Noah 1994

In the Torah portion Noah we learn how Noah was a righteous man, perfect he was in his generation. The rabbis all comment, how come it says that he was perfect in his generation? One rabbi says that he was perfect only in his generation, that if he lived in the generation of Abraham he would not be considered such a righteous man. Other rabbis say, no, that if Noah would have lived in the generation of Abraham he would have even been a greater person. Why is it that the rabbis have this disagreement about Noah? Also, why is it that after the flood occurred G-d chose the rainbow to be the sign of His determination never again to destroy the world with water. Finally, what was really the sin of the Tower of Babel? Why were the people punished because they wanted to build a tower? Why should G-d have considered that to be such a terrible offense? I think we can understand the answer to these questions if we understand who were the rabbis who adopted the different positions vis a vis Noah. We know that Rabbi Yochanan is the one who said that if Noah would have lived in a different generation he would have just been considered a mediocre man. He would not have been considered an especially righteous man.  It was Resh Lokesh who said that if Noah would have lived in Abraham's generation he would not only have been a righteous man but he would have been a greater righteous man if he had lived in Abraham's generation. Why is it that these rabbis differ so much? It seems to me that really the question here is the question of nature versus nurture.

Rabbi Yochanan was a person who was more or less born to be a great Talmudic scholar. He prophesied to his mother that he was going to be a great scholar. He was also a very handsome man. He was a person who had 9 children. He was known as the greatest authority of his age. In fact, the Jerusalem Talmud is really based almost entirely upon his teachings, and the Jerusalem Talmud really should not be called the Jerusalem Talmud.  It should be called the Tiberiss Talmud, and he lived about 150 years before it was completed but it is mainly based upon his teachings. The Babylonian Talmud, too, to a large extent is based on the teachings of Rabbi Yochanan. Resh Lokesh, on the other hand, was a person who came from an ambiguous background. He apparently as a youth came from a good family because he learned in the same yeshiva as Rabbi Yochanan, but then something happened. Perhaps his family was considered to be traitors to Rome and he was taken away and made a gladiator. Then after several years as a gladiator he became a brigand and started to rob people. One day when Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the Jordan Resh Lokesh came by and stole his clothes. Rabbi Yochanan immediately recognized him and he called him back and said, "Resh Lokesh, Shimon, come, come back, and let's learn together." He also reminded him that he had a very beautiful sister, so Resh Lokesh decided that he would try the yeshiva life again. He went back to Rabbi Yochanan. After a few weeks he decided he wanted to be a brigand again. He left the yeshiva but he did not have the heart anymore to be a brigand and went back to the yeshiva and became one of the greatest scholars of that era.  In fact, the disputes between Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lokesh are the matrix upon which many of the discussions of the Talmud are based. So we see here that Rabbi Yochanan was of the opinion that once a person had certain traits that that person's traits would always be with them and that Noah was really a passive man and in his generation he was considered righteous because in his generation the proper course of action was just to be passive, just to do what G-d told you to do, stay away from the other people because they will just corrupt you and your family and more or less live a passive existence away from the mainstream of the population, but if you would have lived in Abraham's generation being passive was not the thing to do. He should have interacted with the people. He could have had an influence over the people. He would have been able, as Abraham did, to change world history, but Rabbi Yochanan thought that Noah was not up to it. Noah was, by nature, a passive man and that was the way he was going to be.

One of the heresies of communism was that they believed that all men were equal and the only thing that differentiated one human being from another was a bad childhood or terrible state regulations but that basically everybody could be anything that they wanted to be. Anybody who has raised children knows that this is not really so, that people are not born equal, that children are born with definite traits and these traits can be molded and shaped for good or bad but they are still traits. A child who is born with a stubborn streak will be stubborn all his life but he could use that stubbornness to be firm in religious observance, to be firm in support of moral principles or he could use it arbitrarily just to be stubborn for stubborn sake. So we know that all traits can be used either for good or bad, but that a person's basic traits are formed when he is young. Of course, we all know that if you take a Ford and put a Chevrolet fender on it it looks like a Ford. Resh Lokesh was of the opinion that that may be true about certain personality traits but that you could compensate for them. You could change them. You may have been born with a violent nature but .you could sublimated your violence in Talmudic discussion, as he, himself, had done. He felt that Noah would have been even a greater man in a different generation, that what motivated Noah was his desire to do good, was the desire to be a good person and to serve G-d and if this generation required him to be passive he would be passive while in another generation he would be active if that was what was called upon. That was really in a way what the sin of the people of the generation who build the tower was. They became enamored with ideas. They were intellectuals who felt that there was no necessity to make any compromise with their ideals, and they really did not have any sense of compassion. They build that tower because they believed that every 1656 years a comet is going to come which is going to destroy the world.  In fact, the rabbis explain that that is exactly how the world was destroyed, that a comet came and because the comet either hit the earth and caused a great tidal wave or because of the force of this huge comet or huge extraterrestrial object that the icecap of Antarctica was pulled off and thrown into the ocean which made a huge tidal wave. They determined that they had to survive so, therefore, they build this huge tower which would be on top of the flood waters. If the flood waters would in any way destroy it at least they would leave themselves a name. The people would know that they existed and they were compelled by their reason to'-organize human society around this idea, and if certain people did not conform to the job that they were supposed to do in order to create the tower then these people should be severely punished, and to show their lack of compassion if a brick would fall down they would all mourn but if a human being would fall down and die or be injured they could care less. They would keep going with the work.

