"Upon the lion and the viper you will tread; you will trample the young lion and the serpent ... I will elevate him, because he knows My name."

"For all the twelve months when Noah would trod upon the snakes and the serpents, they would not harm him. As it is written, 'Upon the lion and viper you will tread.'" (Midrash Tehillim)

Noah was a man with a mission.

He had been selected by Hashem from amongst all the people of the world to dwell in an Ark during the twelve months when the Flood would inundate the land. And it was his destiny that all the people who would later populate the world were to be descended from him.

But those twelve months were no picnic. After all, he had representatives of all the animals and the creatures of the world in the ark, and they all had to be fed. It was Noah's job to go daily throughout the ark, delivering to each and every creature his own portion of food. This Noah did assidiously, day after day. The burden and the drudgery were unrelenting. But Noah saw this as his privilege: it was through him that the creatures of the world would be kept alive during these twelve months.

And because of this devotion to this duty, says the Midrash, for all those twelve months, whenever he might chance to trod or push aside some wild animal--as undoubtedly happened from time to time--the animal would refrain from harming him. "Upon the lion and the viper you will tread ... I will elevate him because he knows My name."

The duty that Noah was involved in carrying out was perhaps not the most diginified one that we can imagine. But Noah understood that this was his role, and he performed it with utmost devotion and energy. And thus he merited to receive Divine assistance in performing it.

Copyright (c) 1998 by Rabbi Levi Langer

Courtesy of www.JewishAmerica.com
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