Who was Noach? How righteous was he? One would think that the lone person saved in the generation of the flood must have been an incredibly righteous person. The Torah and Chazal’s understanding of Noach seem to be somewhat confusing. Let’s take a look at a few pesukim:
- אלה תולדות נח, נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורתיו, את האלקים התהלך נח. (ו:ט)
- ויאמר ה׳ לנח בא אתה וכל ביתך אל התבה, כי אתך ראיתי צדיק לפני בדור הזה. (ז:א)
- ויחל נח איש האדמה ויטע כרם. וישת מן היין וישכר ויתגל בתוך אהלה.(ט:כ-כא)
Let’s explore two overarching questions:
- What exactly was Noach’s level of righteousness compared to other leaders in Tanach?
- What are we to learn from Noach’s turn to drinking after leaving the Teivah?
The first pasuk states that Noach was a righteous person ״בדורותיו״, “in his generation.” Rashi quotes the famous Midrash that wonders if this language is meant לשבח, as a compliment, or לגנאי, literally translated as a depreciation of Noach. Does it mean that he was so righteous that even if he lived in the generation of other righteous people he would be viewed as righteous, or does it mean that in “his” generation he was considered righteous, but had he lived in the generation of Avraham Avinu he would not be viewed as righteous?
What should we take away from this?? If the Torah begins by calling Noach a Tsadik, why would Chazal even think this pasuk was meant to depreciate him? Furthermore, he is not just called a Tsadik, but a Tsadik Tamim, a complete Tsadik? Clearly, the word בדורותיו must be teaching us something important.
After planting a vineyard and getting drunk, the Midrash says Noach went from being an איש צדיק to being an איש אדמה, a man of the land. What happened to Noach? He was the most righteous man in the world and he gave it up for wine? Wine led to the him to become totally exposed in front of his sons; how could he let that happen?
The sefer Otzrot HaTorah explains that the righteousness of Noach was in his ability to protect himself from the outside world - from those who stole and were involved in illicit relationships. He knew how to avoid negative outside influences and protect his own spirituality. You could say that his philosophy in serving Hashem was focused on the סור מרע, avoiding evil. However, perhaps Noach did not do all that he could in reaching out to sinners in his community, try to bring them closer to Hashem, and to help them see their own shortcomings. Perhaps he did not focus enough on the עשה טוב of life. In reality, Noach as an איש אדמה, a man of the ground, but he grew spiritually to great heights by avoiding all the evil around him. That is why he is called an איש צדיק. But his greatness lied in his ability to keep himself protected; something he maintained until leaving the Teivah. However, once he left the Teivah into a world without evil people around him, he didn’t understand what spiritual challenges would confront him, and the איש אדמה in him returned to the forefront. This ultimately leads to his focus on the mundane of drinking wine and then to to his son’s sin. (An interesting study for another time would be to look at Moshe’s rise from an איש מצרי to an איש אלקים).
Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l, The Rav as he is known in the Yeshiva University world and beyond, wrote a book called The Lonely Man of Faith. In this book he describes how every tzadik feels alone, set apart from the rest of the world. This is the reality of a righteous person; knowing that he will often live in his own world, not connected or understood by those around him. If Noach was a lonely man of faith before the flood, we can only imagine how lonely he felt after the flood. Not only was he alone as a tzadik, but he watched the destruction of every single human being on earth except for his own family.
My Rebbi, Rav Moshe Weinberger, once used this to to explain Noach’s turn to wine in a similar vein to that of the sefer Otzrot HaTorah mentioned above. He said that many great Chassidic masters often referred to Noach as the “tzadik in a fur coat.” If a room is freezing, there are two ways to warm up. One is to wear a fur coat. It warms the person up, but allows everyone else to freeze. The other method is to build a fire to give warmth to everyone in the room. Noach was a tzadik who wore a fur coat to shelter himself from a world which was freezing because of a lack of G-dliness. His loneliness eventually got the better of him and he was overcome by it. Avraham Avinu, however, built fires to warm up everyone he came into contact with. Even though he was alone in the world, he loved and cared for everyone else.
There are three main lessons we can all learn from this dichotomy that made up the personality of Noach:
- The world we live in is full of pitfalls and challenges that endanger our spirituality. It is our job to have our guard up, constantly looking to avoid succumbing to our physical temptations that are contrary to the Torah or that can lead us down the wrong path. We need to train ourselves and our children to avoid temptation whenever possible. In fact, there are some opinions that say the עץ הדעת which was where the sin of Adam and Chava occurred, was a grapevine. Meaning the major wrongdoing of the first two major Biblical personalities revolved around drinking wine. The challenge of knowing proper limits proved to be too much of a challenge for Adam and Noach.
- Value spiritual pleasures. Children are like clay and will take the shape according to the way in which you mold him. If you want your child to appreciate Torah and Mitzvot with a real spiritual focus, then you must show him the way; lead by example. If you want your child to appreciate tefilla, then you should take them to shul and show them what it means to daven intently and without speaking to those around you. If you want them to learn Torah, then you should show them that you go out to a shiur or listen to words of Torah on your commute to work. Ultimately, your children will value what you value.
- Let us emulate Avraham Avinu and look out for our fellow Jews. Let us not just look out for their physical and emotional well being, but for their spiritual well being too.
This is the idea behind the “Shabbos Project” taking place next week. We must invite others into the Teivah called Shabbat. We cannot be indifferent to friends and co-workers who are unfamiliar with the holiness of Shabbat. We cannot escape into ourselves by hiding in an ark, a fur coat, or alcohol.
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