Drash Cards for Noach (5780)<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 I have been thinking this\nweek about Noah\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 What is the issue? In\nsome sense the big problem is that he\u2019s compared — to Abraham no less. And\nthe comparisons are complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 In Zvi Freeman\u2019s recently\npublished book of meditations and teachings of the Rebbe, Wisdom to Heal the Earth<\/em>, we read (pg 353): Noah spoke as someone who followed a\ntradition of the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The Elshich explains\n\u201cThat is he walked with HaShem but did not worry about the rest of mankind\u2026it\nnever occurred to him to try to annul the decree and save the world from\nextinction\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 That is, on Ch 7:12,\nRashi says \u201cWhen God began the flood, it started as a gentle rain hoping that\nthe generation would repent. When they\ndid not, it became the hard rain of the flood\u201d. More than anything else, God\nwants Teshuvah \u2013 mercy always dominates law and justice \u2013 and Noah did little\nto try to convince people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022But Levi Yitzchak says \u201cNoah was a humble person, to whom it\nwould not have occurred that a prayer of his would influence God to reverse a\ndecree which had been decided without the involvement of Noah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Again on pg 353 of Wisdom to Heal the Earth, <\/em>the Rebbe says\nAbraham described how he had discovered God on his own and, some say, convinced\nmost of his generation. Elshich again \u201cAbraham wanted to convert people, teach\nproper conduct, ethics and the existence of HaShem\u201d. He gives the example of\nthe destruction of Sedom in which Abraham, as we know, argued with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Rashi: There are those\nwho praise Noah saying that if he had lived in a generation of zaddikim he\nwould have been an even greater zaddik. The Midrash says that he was like a\nsilver coin in a bowl of copper coins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 There are also those who\nspeak against him, saying that according to his generation he was a zaddik but\nat the time of Abraham he would not be. The Midrash is that he was like a silver\ncoin in a bowl of gold coins<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Rabbi Meir of Presmishlin\nresponds: this shows that there is no escape from Lashon Ha Ra even for an tzaddik. The Torah asserts that Noah was a just and\nrighteous man and we should stop there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The point is that we should not be comparing them.\u00a0 According to the Rebbe\u2019s Chumash, the flood started in 1655.\u00a0 It took until about 200 years ago \u2013 let\u2019s say 3800 years from Noah \u2013 for Reb Zushya to come and remind us that when we face \u00a0God we are not going to be asked \u201cwhy were you not like Moses\u201d but \u201cwhy were you not the best you could be\u201d (ie why were you not Zushya). <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Let\u2019s stop with the\ncomparisons and try to get to the essence of Noah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Rashi says: Noah was\nlacking in faith. He wavered in his\nbelief that the flood would come and did not enter the ark until the waters\nforced him to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Once in the ark, Noah\nstarted to believe \u2013 and even pray \u2013 to God. \nIn the Rebbe\u2019s chumash, interpolation of Rashi at the end of the verse\n24 in. Ch7 is that \u201cNoah and his family\ntherefore prayed to God to relieve their suffering [due to animal care] in the\nark\u201d and the interpolation of the next verse 8:1 \u201cOn account of Noah\u2019s\nprayers\u2026God began allowing his attribute of mercy to dominate. He thus\nremembered Noah\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Where does this leave us?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 When I was in Israel on sabbatical in\n1994, one afternoon I took the 8 yr old\ndaughter of family friends to a children\u2019s play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 The rain was very hard; when we finally got into the theater she said\n\u201cKmo mabul\u201d and then thought for a bit and said to me \u201cI\u2019ve decided that it is\nsmart to believe in God. If God exists,\nthen it is good to believe in God. And if not, nothing lost\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Maybe that is the deal\nwith Noah \u2013 he was a good man but right up until the flood he really did not\nbelieve in the existence of God. That\nis, he hedged his bets, like our 8 yr old family friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 But since, we are always\ngoing to be ambivalent about Noah. Sure,\nhe hedged his bets, but he built the ark and saved life on earth. That counts\nfor something — we have learned in the\n4000 years since Noah is to do the Mitzvah, no matter what the state of your\nfaith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 I give the last word to\nthe Rebbe (pg 354 of the same book above): Indeed, in the simplicity of the\nchild\u2019s imagination is a truth the adult can only envy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drash Cards for Noach (5780) by Marc Mangel \u2022 I have been thinking this week about Noah\u2019s reputation. \u2022 What is the issue? In some sense the big problem is that he\u2019s compared — to Abraham no less. And the comparisons are complicated. \u2022 In Zvi Freeman\u2019s recently published book of meditations and teachings of … Continue reading