ear Friends;
I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;
” Parasha in a Nutshell “
Parshat Noah begins by describing Noah’s righteousness, compared with the wickedness of his generation. As a result of Mankind’s evil, Hashem brings a flood to destroy every living creature, sparing only Noah, his family, and at least one pair of every animal species, who live in an ark during the lengthy flood. When the waters declined, almost a year after the rains first began, Noah sends out a raven and a dove so as to determine whether the land has dried sufficiently so that they can leave the ark to resettle the earth once again. Hashem promises that He will never again destroy all of Mankind by means of a flood, and He designates the rainbow as a sign for that eternal covenant.
Noah plants a vineyard, drinks from its produce, and becomes drunk. In his intoxicated state, he shamefully uncovers himself in his tent. While his son Cham dealt with his father inappropriately, Noah’s other two sons, Shem and Yefet, cover their father in a respectful manner. Once sober, Noah responds by blessing Shem and Yefet, and by cursing Cham and his son Canaan.
Generations pass and the world is repopulated. The people attempt to wage war against Hashem by building the Tower of Babel, and Hashem responds by mixing up their languages and dispersing them across the planet.
The Torah portion concludes on an encouraging note with Abraham’s birth and his marriage to Sarah.
“ Dvar Torah “
At the beginning of the Parsha, the Torah says: ” Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generation…..”. So, the obvious question that comes to mind is why does the Torah mention “in his generation”, when it talks about Noah’s righteousness? Well, there are two schools of thoughts. Some Chachamim praise the greatness of Noah’s righteousness, since it is very hard to stay righteous when you are surrounded with corrupt and evil people. If he would have lived among righteous people, he would have reached a far higher level of righteousness. While others criticize him, for his righteousness is only apparent when is compared to the wicked people of his own generation. If he would have lived in the times of Avraham Avinu, for example, he would have not been considered a righteous man.
But, why should Noah’s righteousness even be in doubt?! Why wouldn’t have he been considered righteous in Avraham’s time? The Torah says that “Noah did exactly as G-d has commanded him”. In Judaism, a righteous person is described as someone who fears G-d and follows his commandments. So, why on earth is Noah even being criticized by some Chachamim? What did Noah do wrong? Why couldn’t the Torah just say, “Noah was a righteous man”, period?!
Our Chachamim explain that Noah’s failure lay in his inability to inspire his generation to change. He spent 120 years constructing an ark, and yet, throughout that period, he did not convince even one person to repent; not a single person was moved to undergo Teshuva by the knowledge that G-d would be bringing a flood because of the people’s sins. This failure compromised Noah’s stature, such that in the generation of Abraham, he would not have stood out as a righteous figure.
The question that still remains, however, is why did Noah fail in this regard? Why was he unable to inspire and lead people away from sin?
Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky suggests that Noah criticized the people instead of inspiring them. When people are criticized by someone, they won’t listen to that person nor to his ideology. Avraham Avinu’s door was open to everybody. He didn’t say that “because you are an idol worshiper, you can not come to my house”! On the contrary, he respected everyone and welcomed them to his house. In return, they respected him and listened to his words of wisdom. Abraham knew that in order to teach people, first you need to understand them and see what is the root cause of the problem. Once you understand their problems and show them respect instead of criticizing them, then it’s much easier to convince them to repent and change their ways. This is unfortunately what Noah was missing that prevented him from inspiring others.
Yes my friends, in order to inspire others, you don’t put people down, but rather, you lift them up! Criticizing them, will only make them to isolate themselves from you. To change people, first you need to respect them and listen to their views. If you see someone doing something wrong, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt, that he didn’t have proper education and he didn’t know better. Only with friendship, you can win their trust and influence them to repent.
We can see a good example of this in Chabad organization. They truly go out of their way to help others and inspire them. They reach out to people who are not observant at all and try to help them. Their aim is to inspire everyone to come close to Hashem. They don’t only care about themselves, but about everyone else too. They are probably considered righteous people, not only in our generation, but in many more generations to come too.
Shabbat Shalom & Regards;
Martin