The story of Noach, however, did not start with the Flood. Midrashim tell us he was a Saviour of the generations into which he was born. According to these sources, a promise was made to Adam that the curse he had incurred on humanity by eating the forbidden fruit, namely, that man would break his back to get produce from the ground, would be lifted when a child was born circumcised. This child was Noach.
When Noach was born -- circumcised, -- the thorns and thistles that crowded the ground, making it difficult for people to sow crops, disappeared, and the land became workable in a normal fashion.
When Noach was born, farm animals which had been disobedient to their masters, suddenly became cooperative.
Noach personally instituted the care of all the generations of a family's elderly at a time when people had been looking after their parents only. He invented farm implements, all of which made planting and reaping much easier for the people, who had been using their hands to perform these functions.
Noach was a blessing to the world in even more ways than these. His birth brought about a miraculous change in the way the waters rose and ebbed underneath the surface of the earth which helped the dead rest in peace.
In other words, Noach was not just an ordinary guy who happened to be righteous. He was a great benefactor to humankind before the Flood.
And yet, as mentioned in Part 1 of this blog about Noach, it has become fashionable down through the generations to level as many cheap shots at him as people's gleeful, self-righteous zeal allows.
"Ish tzaddik, tamim b'dorotov," says the Torah about Noach, "A righteous person, perfect in his generations." And the bashing begins. I have a theory as to why this bashing occurs which I will get to later.
"According to the Torah," say Noach's detractors, "Noach was a tzaddik in his generations. Let us read this as only in his generations, which were evil. He would not have stood out in subsequent generations which were good.'" This, of course, contravenes the Jewish principle of "Hevey dan l'chuff z'chut," or "Judge people as righteous when you have a choice."
It also is a form of reductionism, by ignoring the unique string of powerful words the Torah uses to describe Noach. In the phrase, "Ish tzaddik, tamim b'dorotov," there are three superlatives -- a fact which noone seems to notice because the first word is usually skipped over by the eye. Yet that first word is more than ordinary. The words are: 1) "Ish" which means "man" but it is not just a description of the person's gender and age; it is an honorific reserved for great men, important men, masters, leaders, 2) "Tzaddik" which means outstandingly righteous, and 3) "Tamim" which means "perfect," or as Onkelos translates in Aramaic, "Sheleem," which I would translate as "complete," i.e. Noach was a complete Tzaddik, he wasn't a feeb; his will to serve Hashem was not subject to weakness. I don't know of anyone else in the Torah who is described with three attributions of honour. I could be wrong, but Noach may be the only one.
A possible exception might be Yaakov (Jacob) who is described as "Ish tam, yoshev ohalim," as opposed to his twin brother, Eisav,"ish yodeah tzayid, ish sadeh." Yaakov is (1) an important man, (2) whole, complete and (3) sits in tents (studying the ways of Hashem) as opposed to his brother Eisav who is (1) an important man who (2) knows how to hunt and is (3) a man of the Great Outdoors.
Notably, Yaakov's description does not include the word "Tzaddik" to go with "complete," while the threefold description of Eisav has nothing to do with righteousness but does give us a clue as to why their father Yitzchak (Isaac) loved him, as I note in my commentary on parsha Toldot.
The kicker here, though, is that after the tripartite description of Noach as an (1) "ish (2)tamim, (3) tzaddik bedorotov," for those who might have any doubts about Noach's stature, the Torah immediately tells us in no uncertain terms a fourth superlative: "Et ha-Elokim halach Noach," i.e. if anyone still had doubts about him, they should know that Noach walked with G-d. I don't care what generations you're talking about, walking with G-d is pretty big and unambiguous in my book -- which is the Torah. It's Biblical. It's Scriptural. It's big.
Unfortunately, there are real rabbinic sources for Noach bashing, including the Zohar, but I think that, being flesh and blood, these authors have erred, although I will extend to them the courtesy they didn't extend to Noach, of judging them to be righteous in that their intentions were to teach important principles through their criticism of him. Ultimately, though, I think they fell into a trap, a trap that almost everybody keeps falling into year after year which I will describe later.
As for giving Noach the benefit of the doubt, one can easily read praise for Noach in the Torah's word "b'dorotov" ("in his generations"), given that he stood out as a righteous man when all prevailing influences were towards evil, and that he stayed consistently good through not one but multiple generations.
Having committed the error of denigrating Noach, having ignored the threefold accolade given him by the Torah, and diminishing his stature in their own minds, Noach's detractors must now look for "evidence" to back up their loshon hora.