The rabbis really are arguing about in the case of Noah, which is apparent from the text, is not that Noah did not remonstrate with his own people because, after all, he was building the ark and people would come and ask him questions, and the rabbis are pretty much in agreement that Noah would tell them, that he did, in a certain way, try to change people, but the problem with Noah was why didn't he argue with G-d? Abraham argued with G-d. Moshe argued with G-d when it came to punishing people. Where was his sense of compassion? Why didn't he ask G-d for another chance for the people? This is what bothers the rabbis. In fact, this is still to this day one of the great differences between a Jewish religious perspective and a non-Jewish religious perspective. In a non-Jewish religious perspective it is considered a great sin to argue with G-d even if, in a certain sense, you feel that G-d is being too strict and stern. In fact, many times when people are overcome with an impulse they think comes from G-d then they feel they have to go ahead with it, even if it is of dubious morality. In fact, that is why some people say the devil .made them do it. Other people  say G-d made them do it. In Judaism these types of feelings and urges do not allow us to follow through on certain actions. Our actions must be moral and just and we must always have compassion and plead with G-d, even though ultimately we have to submit to His will, that He should change His evil decrees. In the case of Moshe Rabbeinu He did change those evil decrees because of Moshe's importuning. We know that this seems to be lacking in Noah's character. He does not have this great sense of compassion that is necessary to be a Jewish religious leader. That, of course, is what led to the argument between Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lokesh. Rabbi Yochanan said that Noah could never have that overwhelming sense of compassion. He would never appeal to G-d even in a generation like Abraham's, while Resh Lokesh said, no, his generation was such a bad generation he knew it would be foolish to appeal to G-d, but if he would have lived in Abraham's generation he would have appealed to G-d. He would have had that compassion. That, of course, is why G-d used the rainbow as a sign that He would not bring destruction on the world anymore because a .rainbow is composed of light and water.  It is composed of light and tears.  In fact, when a person has an overwhelming light he has an intellectual insight into how the world works, that many times especially intellectuals of high caliber feel that they have to follow their intellectual light no matter where it leads them. This, of course, is what the communists did. Even if it leads to a huge amount of death it is okay because this is where our intellectual light leads us, and, of course, we all know how this was perverted under the Nazis, and we all know that even in our day in Rwanda it was not just a primitive tribe attacking another primitive tribe. This whole slaughter of 500,000 Tutsis was actually orchestrated from the universities of Rwanda.  It was a planned murder that took place based upon certain ideas which overwhelmed the intellectuals of the Hutus in Rwanda, that when we come with ideals they also have to be moderated by tears. We also have to have compassion. Unless we have compassion to moderate our ideals we will end by building towers  of Babel in which the goal is more important than the suffering of individual human beings and we will not take into account that suffering at all. In order to be a great religious leader we have to have compassion. That is what Judaism teaches, and that was what was endowed in the rabbi's mind. Did Noah have that sense of compassion? Some rabbis, like Resh Lokesh, say he definitely did. Some rabbis, like Rabbi Yochanan, said he did not, but it is always important that we realize that in order to be a religious leader in the Jewish people you have to have compassion.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who took his girlfriend to the fanciest restaurant and they ate all sorts of high cholesterol foods with high fat content and all sorts of dainty dishes with high caloric intake and he spent, just between the two of them, $300. Then he turned to his girlfriend and said, "You know, my doctor would be very disappointed in my tonight," and the girl looked at him and said, "Why would your doctor be disappointed in you? Are you on a special diet?" He said, "Oh, no, but I owe him a lot of money." When it comes to life we also have to have compassion for others. We cannot just follow the whims of either our emotions or, in the case of intellectuals, the whims of our ideas even if we think that these ideas are ultimately good and sound and just. Instead we must always moderate our ideas by the tears of compassion. Unless we are really compassionate people we; will not be able to fulfill what G-d wants us to fulfill on earth and that is even to argue with Him sometimes. Compassion must be an overriding concern. Yes, we have to follow our ideas but we must make sure that we apply them compassionately. If we do we can rest assured that G-d will help us achieve our ideals so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day. Amen.