“And the Lord smelled the sweet savour; and the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the impulse of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done.” (Bereishis 8:21)

Hashem accepted Noach’s offering with a guarantee that there will never be such devastation again. The Daas Shraga asks: Why was his sacrifice so potent as to elicit such a strong positive response?

The Zohar teaches us that the flood is called “Mei Noach” – the waters of Noach – teaching us that if Noach had prayed for his generation, that could have averted the disaster which befell the world. Noach is therefore blamed, in a sense, for this catastrophe.

The following incident just happened this past week to a friend who teaches American boys here in Israel. His brother-in-law works for the IDF in intelligence, and as of recently, he was forced many times to spend extra hours at work, as some soldiers were not where they were supposed to be, and it is his obligation to be sure that he knows where all the people underneath him are all the time. On Simchas Torah, this brother-in-law had to go to the IDF office due to the situation, and when he came back home, my friend – who had already heard of the many security and military failures – was considering saying to him, “You guys in intelligence messed up.” But he refrained from saying it because he knew that his brother-in-law would respond, “YOU GUYS messed up. If you would have been learning and praying as you were supposed to, this disaster would not have happened!”

I once heard about a doctor who had the following complaint: “Many of my patients are religious Jews, and when I am successful in treating or operating on them, they say ‘Yishtabach shemo! Thank you for being Hashem’s messenger!’ Yet, when I am unsuccessful, they tend to blame me as if I did something wrong. Why is there this inconsistency?” I believe that this doctor has amplified on part of our human nature. When something goes wrong, we look for a scapegoat. In reality we should understand that the doctor, whether or not he was successful, is always an emissary of Hashem.

These two stories don’t mean that we should not fight our enemies, nor that we should avoid doctors. We do have to act responsibly based on the world in which we live. But ultimately, the success of these actions are up to the will of Hashem.

Let us go back to our parsha. Whose fault is it that the flood happened? Was it Noach or Noach’s generation? Noach went through a process for a full year seemingly being ‘demoted’, as he was taking care of animals instead of people. But because of doing this chesed of caring for other beings, Noach was a far greater person after the flood than he was before the flood. That year of chesed elevated him to the point that his offering upon leaving the ark became a gamechanger, and elicited a response from Hashem so great that we benefit from it even today.

I believe that at this time it is our obligation to learn from Noach’s mistake and his subsequent self-improvement. If we pray with greater kavana and really care about others, our offerings to Hashem through our Torah, tefillah and ma’asim tovim, can also be gamechangers. This can lead us to our ultimate destination, not only winning the current war and making sure that such atrocities don’t happen again, but even to bring the geula shelayma, speedily in our times, without any more harm to any Jews.