One of the most specious of the put-downs of Noach is the highly insulting -- and wrong -- description of him as a "Tzaddik in Peltz," or someone who is righteous as long as he can wears his fine furs (peltz = pelts), and live in comfort, and who would never abandon his luxurious estate if that's what he would have to do in order to help someone. I get really incensed when I hear this one, so I hope I will remain coherent in my writing (if, of course, I've been coherent so far).
The "Tzaddik in Peltz" accusation against Noach also involves an unfavourable comparison to Abraham, regrettably forcing me to dismantle the comparison's basis for praise of Abraham in order to invalidate its conclusion.
Noach's detractors say: "When Abraham was told that Sodom and Gomorah were going to be destroyed, he did not stay silent. He tried to save the cities by negotiating with G-d that if there were even ten righteous men, bargained down from his original fifty, the cities should be saved. G-d agreed. What a caring Tzaddik was Abraham."
By contrast, say Noach's detractors, when he was told that all flesh on the planet would be destroyed, he did not try to intercede with G-d. Therefore, Noah was a "Tzaddik in Peltz," which literally means a person who is righteous as long as he is living comfortably, wearing his fine furs ("peltz") who won't trouble himself to care for others.
Pardon me, but what a perfect example of loshon hora, a false statement which does grievous damage to the subject.
First of all, as cited above, Noach did care for his world; he was not aloof. His birth alone improved the world, and through his direct efforts, many beneficial changes came about. As for wearing fine furs, and not getting his hands dirty, how many of the tzaddikim currently reading this blog have ever mucked out a stable? Has anyone reading this swept out the excrement of horses, elephants (imagine what a job that was), and all kinds of animals, transporting the manure to the hold of a ship? How many bandwagon Noach bashers out there have fed thousands of creatures each and every day with the food that is specifically right for them? How many reading this blog have actually built their succahs with their own hands instead of buying a prefab one or hiring someone to build it for them, and, oh yes, how many have spent 120 years building an ark from scratch with their own hands, even planting the trees for the wood?
Tzaddik in peltz???
If Noach were alive today, I'd tell him to launch the biggest slander and libel lawsuit the world he founded has ever seen.
It would be a class action suit in reverse, one tzaddik against a whole host of individuals in all corners of the world who persist in making and writing false and defamatory statements about him.
And what about the comparison to Abraham? Noach is criticized for not trying to intercede with Hashem to have mercy on the people and save them from annihilation, as Abraham supposedly did regarding the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorah. Futhermore, Noach is criticized for not going among the people, and bringing to them the Word of G-d in order to convert them to faith in Hashem. Abraham, say the Noach bashers, was well known as a proselytizer for Hashem, building up a great following.
Great. Can anyone identify any distinctions between the generation that Abraham lived in, and the generation of the Flood?
Oh, I know. The Torah tells us. "Hishchit kol basar et darko al ha-aretz." In the generation of the Flood, all flesh, including humans, animals and other creatures had corrupted its way on the land. Good luck trying to bring the Word of Hashem to the animals and insects and birds etc, but how about those people? You know, the ones who had no use for G-d? Who only sought material pleasures often at the expense of their neighbours? Who believed they could withstand anything G-d threw at them, and survive? And whose only righteous men, Chanoch, Yered, and Metushelach had passed away?
In Abraham's generation, the people were at least worshippers. Yes, Abraham converted idolaters to monotheism but these people clearly were believers to begin with. They had a sense of and respect for powers that were greater than they were. And, by the way, where are they now?
So is there any comparison between the world Noach lived in, and the world Abraham lived in? Is it fair to say that Noach failed to do what Abraham did? NO! Because Abraham didn't really do it, either.
If you look closely at the story about Abraham negotiating with G-d to save Sodom and Gomorah, you will see that Abraham did not care a fig for the reshaim (evildoers) of these cities, virtually the entire population. Abraham was only concerned with the tzaddikim, if there were any. "Lord," he said, "would you really sacrifice fifty righteous men just to get at the reshaim?"
And, if you insist on saying that Abraham's concern for any tzaddikim who might be there was really a veiled way to "trick" G-d into saving all the people, then, most telling is what Abraham did not ask of Hashem. Think about it. Did Abraham, the Master Proselytizer, turn to G-d and say,"Lord, please, let me go to Sodom and Gomorrah; let me preach your Word to the people so that they may do teshuva (repent) and be saved."
