Many commentators have asked the question: how could all those animals that God decided to save from the flood fit into the ark?...
Many commentators have asked the question: how could all those animals that God decided to save from the flood fit into the ark? The sacred writer, as can be seen, is not concerned with this question at all: he does not go into details, and even allows discrepancies. In one passage he mentions one pair of each kind of animal, while in the second, which is part of today's reading, he mentions seven pairs of clean (that is, kosher) animals and one pair of unclean (that is, non-kosher) animals. Such discrepancies are entirely acceptable if what is at issue is not history, but a parable. Yet every parable has its own meaning, and so must the mention of the difference between the number of clean and unclean animals.
Of course, the sacred writer's general logic rules out the possibility that Noah knew the laws that were given by God to Moses or to one of his successors. But Noah knows God, and the God in question is undoubtedly the very same God who much later revealed Himself to Abraham and Moses. This means that the Torah, the law of God, also remains one and the same. For the Torah is not simply legislation once given by God to His people; the Torah is an objective law describing the relationship between God and the human being and the spiritual patterns that govern that relationship. This means that the Torah has existed at least as long as the human being himself has existed.
Of course, Noah could not have known the Torah in the form in which it was given by God to Moses and his successors, but something could have been revealed to him by God that related to his concrete situation, which required concrete decisions. In the same way, perhaps, He revealed and still reveals something to other Gentiles who sought before and still seek today the righteous path. For, as Paul says, the Gentile has the Torah written in the heart. And there is no one but God to write it there.
