How big was the teva?
The Torah gives the exact size. God tells Noach:
An amah (plural amot) is the Torah's unit of length, about the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. How long is it in today's units? The two best-known opinions are those of Rav Chaim Na'eh, about 48 cm (Jerusalem, 1890 to 1954), and the Chazon Ish (Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz), about 57.6 cm. Switch between them and see the ark next to things you know.
The ark drawn to scale next to a soccer field, a Boeing 747 and a blue whale.
Was it big enough? No, says the Ramban (Nachmanides, Spain, 1200s). Count every kind of animal, bird and creeping thing, add a year's food for all of them, and this ark could not hold them, "and not ten like it." It was a miracle: a small space held a great deal.
Then why build it so big? The Ramban gives two answers. To keep the miracle as small as possible, because in every miracle in the Torah, people do whatever they can and Heaven does the rest. And so people would see it, wonder about it, and talk about the Flood: רָאָה הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ לַעֲשׂוֹתָהּ גְּדוֹלָה כְּדֵי שֶׁיִּרְאוּ אוֹתָהּ בְּנֵי דּוֹרוֹ וְיִתְמְהוּ בָּהּ וִיסַפְּרוּ עָלֶיהָ וִידַבְּרוּ בְּעִנְיַן הַמַּבּוּל וְכִנּוּס הַבְּהֵמָה וְהַחַיָּה וְהָעוֹף לְתוֹכָהּ אוּלַי יַעֲשׂוּ תְּשׁוּבָה, "God chose to make it big so that the people of his generation would see it, be amazed, and talk about it... maybe they would do teshuvah [return to God]." He also rules out the idea that Noach used giant amot: these were the Torah's normal amot.
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, France, 1000s, the classic commentary on the Torah) asks the same question from another angle. God had plenty of ways to save Noach. Why make him build for 120 years?
God's name in the measurements
Three numbers: 300, 50, 30. The kabbalists and the Chassidic masters read them three ways. Switch between the readings.
A word on these teachings. The Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the great kabbalist of Tzfat, 1500s) and the Chassidic masters are not measuring wood. They are saying that the ark was not only a boat. We might put it this way: its shape was built out of God's name, and the people inside it were sheltered, in a way, inside the Name itself.
What was where
"Make it with a bottom, second and third floor" (6:16). Who lived on which floor? The Sages of the Gemara (the Talmud) and the Midrash disagree. Switch views, and tap the numbers.
The Gemara's plan is the one Rashi brings: תַּחְתִּיִּים לְזֶבֶל, אֶמְצָעִיִּים לַבְּהֵמָה, עֶלְיוֹנִים לָאָדָם, "the bottom for waste, the middle for the animals, the top for people" (Sanhedrin 108b). Bereishit Rabbah, the main collection of midrash on Bereishit, puts Noach and his family in the middle, with the kosher animals.
A year in the ark
The Torah dates the Flood to the day, and Rashi fills in the calendar. He works out the dates by Rabbi Eliezer, and counts each verse's month from the right starting point. (Cheshvan and Marcheshvan are two names for the same month.) Step through the year and watch the water.
From the 17th of Cheshvan to the 27th of Cheshvan the next year: a full year of the sun. Rabbi Yehoshua, in the Gemara, counts the months from Nisan instead, which puts the Flood in Iyar (Rosh Hashanah 11b). Rashi brings both and works out the dates by Rabbi Eliezer.
A year outside of time
Inside the teva, the normal rules of the world were switched off.
After the Flood, God promises that "seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not stop" (8:22). Rashi reads the promise backward. If day and night "will not stop" from now on, then during the Flood they did:
So how did they know when it was day? The Midrash answers with the tzohar. In Rabbi Levi's view it was a precious stone, and it worked in reverse:
Put it together. No sun, no moon, no day or night. A space that held far more than it could. A light from inside instead of from the sky. The ark was a small world floating outside the rules of the big one.
The teva is a word
The Hebrew word teva means "ark," and it also means "word." The Baal Shem Tov (Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, founder of Chassidut, Ukraine, 1700s) read parts of the building plan as instructions for prayer. His grandson, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudilkov, records it in his book Degel Machaneh Ephraim:
His grandson adds that the three floors are the three things inside every word: worlds (the bottom floor), souls (the second) and Godliness (the third). Another collection of the Baal Shem Tov's teachings, Tzava'at HaRivash, reads God's call to Noach, "Come, you and your whole household, into the teva" (7:1), as a call to every person: come into the word with your whole body and all your strength (Sefer Baal Shem Tov, Noach).
Another teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, about how to pray, says what happens when you do. Put all your strength into the words, he says, going from letter to letter, וילך כך מאות לאות עד שישכח מגופניות, "until you forget your body" (Keter Shem Tov, an early collection of his teachings). That teaching does not mention the ark, but we can connect the two: Noach went into the ark and the rules of the world stopped for him. A person who really goes into the words of prayer leaves the world for a while, too.
The Alter Rebbe (Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Chabad Rebbe) adds the water. In his Torah Ohr (Rabbi Shneur Zalman lived 1745 to 1812), the "many waters" of Shir HaShirim 8:7, which he calls the waters of Noach, are the worries of making a living. And the ark did not sink in them. It rose:
He draws a surprising conclusion. People in business think they cannot pray like full-time learners. The opposite is true, he says: the more water, the higher the ark rises.
How did the animals get in?
Noach did not have to hunt them down.
The Torah says the animals "came to Noach" (7:9), and Rashi adds: by themselves. How did Noach know which ones to take? The Gemara brings two answers. Rabbi Abahu: he took the ones that came on their own. Rav Chisda: he walked them past the ark, and the ark itself decided.