Shucks, no. He did not. And since Noach lived in a time when, in the years before the Flood, apart from himself, there were no tzaddikim, his world was like Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus, the bottom line is, when it came to completely evil people, Abraham did exactly what Noach is being accused of doing: nothing. The principle of "hocheyach tocheeyach," that surely, you must warn sinners to correct their ways does not apply when it's "over butl," when there isn't the slightest chance that your remonstrations will be even listened to, and Abraham did not waste his breath. One cannot, therefore, say that Abraham was superior in any way to Noach in this regard because he didn't lift a finger to try to redeem the evildoers of Sodom and Gomorrah which was the same situation as Noach faced with the Generation of the Flood. Oh, yes, they say that, although he would not go among them, Abraham "prayed" for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah -- from the comfort of his own home, of course.
Maybe, when you come to think of it, Abraham was the Tzaddik in Peltz. Raised in the court of the king as the son of the chief idol maker, able to take vast riches with him when he had to leave his homeland, proselytizing through lavish banquets. It makes you wonder if Abraham could have mucked out stables. As much as I have respect and love for Abraham, I can't picture him with a shovel in his hand. As solicitous as he was in bringing guests home, he was equally speedy in ordering his servants, -- and his wife, and his son Ishmael -- to do all the work of preparing the food -- and any heavy lifting.
In reality, Noach did much more than Abraham for the evil people of his time. Where the tradition arose that Noach did not "pray" for his generation, I don't know, but, given that the Torah says he was a complete Tzaddik, I wouldn't trust it. Furthermore, for 120 years, he made quite a spectacle of himself building this huge ark, and, as G-d had wanted him to do, when people asked him what he was doing, he did engage in "hocheyach tocheeyach." He warned the people that unless they changed their evil ways, G-d would send a Great Flood, and explained that the ark was his insurance policy against such an eventuality.
And what did the Generation of the Flood do? They laughed. They mocked Noach. In fact, Noach was mocked for three generations expressly because he was a Tzaddik, a type of person completely foreign to the ways of the times, and here we have the key, in my opinion, as to why there is Noach bashing today.
We Jews believe in "Mazal," the destiny a person has, as decreed by Heaven, and, yes, written in the stars. The destiny can be improved with the proper right actions but if no intercessionary actions are taken, there is a programmed plan for each person.
Noach's Mazal vis-a-vis the opinions of people about him, i.e. his reputation, was to be mocked.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Anyone who engages in Noach bashing is simply falling into the trap of Noach's mazal, which means that those who besmirch Noach's reputation today are doing exactly what the reshaim did all those years ago. Today's detractors of Noach are succumbing to the same pattern adopted by the unthinking sinners of Noach's time.
And what about the "elephant in the room" that I haven't yet addressed, that Noach upon disembarking, planted a vineyard, and got drunk. Except, of course, he didn't. First, he built an altar to G-d, and made sacrifices of ritually pure animals. You usually don't hear that part when people are busy knocking Noach. Oh, yes, and G-d blessed Noach and his sons.
Secondly, I'm sorry but I just don't buy the pet theory which Rashi brings down from the Midrash, that when the Torah says "Vayachel Noach, ish ha-adamah, ..." that Noach, the master of the ground, began by planting a vineyard, the word "Vayachel," means that he debased himself by planting something associated with the profane, "vayachel" being the same root word as "chulin," or that which is non-holy.
But if wine -- which comes from the vineyard -- is unholy, why then did we pour it on the altar in the Bes Hamikdash? And why, when the people had the wherewithal, did the rabbis have them take the Sabbath Kiddush instituted by Ezra and the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah as part of the Amidah prayer into their homes Friday night, adding that it must be recited over a cup of wine?
In Judaism, wine signifies auspicious, holy, and joyous occasions. It's not possible for wine to be "chulin." So Noach couldn't have been making himself profane; he was making Kiddush, something which would be used for holy purposes!
So, what then, does "Vayachel" mean, if not to signify "chulin?"
Everybody knows that "vayachel" also means "he commenced." To date, it has been thought that this would be an unnecessary phrase; that it would be more than adequate to say "Noach planted a vineyard."
Except, there may well have been a purpose in saying, "And Noach began," because the vineyard was the first thing he planted after the Flood, and this indeed began the next phase of his life. Note the Torah does not call him just Noach, here, but adds the designation, "ish ha-adama," or master of earth. Why? In my view, because the Torah is telling us Noach is switching roles, changing hats, starting over. Where heretofore Noach has been known as a Tzaddik of his generations, and then the Saviour of life on Earth, the Torah is telling us "Vayachel," he now began a new phase of his nine hundred years plus life, as an "ish ha-adama," a master cultivator of the earth. So "Vayachel" means he began a new role/chapter in his life, not that he made himself profane.
