“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and He said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’”

For me, the Torah is an almost inexhaustible number of apocryphal stories. Parashat Noach is a good example.

Noah was a survivor, having been saved from the flood that destroyed his world. His greatest contribution to his world is that he set out to rebuild it. He did not cry or wring his hands in despair, though he might have had his moments. The lesson for us is that Noah -- the survivor -- began to rebuild that world from scratch immediately after the waters receded and he exited the ark with his family.

I am ever mindful that it was not very long ago that the Nazis devised their Final Solution. It was designed to mean that no Jew on earth would ever be allowed to live… that the Jewish race and religion would become extinct. If not for the holocaust, we all would have a lot more relatives now. In a way, even Jewish babies born today are survivors for, if Hitler’s plan had succeeded, they would not exist.

When I was growing up, my maternal grandfather belonged to an orthodox shul in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn where I was bar mitzvah in 1951. I remember that many of those who were part of the congregation – men and women – had numbers tattooed on their arms. They were survivors of the camps but more than that. To me, they were heroes.

Today, as I am older and know more about the journeys of life and its struggles, those often-frail heroes I remember have grown into giants in my estimation.

Think of it… after all the horrors they went through… to be able to live normal lives again, to marry or re-marry, to bring children into the world and raise them with care and love, to carry on life, jobs or businesses, relationships… those are mind boggling achievements.

Because we are all survivors, each of us, like Noah, has a moral duty to rebuild our Jewish world. And, in an important way, that is what we here in our Shabbat services along with others who are part of our group but often absent are doing.

Who will keep alive the Jewish world we know and love if not you and me and them?

We are Noah. We are rebuilding our world and honoring its traditions.

We are the survivors.

Michael Goldstein