The Torah portion “Noah” tells the story of the flood that struck the world because of the corruption of all living creatures that had ruined the entire universe. A single ark floated upon the waters, housing the only surviving humans – Noah, his sons, and their wives – along with pairs of every animal species. Those sheltered in the ark were destined to restore life to the desolate world and rebuild it anew.
At the end of the flood, when the waters began to recede, Noah wanted to know whether the earth had dried. To find out, he sent a dove out of the ark, reasoning that if it returned, it meant that the earth was still covered with water and had not yet dried.
The dove, the first time, found no resting place.
“But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark” (Genesis 8:9).
The meaning of the dove
Notice the wording of the verse: The dove did not return to him and go into the ark. She remained outside until Noah stretched out his hand to bring her back in. She preferred to stay outside rather than enter the safe, well-supplied ark that offered her full board.
Seven days later, Noah sent the dove out again, and this time the situation was different: “And the dove came to him in the evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off; so Noah knew that the waters had abated from off the earth” (Genesis 8:11).
The Babylonian Talmud cites this verse and adds: “The dove said: ‘Let my food be bitter as the olive, but given by the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He, rather than sweet as honey but given by the hand of flesh and blood’” (Eruvin 18b).
After the dove finally found a place to rest and even discovered an olive tree from which she plucked a leaf, she felt compelled to return to her benefactor, Noah, and convey a message: For a year I have dwelt under your protection and lacked nothing – but I would rather rely on God’s providence and live from what His nature provides than remain in your ark, even with food “sweeter than honey.”
The issue was not the confinement or lack of freedom. It was the feeling of dependence, of patronization. The dove felt burdened by the sense that her survival depended on someone else’s mercy. That feeling weighed on her more heavily than the bitterness of the olive leaf.
Thus, unlike the first time when she stood outside and Noah had to reach out his hand to take her back in, the second time, after she had found and plucked the olive leaf herself, “she came to him in the evening.” This time she entered of her own accord, as if to say: I don’t mind being here for now, but please, let me take care of myself.
IN LIGHT of this interpretation, we can better understand the midrash that asks: From where did the dove bring the olive leaf?
“Rabbi Bira’i said: ‘The gates of paradise were opened for her, and she brought it from there’” (Bereishit Rabbah 33).
After a full year in the ark, where all her needs were provided most comfortably, she stepped out into the open world, a world indeed empty and desolate, but suddenly she felt free. She was a bird of freedom, with the vast world and the gentle wind under her wings. To her, that felt like the Garden of Eden.
She came straight back to her benefactor, carrying the single leaf she had found in the world – a leaf from the paradise of freedom and liberty.
Even now, our hearts beat together with those of the heroes and freed hostages, who for two years suffered in the tunnels of darkness and the shadow of death. They endured terrible suffering and anguish, and now, suddenly, they are here, in the paradise of freedom.
May this feeling of paradise accompany them always, for they have already suffered enough.■
The writer is the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.