Noah 1990

The Torah portion Noah begins with the words, "These are the generations of Noah.  Noah was a man righteous, wholehearted he was in his generation, with G-d Noah walked."  It is interesting to note that it says that Noah "was a man righteous and wholehearted in his generation".  Why does it have to say that Noah was a man righteous and wholehearted in his generation?  Why wouldn’t it be enough to just say that Noah a Tzadik, a righteous man?  Also, later on we learn where it says that the earth became corrupt before G-d.  The earth was filled with violence.  Why does it have to say that the earth was corrupt before G-d? Why doesn't it say that the people became corrupt? Also, we know that when the flood came it destroyed all the world except for Noah and his family and the animals that were with him in the ark.  Why did G-d have to destroy the world with water?  After all, water is a precious commodity. We pray for water.  Without water man cannot live.  Man needs water.  We know that nothing will grow without water but, yet, G-d chose this very medium, this very important necessity of life to destroy the world with.  Finally, why is it that the rainbow became the symbol of G-d’s covenant with man, that from now on if we would look at the rainbow and when we look at the rainbow we remember that G-d has promised never to destroy the world again. It seems to me that all these questions are interrelated.  The rabbis are puzzled by the expression "in his generation", and some rabbis say that Noah, because he was righteous in such an evil generation, would have been much more righteous even in another generation, while other rabbis say the exact opposite, that Noah could only be considered righteous in his generation but in other generations he would be considered a mediocre or even an evil man. Based on the standards of his generation he was a righteous man, but still why does the Torah have to say that Noah was a man righteous and wholehearted he was?  Why these 3 things? In Judaism we never say either or or; we say both.  Many times the world makes a mistake because it does not realize that we need many qualities, some of which are very contradictory, that G-d destroyed the world with water because water is a very positive thing, but even good things that are pushed to extreme become evil.

In fact, the very word in Hebrew for "character" is "Midas", which means "to measure", that if we measure things wrong we do evil.  Evil is really good that has burst its bounds.  It mentions here that Noah was an Eesh, a man.  In Hebrew Eesh means a man of achievement.  According to the rabbis Noah invented the plow.  Noah was able to develop all his qualities. He was able to develop his talents, but that is not enough.  In every generation we must balance the needs of our own development with being sympathetic and empathetic with others, which is, of course, what Tzadik means.  We also must have goals and aspirations for a just and right society, which means he is wholehearted with G-d.  Unfortunately, in America today we have seen to look only at the first quality that is needed in order to have a good and right society, and that is people must be spurred on to develop their talents so they can contribute to make society a wonderful place.  One of the pitfalls of communism was that it did not give people incentives to develop themselves, and as a result the economy did not develop the way it should have developed, that if everybody is responsible nobody is responsible.  Initiative was not encouraged.  Creativity was not encouraged.  G-d wants each of us to be an Eesh, to develop our talents, but not everybody has equal talents.  There are some people that turn out to be completely selfish.  They are not interested in helping anybody else.  They say, "I made it.  It is mine."  They do not realize that not everybody is equal; not everybody was born with the same brains; not everybody was born under the same circumstances.  Some people come from abusive families.  Some people have emotional problems.  Some people are born with other types of defects.  Life is hard and difficult and it is not enough just to say that everyone should rely only on their talents.  This creates people that are selfish, people who are not interested in taking care of the poor and the helpless and the hopeless.  Disease strikes.  You can be the most brilliant person in the world but if cancer strikes you need help.  If you have mental problems you need help. 

Just being an Eesh is not enough.  Society must balance not only being an Eesh but also being a Tzadik.  What does a Tzaedik mean?  It means being someone to empathizes and sympathizes with others, who understands their problems, but in Judaism we also know that being a Tzadik is not enough either.  If you are just a Tzadik empathizing and sympathizing with others' problems you can end up by destroying society, too, by not putting a challenge before your own children, by being too sympathetic and understanding. We also know that you have to hold people accountable.  I have even a relative who is a wonderful, wonderful man but he never challenged his children so that only one of his children is even earning a living.  The rest of them cannot earn a living at all because they have never been challenged.  He was too understanding. Then you also have a third quality.  The third quality is you have to be whole-hearted.  You have to have goals and a system that you believe in that is going to make society work.  To be wholehearted with G-d you have to believe that man has to live up to certain moral standards, but we all know that if you believe in a system the system must be flexible and take into account all human beings.  Communism is a system that failed and woe be to those who would try to contradict the communist system.  They would be thrown into a gulag or shot before a firing squad.  I remember when I was in school I had a friend who was a pacifist.  He came to me and asked me to sign a petition.  I told him I did not really believe in that, but he told me to sign it or he would beat the daylights out of me.  This was a pacifist.  Unfortunately, this is the way people act many times.  They get involved in all sorts of theoretical systems which do not work in real life, and the worst sins are actually committed by good people.  Torkamanov thought he was saving the Jews by torturing them. You have to look at being sympathetic and empathetic people, just having a system which you think is going to bring Utopia to the world and trying to implement that system is not going to be good for the world.  In fact, that was exactly the sin of the Tower of Babel, the rabbis say.  They were so intent on building their tower they thought that if they build their tower they would bring prosperity to mankind, that they would have a society that was unified so that if a brick would fall off the building they would cry, but if a human being would die, who cares?  A human being was not worth the system.  The system was more important than the human being.  We know that that is not true.  The rabbis say that the flood came unto the world because the people in the time of the flood could not integrate these three strands.  Most of them were just interested in their own ambition.  They were great people of science and learning but they had no empathy for the common person.  They had no empathy for the problems of the common person.  They did not care if people died or suffered. Others were only interested in their system. That is why it says, "And the world became corrupt."  There were some people who were only interested in land.  The land became corrupt.  All they were interested in was acquiring land, getting wealth. 