OK, he had a little too much to drink, and was sleeping it off in his tent. After all he had been through, I wouldn't begrudge him . Those of us who criticize Noach for drinking too much, don't have an appreciation of the enormity of what he had just been through. Finally, the job was done, the pressure was off. Who wouldn't kick back? You'd have to be crazy not to, in my opinion.
Two famous sayings of a revered principle of Yiddishkheit are: (1) "Hevey dun l'chaf z'chut," and (2) "Al tadin et chavercha ad she-tagiyah limkomo." or (1) Give the benefit of the doubt, and (2) Don't judge your fellow human being until you've arrived at the same situation." Many cultures have sayings like this, i.e. don't judge a man until you've walked two thousand steps in his shoes (because then you have a two thousand step head start, and you have his shoes! Kidding.)
Hands up, all of us who have watched the destruction of the entire world as we know it, and had the responsibility of saving a remnant of all its creatures, as well as the responsibility to start up civilization again .................Anybody? Nobody?
Gee, I guess noone has a right to judge Noach at all, then, since noone else has been in that situation -- nor ever will be.
What happened next is certainly not Noach's fault either. As Noach slept it off, his son Cham emasculated him, in order to prevent him from having more children with whom Cham would have to share the wealth. This is why when Noah saw what Cham had done, he cursed Ham's fourth son, Canaan. Cham had seen to it that Noach would not have a fourth son, so Noach saw to it that Cham's fourth son would be accursed.
But who was the bad guy here? Noach or his son Cham?
Why blame the victim? When we insist on blaming Noach for this awful event, are we acting like Noach's good sons, Shem and Yafet, backing up to cover him, or are we perpetuating the evil of Cham by "emasculating" Noach, i.e., taking away all the credit he is due, and blaming him for this terrible act? It seems we're just falling into the trap of Noach's mazal, and making it happen over and over.
Ultimately, how we treat Noach is more of an indication of where we're at than where he was at. If we insist on tearing him down, we reveal outselves to be no better than the people of his generations and his son, Cham. Here, I have taken some of the cornerstone criticisms of Noach, and shown them to be baseless or, at the very least, highly questionable. Will you, the reader, ignore the case I have made, and continue to parrot these criticisms mindlessly, year in, year out, in unthinking obeisance to the prevailing ignorant self-righteousness and pleasure in finding fault --even when there is none -- or will you break the vicious cycle of blaming Noach, and teaching it to your children who will then teach it to their children?
Will we, as a people, overcome our base inclinations, and act like Tzaddikim, or will we follow the old, familiar, easy patterns of the resha-im, and continue to walk in their unholy footsteps? Surely it's time to stop indulging our prejudice against Noach, and to step up, shake the mud of the resha-im from our boots, and show the world that Jews are not slaves to Mazal, the not-immutable destiny that is written in the stars, and stop bashing Noach, a Tzaddik who didn't deserve bashing then, and who doesn't deserve it now.
Or do we have to wait for Mashiach for this change to occur?
And I'm not -- chas v'shalom -- claiming any special "ruach hakodesh," to have arrived at my conclusions. It's all there on the pages of the Written Torah for everyone to see. Maybe if more students of the Torah went to university and took literary analysis, they could see it, too. A simple analysis of the pshat -- basic narrative -- teaches us the unmistakable truth: the good sons, who walked backwards with a blanket to cover up their unconscious father without glimpsing his nakedness, were obviously fulfilling the mitzvah of "kibud av v'aim," i.e., to honour one's father and mother. The bad son, rather than fulfil this mitzvah, attacked his father, castrating him, not exactly a "kibud," or honour.
In fact, to attack one's father, as Cham did, in addition to breaking the commandment to honour one's father may also be seen as a chilul Hashem, a desecration of G-d's holy name. Why? Because if you divide the Ten Commandments into two columns, as many do, Column A (since it's bound to come up, all comparisons to a Chinese restaurant's menu aside) features the commandments dealing with man's relationship to G-d ("beyn adam l'makom"), like "Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other G-ds ..." while Column B deals with man's relationship to his fellow man ("beyn adam l'adam)," like "Thou Shalt Not Murder."
