Shabbat Table Topics – Parashat Noach

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What should be the balance between conformity and plurality of ideas in society? When should individualism be sacrificed for the collective, and when is personal expression worth fighting for?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of centralized government?
Finally, is world unity something we should strive for, or is it actually fraught with danger?

If Hashem did not originally intend that humans include meat in their diet, what made Him change His mind? Do you think it is possible that Hashem's will can change? See Ralbag.
R. Kook and other suggest that eating meat was only permitted as a concession to man's degraded morality. Do you think that the Torah represents an eternal ideal or might its laws make concessions to human failings?

What led Hashem to the final decision to destroy all?
How does Hashem's relationship to humankind change afterwards? Is He more demanding of them or less? Is His providence felt to the same degree?
What else changed in the world post-flood? Was the world a totally different place than it had been beforehand? See Undoing and Redoing Creation for elaboration.

What differences do you note? What prompts the bringing of the flood in each story? How do the heroes of each story compare? What role is played by the deity both during and after the flood?
What do these differences reveal about each society's understanding of God and the way the world is led?

How often do you judge a person in a certain way only to find out, after coming to know them better, that your original impression was wrong? What are the factors that go into our initial evaluations of the other? To what degree are we influenced by externals rather than the individual's essence?
There are several characters in Tanakh whom we know very little about, and yet, we nonetheless find ourselves labeling them righteous or wicked. Nimrod is a case in point. Tanakh shares but five verses about him, but most readers view him negatively. What leads to this evaluation? Is there any other way to read his character? See Nimrod and Ibn Ezra there who uniquely claims that Nimrod was in fact a righteous worshiper of Hashem. Which reading of Nimrod do you prefer?

Shabbat Table Topics – Parashat Noach/0/en