Nothing else counted.  It also says, "Before G-d", because in that society there were many people who felt that anything anybody wanted to do was okay.  It was only before G-d that there was right and wrong.  They were too understanding with everybody’s struggles. There were no standards.  Only before G-d were things wrong.  Also, it says the world was filled with violence.  There were people who wanted to implement their system, their system that was going to bring prosperity and goodness and wealth to the world instead it filled it with violence as communism did. Stalin did not care if 6 million peasants died because it was going bring collectivization and industrialism and the good things to the Russians.  When we deal with the world we must have all these three things combined.  We in Judaism believe that G-d has given us the power to do good, but our problem is, what is good?  Other religions revolve around another problem.  They feel they know what is good, but they do not feel they have the power to do good so, therefore, they must believe in some person or do some act to be given the power to do good.  That does not mean that if they have the power they will do good, just like there are many Jews who, although they believe they have the power to do good, do not do good.  They choose not to use that power, but the Jewish question has always been, I have the power to do good, but what is good?  Good is not easy to determine because good is an amalgamation of our efforts to develop our talents, of our efforts to be a Tzadik, to be understanding and sympathetic, and our efforts to implement the Torah system in the world. We all know that in Judaism strict justice is the personification of the satan. Satan is G-d's prosecuting attorney.  Just trying to implement a system without taking into account people's foibles and weaknesses and the exceptions to every case is very destructive.  The people at the time of the flood could not combine all these three elements.  Therefore, they were destroyed.  They were destroyed by water, which is a good thing because it was good carried to extreme which destroyed them.  It destroyed them because of either selfishness or trying to pursue their own careers and develop themselves and get as much land as they possibly could and property as they could without integrating being a Tzadik or having a system which was trying to do good for the whole world. Others were interested in only live and let live and being understanding no matter how terrible the things were that the people did.  Others were willing to, in the name of G-d and in the name of their system, wreak all sorts of havoc in the world and kill all sorts of millions of people so their system could be implemented.  We in Judaism do not believe that it is either/or; it is all three combined.  You have to be willing to develop yourself and be empathetic and sympathetic to others.  You also have to believe in implementing the moral values of the Torah in the world.  This you must do with understanding and compassion. That’s why the rainbow was the symbol of the treaty between G-d and man because when we you look at light light seems to be pure, but when light hits the drops of water and is refracted you can see the many colors.  Light is not composed of one color but of a strand of many colors that are interwoven.  Many strands interweave in order to form the pure light.  We are to look at the rainbow and to realize that a good life comes from intertwining many different strands, and it is only if we will interweave these strands will we be able to live a happy and a compassionate and a good life.  Unfortunately, many people today do not know that.  In pursuing good goals, goals that they think are essential for the country, they are willing to stoop to all sorts of terrible things, negative advertising.  The governor's race in Texas now is disgusting, all the accusations and dirt that each candidate is slinging at the other is a disgrace.  We, in order to live good lives, must learn how to balance our need for creativity and developing our talents with our need to be sympathetic and empathetic and our need to implement an objective, moral system on the world. This we have to do if we are to lead a good and a kind life.  We must look at the rainbow. When light and rain combine and we can see that light, the light of the good life, is composed of many strands.  Let us all hope and pray that we will learn how to balance these strands so that we will be able to fulfill our generation's task of making a good life for our generation.  Yes, it said Noah was righteous in his generation.  In his generation certain things had to be stressed.  Maybe every generation has something different that has to be stressed.  When the immigrant generation came here they had to stress earning a living, but now we do not have to stress acquiring land and property. We have to stress Jewish education.  We have to learn how to be more empathetic and sympathetic, how to implement the ideals of Judaism in a moral way in our lives and in our society.  We must constantly rebalance these strands so that every generation can improve and improve so the Mashiach will come. I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who was listening to the television with his friend.  After the show was over he turned to his friend and said, "Oh, the senator that we just heard said that because of what the senator has done there is going to be a lot more work for all of us."  The friend said, "Yeah, but you can't make a career of jury duty."  Unfortunately, and this applies not just to the Senate, there are many people who push individual good things to their limits and create evil instead of good.  They do not know how to balance the different strands of light.  May we all balance the different strands of light so that we will be blessed with a good life, beneficial life, and not a destructive life.