Seemingly anomalously, the commandment to honour one's parents is in Column A. Since it deals with the relationship of a child to a parent, should it not have been in Column B?
There are numerous answers to this question. Regardless of which one you choose, though, it's pretty clear this grouping implies that the proper relationship to a parent is tantamount to the proper relationship to G-d Himself.
The term "b'nei Noach," i.e., sons of Noach, gets bandied about a lot, and often it is mistakenly thought to apply only to gentiles, i.e. Jews have to keep the whole Torah but the "sheva mizvot shel b'nei Noach," the commandments for the sons of Noach, are for all the world to keep, as if Gentiles are the "Sons of Noach," not Jews. Although this may well have been the intent of the commentator who coined the phrase, this is wrong. We are all, Jew and Gentile alike, the sons of Noach. Jews really do have forefathers, i.e. four fathers. Noach is really our first, followed by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The problem is with the coining of the term, "bnei Noach." Whoever coined it, either consciously or unconsciously, tried to institute a falsehood -- one which unhappily has been unthinkingly adopted by many -- that Jews do not descend from Noach.
But we do. We are descendants of Noach's son Shem -- although Noach's critics do not act like it.
We must re-learn the fact that Noach is one of our fathers. And when we indulge ourselves in criticisms of him, taking endless pleasure in pointing out what we think his shortcomings are, comparing him unfavourably to others, it gives rise to a question we must ask ourselves.
Of the two kinds of sons Noach had, which kind are we?
Rather, though, than characterizing people one way or another, my latest thinking on this topic is that we have within us a "yetzer Cham," and a "yetzer Shem," i.e., two opposite drives: to behave like Cham or to behave like Shem. This, of course, is similar to the "yetzer ha-rah," and "yetzer ha-tov," the drives to sin or to do good.
Cham, when presented with his father in a vulnerable position, attacked and castrated him. Shem and their third brother, Yaphet, would not even look at their father's indisposition, and walked backwards toward him, looking the other way, while they stretched out a blanket over him.
Since giving the person the benefit of the doubt is a form of "looking the other way," commentators who fail to do this with Noach regarding his perceived failings are not following the Torah. Instead they are letting their "yetzer Cham" rule them.
Ultimately it's absurd for a Noach basher to say that someone the Torah goes to unprecedented lengths to describe with a four-fold "shvach" (praise), i.e. 1) Ish, 2) Tsadik, 3) Tamim, 4) Et ha-elokim halach Noach, that he was 1) a great man and leader, 2) righteous, 3) whole and perfect, 4) who walked with G-d, is considered so merely because he wasn't robbing, killing, and indulging in perversions.
By that measure, we all would be considered Tzadikim. I don't know too many people who steal, kill or indulge in the kinds of corruption and perversions as the people in Noach's time. So, if Noach was considered a tzadik by not doing horribly evil things, doesn't this make us all tzadikim? Most commentators -- even the Noach bashers -- would have to say, "Oops,not."
But these same commentators who insist on using the "in his generations" phrase, li-g'nai, against Noach, never apparently understood this, that by saying Noach was a Tzadik only in his generations, they are implying that by refraining from the evils of those generations, one earns the title "tzadik."
Their "yetzer Cham" apparently impelled them to adopt an absurd, facile, untenable position, instead of the "yetzer Shem" position -- which makes more sense -- that "even as he lived through several most evil generations, Noach steadfastly stood out, and cleaved to Hashem." Later on, we will see Rashi use this same "shvach" (praise) to describe Yaakov (Jacob). When Yaakov says "Im Lavan garti (I dwelled with Lavan), Rashi uses the letters in the word "garti (I dwelled)," to spell "taryag," the numerical equivalent of 613 -- which is the famous number of commandments a Jew is obliged to keep. In Rashi's eyes, Yaakov is saying, "I dwelled with Lavan, but notwithstanding the kind of person he is, I still guarded myself to keep the commandments. "Im Lavan garti, v'taryag mitzvot shamarti."
True, the latter instance is saying more than Yaakov was "simply" a tzadik but that he was diligent in keeping the precepts of the Torah -- except, of course, that he didn't. By marrying two sisters, Rachel and Leah, Yaakov transgressed against Torah law.
But the Torah hadn't been given yet, and Rashi is happy to give Yaakov the benefit of the doubt. And to give Rashi the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that he found no carping about Yaakov to quote against him as he does for Noach.
Which all goes to show us that Noach had a particular "karma" to be ridiculed and attacked. Isn't it time for this to stop? I think so.
