Noah 1991

Judaism has its own point of view on most subjects   Unfortunately, many Jews do not know that   Many Jews think that the Jewish position is whatever is written in the New York Times this past week  They do not realize that Judaism has a very sophisticated way of looking at the world   In fact, I have been told by many college professors who come from families that did not give them a strong Jewish education that when they go to colleges in small towns across the United States they are immediately looked at as the Bible expert because, after all, they are Jewish, but they, themselves, know nothing about the Jewish religion and about the Bible and about Jewish positions on various different issues   That's why Jewish education is so important We are either Jews by birth or Jews who have been converted, but if you are a Jew by birth you are looked at as if you have a great deal of knowledge when you may not have this knowledge  The rest of the world looks upon the Jew as the representative, so to speak, of G-d's presence in the world  Many Jews would rather not be looked on this way, but that, of course, is one of the reasons why we have been hounded and persecuted, that we have been looked at as the representative of G-d's presence in the world  When people rebel against what they think are the laws of G-d and which limit them as the Nazis did, then they take out their wrath upon us.  Judaism has positions on many, many issues that differ from the consensus here in America One of the ways that Judaism differs strongly from other religions and philosophies is that Judaism never says either/or; it always says both  What we mean by this is that when Judaism looks at different issues they must take into account contrary viewpoints, and the truth of the matter is that in certain instances almost every viewpoint can be looked on as being correct, that when we come to judge an issue we have to look at all sides of the issue  We believe in the golden mean, but the golden mean is not an arithmetic determination where you say that one position holds and another position holds that so the middle position is such and such  Depending upon every circumstance you will have to determine which of the alternate positions are correct   We know, for example, within orthodoxy there is great disputes on many issues   For example, take issues even such as the State of Israel vis a vis the Arabs, etc 

There is one group of orthodox Jews, a very small group called the Netura Kagda who is composed mainly of people who have lived in Israel for hundreds of years, who take an extreme position that we Jews should not even have a State  There are others, of course, also orthodox Jews, on the other extreme who are followers of Rabbi Kahane who say that all the Arabs should be expelled from Israel  Now, how can you reconcile these positions vis a vis halacha and the Jewish tradition? Well, it is obvious that the Netura Karta bases their position upon the fact that if we Jews have a state we will have to exercise power, have to imprison people, maybe even kill people, have to do all those things which power demands and which may fly in the fact of morality sometimes, or seeming morality, and they say, "Listen, we have lived with the Arabs for hundreds of years  Yes, we have had pogroms.  Yes, a few innocent people have been killed, but by and large we have lived with them peacefully  Let's keep the same situation that we had before  Therefore, we will not have to exert force and power and get involved in these types of worldly temptations and let the Mashiach come and when the Mashiach comes He will give us a State without us having to indulge in killing and imprisoning people and lording it over people, etc."  On the other hand, you have the position of Koch, of the followers of Rabbi Kahane who say based also upon Jewish principles, that you have the right to self defense, that the Arabs in this age are different from previous ages.  The Arabs want to kill us, wipe us out.  That, of course, is why the Grand Mufti supported Hitler and the Holocaust, is why in the Six Day War Nasser had gas chambers prepared for the Jews, why Saddam Hussein says he is going to throw us into the sea and wipe us all out  Yes, it is true the Arabs are monotheistic and according to our religion have every right to live in the land of Israel, but they are also people who want to kill us   They want to destroy us   People have the right to self defense so we should make sure we do not give them the opportunity to kill us  Of course, we know that you have to examine these positions in every instance and decide which is correct and which is incorrect.  You have to reconcile opposites This principles of reconciling opposites is alluded to in this Torah portion Noah when we learn about the rainbow.  The rainbow is a combination of opposites, of sunlight and rain.  Usually when it is raining there is not much sunlight and when there is sunlight it is not raining, but a beautiful rainbow with all its hues and colors comes to its full flower when there is rain and sun mixed together and then you have beauty.  It is an ephemeral mix, though, and every situation has to be recreated.  Therefore, too, in Judaism every situation has to be judged by the conflicting principles that are involved and a satisfactory solution has to be found which lends beauty and depth and correctness and justice to the world.

