OU TORAH YU TORAH and Naaleh.com Incredible Initiative By Shira Smiles

Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein Parshat Noach records the incredible survival of the world after the flood through the righteous Noach, his three sons and their wives. The end of the parsha, however, is anticlimactic. After leaving the grueling life on the ark, Noach plants a vineyard, drinks wine, and falls into a drunken, naked stupor. Ham sees his father in this condition, emasculates Noach and tells his brothers about their father. “And Shem and Yaphet took [vayikah – singular] a simlah/garment… walked backwards and covered their father.” When Noach awoke, he understood all that had happened and predicted the future for his three sons: “Cursed is Canaan [Ham’s son] a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers. Blessed is Hashem, the God of Shem… May God Yapht/extend/give beauty to Yaphet and may he dwell in the tents of Shem…”