18: And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19: These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20: And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22: And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23: And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.
24: And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25: And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26: And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27: God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
28: And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29: And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.

If we think about the account given in this passage above and about the story of Noah, somehow mythical, we could see that humanity in general is in a state of exile, symbolized by the deluge (maboul) – thoughtlessness, violence, destructions tragedies which sterilizes the seed of God and leads to death.

At the heart of this drama, the patriarch Noah, a righteous man, hears the divine voice of God and comes out of this deluge which we see for him is the womb of water rather than a grave to the end that he might construct his “Ark,” Tebah in Hebrew; very close to the name Thebes, holy city according to the Greeks. The Ark, Tebah is the new space interior of the patriarch which will be for him a furnace of fire or womb of fire if he will accomplish and become the promised fruit of his seed, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

This fruit symbolized in this myth by that of the vine makes of Noah someone drunk and naked: drunkenness and jubilation at the knowledge acquired by his work in the ark; and nakedness, the stripping of his wisdom and knowledge that the world has made him put on. It is symbolic to note here that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil can also connote the achieved and the unachieved, the subconscious and the subconscious. The story in the bible basically talks about the internal man. The Bible says though the outward man perish, the internal man is renewed day by day. For example the Hebrew word R’a traditionally translated by the word evil could also be translated by the unconscious or the in accomplished if it is pronounced by Re’a, the “neighbour.” Remember there were no vowels in the original Hebrew. The Bible says love your neighbor as yourself, being as yourself.

So Noah advances towards his “tent,” Ohel in the Hebrew, where he meets with his God. Symbolized by the ultimate testing furnace or womb, that of the “head” or “brain”. The dynamics of the God implies the presence of these three “wombs” or “furnace” in our being.

Inside the tent Noah becomes the glory of God, spreading and diffusing a light unsustainable to the eyes of those who have not attained to this quality of being. Two of his sons, Shem and Japhet, follow him, they march backwards and recloth their father. But Ham, the third son, looks at the tent where Noah had penetrated. He looks, and what he sees he goes to tell his brothers at the exterior.

There are always in the world these two types of knowledge. That of Ham the peeping Tom, whose name signifies heat, warmth and also strength, one who erects his concepts, makes them certainty, which becomes idols and objects of strength; his interpretation of the mysterious is for him the truth and this at the level of the exile (being driven from the garden of Eden, Gan Eden, Eden meaning delight, enjoyment) constructs a sterilizing dogma. These people are usually under a curse.

Those of Shem, the Hebrew meaning name, and Japhet, paragon of beauty, are those who know that they do not know, not believing in their own strength, because it is a way that is negative, by going to the tent with their backs facing this tent, these attain at a truth where they know that yet there is another truth beyond that (he that thinks he knows does not yet know as he ought to know says the Bible). They move close to the ultimate truth inside the mystery of the tent, also they search, interrogate, contemplate in a loving search, a search which includes a search inwards. These move upward, they are able to achieve a name (Shem) and give a fruit resplending in beauty (Japhet). They are able to attain to the name “I am” YHWH, the divine name. Remember Jesus says “you are gods”. They are able to attain to the glory of God (Isaiah 60:1, Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee).

Inside the secret, which at the outlet is the divine seed, only one tree grows, whose fruit is Shem, YHWH. The Rabbi Dov Baer, a great saint of the 17th century, well known under the name maggid of Meze-rit, says this.
“Noah and the patriarchs had the revelation in its essence, without the robe of the law inside which it adapts and presents to the world, and for which for good reasons changes it and makes it relative. At the time of Noah and the patriarchs, the essence of the law (Torah) was still totally naked; it had not been dressed with the clothes of the world. It had not put on the robe of judge and had not been clocked with the baton of a policeman.

The laws of Moses form a protective girdle of the Torah whose original light is too strong for the world, it risks to make blind and to burn, but the tradition teaches us that at the time of the messiah, praise be he, he will release the sun from its girdle, that is to say the Torah (the law and the prophets) will shine with all its strength, that one will be able to perceive it in its essence, without covering for the world and society, that is to say without the law of Moses which are actually necessary, for without them the world could not sustain the natural light of the Torah, which is too strong for most souls.”

We should endeavour to be like Shem and Japhet who put not trust in themselves. They only trust in God who is able to make them enter the tent and thereby they are initiated into divine secrets.

Most of this essay was taken from the site of Annick de Souzenelle, le baiser de Dieu but the ideas are generally common.