We are in the final year of the three-year cycle of Torah reading. 

As Jews have done for thousands of years, we go back to the beginning, right after the Creation Story of Simchat Torah.

You probably think of Adam as having only two sons: Cain and Abel.  Well, when he was a young man of 130, he had a son named Seth.  Then he lived another 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

Seth, also a young thing at only 105, had Enosh. Enosh had Kenan when he was 90, and Kenan had Mehalel when he was only 70.

Well, you get the idea.  Yered had Enoch and Enoch had Methuselah (who, according to Torah, lived 969 years!) and Methuselah had Lemech and Lemech had Noah!

By this time, there were lots of humans on the earth.   It says there were divine beings – or godlings – who mated with human women and whose children were heroes.

But God was not happy with humankind.  “Every form of their heart’s planning was only evil all the day.”  God was sorry he had made humans. He vowed to blot them out!

But Noah found favor in the eyes of God.

What happens next? Stick around till next year.