But how are we to make this determination?  How can we in each situation determine what is right and good when we are confronted with contradictory positions? In the Torah portion Noah we learn where it says that, "These are the generations of Noah  Noah was a righteous and a wholehearted man in his generation lf  The rabbis all ask the question, what does it mean "in his generation"?  Noah lived in his generation, not his generations, but they say, no, that when we come to speak about Noah we are speaking about a person who lived in three distinct eras  He lived in the era before the generation of the flood, he lived in the generation of the flood, and after the generation of the flood  When he was a young man he lived in a generation which had still not become so corrupt that they deserved to be destroyed by the flood  Then he lived during the generation of the flood and the generation after the flood  The reason there are three titles that he is given, Eesh, Tzadik and Tomeem, is because they describe his characteristics during each of these three periods We also learn that he gave birth to three sons  The rabbis say that when it says these are the generations of Noah, that these three sons, also they were also actual physical sons, also represented the three aspects of his character  They represented Shain, which means a name, his drive for achievement and for recognition, Cham, which stands for warmth or a person's emotions, and Yafet, which stands for beauty  Later on we learn how it says, after the generation of the flood, "that G-d enlarged Yafet and he shall dwell in the tents of Shaim and let Canaan be his servant " We see that these three elements refer to character and different aspect of character. Before the flood it was a generation which had not become completely corrupt yet, Noah was an Eesh, a man who went out to achieve things. In fact, the rabbis say he invented the plow  He was an important man  He stressed that aspect of his personality which had to do with Shaim  Shaim in Hebrew means a name  He wanted to make a name for himself  Through his invention, through his wisdom and through his initiative he bettered himself and gave the world some products which were essential to it   In the second era in the time of the flood that aspect of his character which was stressed was a Tzadik  He was a righteous man, a man who was preserving values, because in this era of his life and the life of the people around him they had become corrupt   They had let their emotions get the better of them  They said they should be able to do anything they felt like doing, almost like we have here today where it is dangerous to go to school; you may be shot, where people feel they can do anything that they want  They can neglect their parents  They do not have to respect them  They can neglect their families, their wives, their children.  They can do anything they want because that is the way the world should be run:  rampant individualism.  This rampant individualism, of course, destroys society and destroys all sense of social order  There is no respect given to any person or any law or any concept  That was, of course, carried to an extreme during the generation of the flood  Noah, then, had to preserve values   In order to preserve values he had to withdraw a little from the people around him  He has been criticized for that  He-did not break off contact with them, but he turned inward to preserve the values that he knew were important and necessary for the world Then we have the generation after the flood  The generation after the flood did not commit the sin of the generation of the flood They were not committed to do anything that they wanted to do, individualism and running rampant   On the contrary, they subsumed all their drives and efforts into one project and that project was to build a tower and that tower, as the Torah tells us, was to make a name for themselves   They had felt that every 1656 years G-d was going to send a flood which was going to destroy the world, and they had to prevent that  They had to make sure that their presence was noted in the universe, that if the next flood would destroy them all at least they would leave something behind   If they would build a big tower maybe they could avoid the flood by fleeing to the top stories of the tower and the flood could not reach them there  Therefore, they crushed all individuality, and in their efforts and drive to make what they considered to be a society which would endure, they limited man completely 

