Reading

Noach · Haftarah Rani akarah

Parasha: Genesis 6:9–11:32 · Maftir: 11:29–32 · Haftarah (Sephardi): Isaiah 54:1–10 (Ashkenazim to 55:5). No special Shabbat.

Teen summary: A corrupt world, the ark, the flood, the dove and the olive leaf, the rainbow promise, the Tower of Bavel, and the first mention of Avram.

Stories

Walking with vs. walking ahead · The fallen brick

Bereshit Rabbah 30:10: Noach “walked with G-d” like a child holding a parent’s hand; Avraham was told “walk before Me,” like an older child strong enough to go ahead. When do you need support, and when is it time to lead?

Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 24: at the Tower of Bavel, builders cried over a fallen brick but ignored a fallen person. A project that values bricks over people is built wrong, however tall it gets.

Dvar Torah · Rashi on Bereshit 6:9

You don’t pick your generation

“Noach was a tzaddik, tamim, b’dorotav.” Rashi gives two readings: praise (good even in a terrible generation, so imagine him in a better one) or a limit (next to Avraham he’d be ordinary). You can’t choose your generation, your class, or your group chat, only what you do inside it.

Reading one: being good when nobody else is trying is real greatness. Reading two: “better than the people around me” is a starting line, not a finish line. Be proud of the good you do in a hard place, and never let it turn into “good enough.”

Teen takeaway: you can’t pick your group chat. You can pick what you send, and keep raising your own bar.

Halacha checklist · Sephardi / SA / YY

Five points

1. Rainbow: “Baruch Atah… zocher habrit v’ne’eman bivrito v’kayam b’ma’amaro” (SA OC 229:1). Don’t stare at it for long.
2. Kiddush Levana (Sephardim, 7 full days after the molad, SA OC 426:4): earliest Sun night Oct 18; latest Sunday night, Oct 25. First Motzaei Shabbat option is Oct 24.
3. Tzitzit (Ben Ish Chai, Parashat Noach): check the strings are intact before putting on the tallit katan or tallit each day.
4. Keep saying mashiv haruach u’morid hageshem. V’ten tal u’matar (Diaspora) starts Maariv Fri night Dec 4, 2026.
5. Shnayim mikra v’echad targum, ideally before Shabbat lunch.

Zmanim · Bronx 10471 ET

Shabbat times