Noah
Noah's Wife - Naamah
Rabbi Laura Duhan Kaplan
The
Torah mentions Noah's wife five times - but only by the common noun "his
wife," never by her own name. This puzzled our ancient sages. After all, the wife of Noah is the
mother of all living human beings!
Surely the Torah calls her by name.
So
the sages did some genealogical research using the text of the Torah. Seth and Cain are named as the two
surviving children of Adam and Eve.
The last person of Seth's line is his great, great, great, great, great
grandson Noah. The last person of
Cain's line is his great, great, great, great, great granddaughter Naamah. Bingo! These two, said the sages, must be the founders of the next
branch in the human family tree.
The
Torah says that Noah is saved from the flood because he is righteous. Is Naamah
saved only because Noah loves her?
No, said the sages. The name "Naamah" means "pleasing." Naamah's deeds are pleasing - i.e.,
righteous. Thus she is
specifically chosen to be the mother of all human beings.
What
does Naamah do on the ark? The
Torah tells us that Naamah's half-brother is the world's first musician.
Naamah, says Rabbi Juliet Spitzer, plays music on the ark to calm the
animals. The Torah also tells us
that the ark has a skylight.
According to Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, God has given Naamah a task of
her own: to collect the planet's plants and care for them in the greenhouse
under the skylight.
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