A year of feeding. Inside, Noach and his sons fed every animal at its own time, for a whole year. Rashi brings a midrash that Noach was left "groaning and coughing blood from the work," and others who say that when he was late with the lion's food, the lion struck him (Rashi, Bereishit 7:23). The Gemara tells of one bird, the avarshina (often translated "phoenix"), that did not ask for food because it saw how busy Noach was. Noach blessed it: "May it be His will that you never die" (Sanhedrin 108b).
Adam's garments
Something else was on board. According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, the garments God made for Adam and Chava in Eden were in the ark with Noach. Follow them from Eden to their hiding place.
You may have heard that Noach used these garments to bring the animals into the ark. We did not find that in these sources. Sefer HaYashar says only that Noach brought them into the ark. In Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer the animals bow to the garments only later, when Nimrod wears them. As for the ark, the Torah and Rashi say the animals came to Noach on their own.
The raven's argument and the dove's olive leaf
Two birds, two very different messages.
Noach sends the raven first, and it will not go. Reish Lakish, in the Gemara, says the raven "gave Noach an answer he could not beat":
If the heat or the cold kills him out there, the raven says, the world will be missing a whole kind of creature. Then the dove goes, and comes back with an olive leaf. The olive is bitter. Why bring that? The Midrash that Rashi quotes reads the leaf as a message:
The dove was saying: better bitter food straight from God than sweet food from a person's hand.
"A tzaddik in his generations"
The Torah praises Noach. The Sages argue about how much.
"In his generations." (A tzaddik is a righteous person.) Is that praise or a limit? Rashi brings both: יֵשׁ מֵרַבּוֹתֵינוּ דּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לְשֶׁבַח, כָּל שֶׁכֵּן אִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹר צַדִּיקִים הָיָה צַדִּיק יוֹתֵר; וְיֵשׁ שֶׁדּוֹרְשִׁים אוֹתוֹ לִגְנַאי, לְפִי דוֹרוֹ הָיָה צַדִּיק וְאִלּוּ הָיָה בְדוֹרוֹ שֶׁל אַבְרָהָם לֹא הָיָה נֶחְשָׁב לִכְלוּם. "Some of our Sages read it as praise: all the more so, had he lived in a generation of tzaddikim he would have been even greater. Some read it as a criticism: compared to his generation he was a tzaddik, but had he lived in Avraham's generation he would not have counted for anything."
"Noach walked with God." About Avraham the Torah says he walked before God. Rashi explains the difference: נֹחַ הָיָה צָרִיךְ סַעַד לְתָמְכוֹ, אֲבָל אַבְרָהָם הָיָה מִתְחַזֵּק וּמְהַלֵּךְ בְצִדְקוֹ מֵאֵלָיו, "Noach needed support to hold him up, but Avraham strengthened himself and walked in his righteousness on his own."
The Baal Shem Tov explained this with a picture. A father teaching his child to walk holds out his hands on both sides. When the child gets close, the father steps back a little, so the child will take another step on his own. When God feels far away, it may be the Father stepping back so that you will walk (Sefer Baal Shem Tov, Noach).
And the last verse of the parsha before this one says it all: "Noach found favor in the eyes of Hashem" (6:8). Read more about that verse on the names of God in Bereishit.
Common questions
Short answers, with sources.
How big was Noach's ark?
300 amot long, 50 wide and 30 high (Bereishit 6:15). With an amah of 48 cm (Rav Chaim Na'eh) that is about 144 by 24 by 14.4 meters; with 57.6 cm (the Chazon Ish), about 173 by 29 by 17 meters. The Ramban says these were normal amot and that the ark still could not naturally hold everything: it was a miracle.
What does the size of the ark have to do with God's name?
Rabbi Yehonatan Eybeschutz quotes the Arizal: the width, 50, is yud (10) times hei (5); the length, 300, is vav (6) times 50; the height, 30, is vav times hei; and the one amah at the top makes 31, Kel (Tiferet Yehonatan on 6:15). Another teaching of the Arizal adds the three: 380, the value of Shaddai and Adonai plus one.
What was on each floor of the ark?
The Gemara, followed by Rashi: waste at the bottom, animals in the middle, people on top (Sanhedrin 108b; Rashi 6:16). Bereishit Rabbah 31:11: waste at the bottom, Noach, his family and the kosher animals in the middle, the non-kosher animals on top; some there switch the top and bottom.
What was the tzohar?
Rashi brings two opinions: a window, or a precious stone that gave light (Rashi 6:16). The Gemara says God told Noach to set gems and pearls in the ark (Sanhedrin 108b). In the Midrash, the stone dimmed by day and shone by night, and that is how they told the time (Bereishit Rabbah 31:11).
How long was Noach in the ark?
A full year of the sun. The rain began on 17 Cheshvan and Noach left on 27 Cheshvan the next year. Rashi explains the extra eleven days: a solar year is eleven days longer than a lunar one (Rashi 8:14).
Were Adam's garments in the ark?
According to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer (chapter 24), yes. Cham took them out and gave them to Nimrod, and the animals bowed to Nimrod when he wore them. Esav later took them, and Yaakov buried them. The Midrash does not say Noach used them to bring the animals in; the Torah says the animals came by themselves.
What does the Baal Shem Tov teach about the teva?
Teva also means "word." Make your words shine (the tzohar), and know that every word has three floors: worlds, souls and Godliness (Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Noach, in the name of the Baal Shem Tov).
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