Dear Chevrei, over the past week, we've noticed, in traditional as well as informal commentary on Noach, there's a tendency to emphasize short-comings in the personality of this "'ish tzaddiq" righteous man (Bereishit 6:9).
For example, in the Zohar Chadash, there's a beautiful section chastising Noach: "Our Rabbis have taught: How did the Blessed Holy One respond when Noach came out of the ark and saw the whole world destroyed and began to cry over the holocaust? Noach said, 'Master of the world, You are called Compassionate! You should have shown compassion for your creatures!' The Blessed Holy One answered him, 'Foolish shepherd! Now you say this, but not when I spoke to you tenderly, saying "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood... As for me, I am about to bring the Flood... to destroy all flesh... [Go into the ark, you and all your household] for you alone have I found righteous before Me in this generation" (Bereishit 6:14, 17; 7:1). I lingered with you and spoke with you at length so that you would ask for mercy for the world! But as soon as you heard that you would be safe in the ark, the evil of the world did not touch your heart. You built the ark and saved yourself. Now that the world has been destroyed, you open your mouth to utter questions and pleas?'." This section continues by comparing Noach to "the righteous heroes of Israel", Avraham and Moshe. In the name of Rabbi Yohanan, it's written: "Noach did not shield his generation and did not pray for them like Avraham [with Sodom and Gemorrah] (Bereishit 18)." Returning to Noach, the Zohar Chadash concludes "But he [Noach] did not care and did not ask for mercy. He just built the ark and the whole world was destroyed."
My purpose here is not to criticize this piece of the Zohar Chadash (for my introduction to which I am very grateful to Rav Hanan), just to call attention to a quirk in the commentary. Isn't it odd that Noach, whom the Torah repeatedly calls righteous and who saves humanity and animal life from annihilation, gathers little praise? Why does the commentary move in this direction?
Perhaps we strike at Noach because we sympathize with the generation that was destroyed. We see our failures and the failures of our generation, we become disillusioned and disgusted by the projects we have undertaken and by the illusions with which we cloak and shroud ourselves, and we want for the tzaddiqim in the world to stick up for us. - Noach, why didn't you argue with HaSh-m? Why didn't you make an opportunity for us to repent? - But answering this concern, we have a midrash that Noach spent 120 years constructing the ark (Bereishit Rabbah 30, 7), and a midrash that HaSh-m commanded Noach to build an ark (rather than command the waters to stay away from Noach's house) so that world-wide attention would turn to the end that would befall humanity if its wickedness continued (ibid). Given this time to repent and the wide-spread knowledge of the on-coming decimation, isn't it difficult to sympathize with the generation of the Flood? We'd like to think-if indeed we can imagine it-that confronted with the same situation and opportunity, we'd do teshuva. But just the same, Noach's inaction is still bothersome (... at least to me).
Perhaps, what really inspires the criticism is not this concern over whether or not the generation had the opportunity to repent, perhaps we are disgusted with Noach for not being horrified with the punishment. Is Noach-more than complacent with HaSh-m's judgment-truly insensitive to the extermination of all but a speck of creation?
The Torah gives into our investigation and imagination questions about how Noach and his family relate with their neighbors. My impulse in approaching these questions is to identify myself with Noach, with Na'ama his wife, with their sons, and with their daughters-in-law, and to try to imagine how they would feel and reason and act. When I ask, How is life in a world so completely corrupt as to merit the Flood? How terrified by our neighbors? How anxious at the thought of our kids marrying such people and raising such children?… then I begin to understand why Noach and his family distance themselves from the other humans. And in projecting myself into their positions, in trying this way to deepen myself in Torah, I come to contrast my ways with what I imagine might be their ways. The disconnection between Noach and the people around him brings me to examine fractures separating me from the individuals in my communities. How do I respond to destructive action and to the people I identify as sources of harm? Are my assessments of what is destructive in-line with HaSh-m's judgments?
Perhaps the irony in criticizing Noach reflects an irony of his very being. A contrast with Avraham is helpful here. Avraham is a mekubal (receiver) of HaSh-m and is also famed as a mekubal of people. His tent, it is said, opens to people on four sides. Noach is a mekubal of HaSh-m but does not receive people. But isn't this backward? If one can receive HaSh-m, shouldn't one mekabel people? If one can receive The One who is supremely elusive and mysterious, shouldn't one be able to receive an average Ploni whose ways are familiar and understandable? Noach, whose life's work is the preservation of a world with which he can't connect, has his head stuck in the Heavens that rain down destruction on that very world!
In alignment with that irony, commentators push away Noach in the effort to exault the midoth (virtues) HaSh-m desires; and, in that process, Noach's connection to HaSh-m, his great virtue, is understood as a weakness. In Midrash Rabbah, Rav J[eh]uda comments on "Noach walked with G-d", a verse that speaks to Noach's intimacy with HaSh-m: "This may be compared to a king who had two sons, one grown up and the other a child; to the child he said, 'Walk with me,' but to the adult 'Walk before me.' Similarly, to Avraham, whose [moral-spiritual] strength was great, [HaSh-m said] 'Walk thou before Me' (Bereishit 17:1); of Noach, whose strength was feeble, [the Torah says], 'Noach walked with G-d.'"
Is it easier to receive humans than to receive HaSh-m, to receive like rather than Unlike? It might be precisely the familiarity with people, exactly the face-or fa?ade-of understanding a person, that inhibits reception, because the appearance of knowledge allows us to decide beforehand what the person will give us. Noach-for better and/or worse-is not equipped to receive the highly destructive personalities of his day. Rather than urge the corrupt souls into teshuva (repentance), his familiarity with their ways forces him away. He doesn't even draw them near in his thoughts, he doesn't even pray for them. But why do the commentaries attribute the lack of connection to an inability of Noach and not to the extreme danger of the world's people? Why criticize Noach, why not bemoan the situation of the world that prevented the great tzaddiq Noach from doing the mitzvoth of bringing people near to HaSh-m?
Peculiar that Noach, who saved humanity for our sakes, draws such harsh criticism, ironic that the father of all communities and individuals should have been individuated into isolation and cut off from the possibility of community. May the struggle of Noach in his relationship with the world be to us as the tzohar (sky-light) in the ark, illuminating for us and seeing us in our darkest, most lonely, most delicate times. Shabbat Shalom, friends.