gently on purpose. “Kim’ah kim’ah”, if you will. So that if the generation does teshuvah, the water turns into gishmei brachah, Rashi 7:12 (hmm…).
NOACH: Oy vey. To say “the Ma’aseh Hashem is arriving in installments, in our own lifetime, at the rate of X amos per hour” is atzas hayetzer. The Real and Final Redemption comes all at once: ופתאם יבוא אל היכלו האדון אשר אתם מבקשים.
YEFES: Abba, your nevuah was “seven days”. It has been seven days!
NOACH: Which is exactly the problem, and I want you all to listen, because this is a yesod and people are mamash being misled. To look at a given quantity of water falling out of a cloud on a given day and say “this is the Mabul” — do you understand what you are doing? You are taking a sacred prophecy, the word of the Ribbono shel Olam, and reducing it to teva’dige weather. To barometric pressure.
SHEM: Abba, it’s raining heavily by now!
NOACH: Again, the Mashiach Sheker! The True Mabul, when it comes, will come bederech nes, with actual ananei hakavod. The moment you can explain it or feel it, that’s the proof this isn’t it!
ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD: Did you ask our Rav?!
NOACH: No, Mesushelach passed away. I’m following the masores, come fire or high water.
SHEM: And perhaps he died a week ago, so this wouldn’t interrupt the aveilus?
NOACH: That’s a medrash. We don’t pasken based on…
ENTIRE HOUSEHOLD (perched on the furniture): Hashem said explicitly: “בֹּא אַתָּה וְכָל בֵּיתְךָ אֶל הַתֵּבָה!”
NOACH: Yes, but he didn’t say what time of day. And “בא” is mashma the Shechina is there since עמו אנכי בצרה, so I need explicit reshus to go in. If it’s not the zeman, it doesn’t have the chalos din of a “teivah” at all, like a sukkah on Shmini Atzeres.
YEFES: Shmini Atzeres in Chutz Laaretz? But…
NOACH: Don’t interrupt. We are not to ascend bachomah before the “keitz kol bassar“. To climb in while still possible, however unlikely, one could remain outside — that is dechikas hakeitz.
NA’AMAH: But dear, you built it for this exact moment.
NOACH: The teivah I built is a spiritual matter, for kiruv (Rashi 6:14). Even the hava amina these gashmiyus drops have anything — anything! — to do with the Mabul is kefirah and apikorsus. אין מים אלא תורה. Next thing you’ll tell me that טופאן אל אקצא signifies we should all go on Har Habayis…!
CHAM: But even the neighbors are eyeing us now. You can see them sharpening axes to destroy the teivah for us all! The keitz is being dochek us.
NOACH: Goyishe kup! The dor hamabul will be destroyed for חמס, which means grabbing: לוקחין גאולה בידים, בזרוע בשר.
CHAM: Noach, you’re all wet. We’re going in with you or without you!
NOACH: (…)
NOACH: Ooh, אי לאו דהוה מקרבא ספינתא. But purely as hishtadlus, you understand! It’s simply that my bitachon isn’t yet on Nachshon’s madreiga where a person can stand in the sea on principle. One must be realistic about one’s personal madreiga; that itself is a lesson. Hey, where’s everybody?
NOACH (muttering): Ah, I anyway need a scroll I left in there…
Closeted inside the Teivah.
NA’AMAH (yelling from the other room): Nu, admit it! Hashem acts gradually, through natural events. Like Rashi says, נח מקטני אמנה…
NOACH (wringing out his sudra): Punkt fakert! I came into the teivah all at once because of a sudden, massive flood.