In fact, the rabbis say that when a brick would fall down they would cry When a human being would fall down they would say too bad, who cares, and they would go on, similar to what we have today in communism, where for the sake of the greater good people were subjected to all sorts of indignities and their individualism was completely crushed   I still remember left leaning friends of mine who would justify what the communists did by saying ultimately it is good for humanity   It will be good for Russia  We all know, of course, now that that was nonsense.  Yafa in Hebrew means beauty, proportion What makes a beautiful thing is when it has the right proportion An artist knows how to put just the right strokes and you have a beautiful figure, a beautiful portrait, a beautiful statue that is a result of proportion, that the problem with the sin of the people after the flood was that they lost their sense of proportion In their zeal to make a name for themselves, in their zeal to preserve the human race they trampled on the individual human being.  They did not care for the individual human being  They completely got everything out of kilter and out of focus, just as the communists in our era That is why in this era Noah stressed beauty, proportion, that people should not go overboard on their particular ideal   That is why during this period he is known as Tomeem, whole because if you look at him you can see a wholeness  You do not see a going overboard in one particular direction  That, of course, is what we all must do when we judge the different problems that come before us   In one age we have to stress one element, in another age another element, in another age another element  The rabbis tell us that we have three responsibilities.  We have a responsibility to ourselves, to others to make sure this is a just society, and we have a responsibility to G-d   In our efforts to make a just society we cannot go overboard and destroy the Divine Image which is in each of us and in our urge for ambition and to achieve things, we cannot overlook the demands of justice and the demands of the poor and oppressed and helpless When it comes to making adequate decisions in the world, what we have to do is take into consideration three things simultaneously We have to find out whether it is good for us, good for others, and good for the principles which G-d has given us to live by so that we will continue to live in peace and harmony and we will continue to be compassionate loving people and we will eventually reach a stage where the whole world will be a world which is filled with compassion and brotherhood and justice  Yes, it is difficult  You cannot follow party lines and learn things by rote  What you must do is consider every situation and come to the right conclusion based upon these principles  You cannot just read a book  I had a teacher who was very much opposed to this translation of the Code of Jewish Law, which, of course, is not the real Code of Jewish Law but one person's opinion  Things were taken out of context and they were not really understandable  What you have to do is study so that you are able to apply the principles of Judaism to every given situation  Every age needs a different emphasis That is why it is so important that we get the most intensive Jewish education as possible so that we can understand how to apply Judaism's principles to every part of our life and in every stage of our life It is very important that we all learn how to make the correct distinctions so that we can all come up with the correct answers, just as Noah did in every stage of his life

I am reminded of the story they tell about a person who came up to his friend and asked him, "Can you please tell me what is the difference between being annoyed, being angered, and being exasperated?"  His friend said, "It's easy  When a person calls you up at 1:00 am and wakes you up and asks, 'Is Melvin there?' and you say, 'Melvin doesn't live here' you are annoyed.  When that person calls you up again at 2:00 am and once again asked, 'Is Melvin there?' and you answer, 'Melvin doesn't live here  Leave me alone', then you are angered  When you get a phone call at 3:00 am and the person says, "This is Melvin Do you have any messages for me?' then you are exasperated   In life we have to learn how to make distinctions   In life we have to apply the moral principles of Judaism to the world  We cannot do it by going with the idea of either/or  We have to do it realizing that we have  to always take into consideration conflicting principles, that we have to find the correct application of these principles in every given situation.  That is Judaism's golden mean.  May we always be able to do this so that we will live happy live, Judaism will survive, and the Mashiach will come quickly in our day. Why, though, does it says, "and G-d should enlarge Yefet and he should dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan should be a servant to them"? Yefet, of course, means beauty  The problem with beauty is that when we see beautiful things it fills us with appreciation and awe but it also renders us passive  We know when we see a beautiful painting that we could not paint it  We know when we see an athlete perform a beautiful athletic feat it fills us with awe and admiration, but we know we cannot do it  A wonderful ballet dancer, a beautiful piece of music, a wonderful sculpture fills us with feelings of rapture and awe but leaves us passive  Yes, we need proportion in what we do We need to apply the rules of beauty to what we do  We cannot just become passive in the face of beauty  Therefore, beauty must be taken into the tents of Shem  Shem stands for achievement, for striving for reputation  We also must strive to achieve but with proportion We cannot over concentrate on one aspect while forgetting everything else, and Canaan, the son of Cham, which stands for emotions, must never be allowed to run amok  It is our job to achieve but to achieve within moral limits always making sure that our single-mindedness does not destroy us and others and that in our zeal to achieve we do not allow our emotions to run amok.