Some weeks feel like rain that won't stop.
The news in the morning. The worry about someone you love. The to-do list that gets longer every time you look at it. Nothing dramatic, maybe. Just grey, and heavy, and not up to you.
This Shabbat, the Torah tells the oldest story there is about getting through weeks like that.
A long time in the rain
This week's portion is Noach, the story of Noah. Most of us know it from childhood: the flood, the ark, the animals two by two, the rainbow at the end.
What we forget is how long it lasted. Not a night. Not a week. Noah and his family were inside that ark for about a year, closed in, with water all around and no idea when it would end.
And before the first drop falls, God tells Noah one small thing that is easy to read past:
Make a light for the ark.
The Hebrew word is tzohar (צֹהַר). Nobody knows exactly what it was. Some say a window in the roof, to let daylight in. Others say a stone that shone on its own, so there was light inside even when the sky was black.
I think it was both. Because we need both.
The window
Some light comes from outside. You just have to let it in.
The friend who notices when you go quiet. Who doesn't push and doesn't ask a hundred questions, but just lets you know: you don't have to talk. I'm here.
A message from your daughter with nothing in it but a heart.
And for me, every single day: my dog, Phoebe. In wind, in rain, on the mornings when I would much rather stay inside, she gets me out of the door. I am grateful for it, because every time, without exception, I come back feeling better than when I left.
A song that comes on in the car at exactly the moment you need it.
On hard days it is easy to keep the window shut. To not pick up, not answer, not go out. Sometimes the bravest thing is simply to open it a little.
The stone
But some days there is no window. Nobody calls. The sky is closed.
That is when you need the other kind of light, the one you carry with you.
A sentence your grandmother used to say that still comes back to you at exactly the right moment. The quiet knowledge that you have already been through worse, and you are still here. A prayer you have known since you were a child, even if you only say it in your head. Something you wear every day that reminds you who you are and where you come from.
None of these stop the rain. But they keep something lit inside.
Build it before the storm
Here is the part I find most useful: Noah made the light before it started raining. Not in the middle of the flood, but on a clear day, as part of the plan.
We usually look for our light when we are already in the dark. Maybe this week is a good week to do it the other way around.
- What is my window? Who lets the light in, and when did I last let them?
- What is my stone? What do I carry that still shines when nothing else does?
- Who is in the ark with me? Noah was not alone in there. Neither are you, even when it feels that way.
You cannot stop the rain. But you can bring a light into the ark.
After the flood
The story does not end in the ark. The water goes down, the door opens, and above everything there is a rainbow. Light again, this time across the whole sky.
Not every storm ends quickly. But they do end. And the light you kept burning in the meantime is the light you walk out with.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rivkah
Oriya Jewels is handcrafted Jewish heritage jewelry — pieces made to be worn every day, for people who carry their story with them.
