PERSONIFICATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Noach was the symbol of righteousness. No other person is described in the Torah as a “perfectly righteous” person. Righteousness is defined as one who does everything right; no deviation to the right or the left.
It turned out that his obsession with being righteous was both strength and weakness. Because he was so “straight” he did not know how to “go out” of his personality, seek out people of differing natures and speak to them with empathy to mend their ways so that the Flood could have been averted. Tellingly, the Zohar characterized the Flood as “Noach’s flood” because of his failure to prevent it.
Noach was a product of the natural world, where every creature is fixed in its mold with little wiggle room to expand and go out of its own nature. Noach was truly not at fault. In G-d’s plan, the pre-Sinai dynamic did not allow one to break out of his or her boundaries.
Avraham, by contrast, was the first to break away from the constraints of his nature. As we will read in next week’s Torah portion, G-d told Avraham to leave his “land, his birthplace and his father’s house.” Chassidic teaching interprets this as a need for Avraham to break away from his natural instincts and the mold from which he was cast by virtue of his upbringing and environment.
Although Avraham lived in the pre-Sinai era, his life was a necessary precursor to the Revelation at Sinai. His efforts paved the way for Sinai and for us to break out of our mold, particularly, the Galus prison to which we are still confined.
AVRAHAM THE FIRST JEW; NOT NOACH
We can now understand why, as Jews, we trace ourselves back to Avraham and not to Noach. Being Jewish requires us to break out of our own molds.
The question now arises: if Avraham is our preeminent role model, and we trace ourselves back to him rather than to Noach, why do we spend an entire week focused on Noach? True, he was a model of righteousness, but so were Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Why do we need to study an apparently unsuccessful model of righteousness this entire week?
SINGULAR OR PLURAL?
The answer to this question can perhaps be found in the manner in which the Torah sums up his life:
“And all the days of Noach was nine hundred fifty years…” Although, referring to all of his days, the Hebrew original uses the term “vayehi-was,” which is in the singular tense. Why is this?
The question is even more nuanced when we compare this verse to the way in which the Torah sums up the lives of others. We can see that Noach is a special case.
Take for example, the way the Torah sums up the life of Adam:
“All the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty, and he died.” Here the Torah uses the plural form “vayihyu-were.” Why would the Torah deviate from the correct grammatical rule concerning the days of Noach and use the singular form of vayehi?
TWO APPROACHES
The answer, perhaps, lies in Noach’s unique contribution to our lives, which justifies the need for us to learn of, and place so much attention on, his life.
There are two valid ways we can live our lives within the framework of Judaism. But following only one of these approaches can leave us deficient in our role as Jews.
The first approach, which we will call the Noach model, is singular. Every aspect of our lives is attuned to one overarching goal. It is like being on a journey with our minds focused solely on our destination and how we will get there. There is no time or room for sight-seeing. Going off the road, even momentarily, for some extra-curricular activities (meant in a positive vein) is out of the question. Every ounce of our strength, every faculty of our soul and limb of our body, every personality trait, has to be attuned to realizing our mission.
The second approach is the opposite. As we journey along the highway of life, we take advantage of every sight along the way. We welcome every opportunity to learn something from an experience no matter how tangential it may seem to our goal. As the Psalmist declares: “From G-d a man’s steps are established.” If we get “lost” on a trip and veer off the beaten path, it is for a reason. There must be some challenge there for us to meet, even if it appears to keep us away from our destination.
A Jew is a paradox. He or she is a product of both heaven and earth; obsessed with the desire to serve G-d with love and with awe. As Jews, we are expected to focus on our goal of bringing about the ultimate Redemption, even as we try to see the meaning in everything we experience along the way.
However, being involved in many diverse areas of endeavor can cause us to lose the focus on our goal. To prevent that, the Torah has given us the story of Noach’s singular life. His example helps us focus on, and conclude, our journey towards the ultimate Redemption.
To be more precise, the Rebbe told us that we have already reached our destination and entered the Messianic Age. Our objective now is to open our eyes wide enough to see the new reality that exists and to internalize the Messianic ideal and way of life. In the Rebbe’s words, our task today is to “greet or internalize Moshiach.”
Since we have reached our destination, the time has come to shift over to following the first, single-minded, approach. We now must bring all of our attention to bear on internalizing all that the Geula represents.
NOACH’S SINGULAR LIFE
This, we may suggest, is the eternal lesson we learn from Noach and which, therefore, justifies our spending time with him. The Noach model is one of singularity. Noach’s life was dedicated to one, and only one, goal to save the world from extinction. Convincing other people to repent would have been an admirable thing for him, but in his world view that would have been a side-show and tangential to his mission of building the ark, gathering all of the species of animals and sheltering them so they could survive and start life anew in the aftermath of the devastating flood.
Changing the hearts of multitudes would have been a great accomplishment; but that was not Noach’s primary mission and he was not capable of doing both.
NOACH’S ABERRATION
It is fascinating that after Noach leaves the Ark he plants a vineyard and finds oblivion in his wine. That is the moment when he is disgraced by his son Cham and grandson Canaan.
Rashi comments that Noach profaned himself by planting a vineyard before planting other things.
Rashi seems to suggest that Noach’s mistake was in his priorities. If Noach’s claim to fame was his tenacious focus on the goal, he was faulted when he got sidetracked by desire to celebrate his salvation with wine. While that may have been motivated by a desire to thank G-d, it would still have been a deviation from his singular goal of rebuilding a world.
The fact that Noach offered sacrifices along the way was not considered a deviation because G-d intimated to him that he should bring those offerings as a way of securing the world in the future. Indeed, when G-d told him to bring seven of the kosher animals (as opposed to two of the non-kosher ones) Noach understood that it was to bring offerings after the Flood. The offerings were not to be a gesture of gratitude, but rather part of G-d’s formula for never bringing another flood and thereby securing the future of the world. That was Noach’s true mandate, as opposed to planting a vineyard, even if it was for the purpose of celebrating his salvation and praising G-d.
This explains why the Torah sums up the life of Noach with the single expression, “his days was,” because all of his days were dedicated to this single overarching role of saving the world.
TWO SINGULAR GOALS
The question that arises from this analysis is that with regard to Avraham and Yitzchak the Torah uses the plural form, whereas with respect to Yaakov it also uses the singular.
The answer to this question lies in the different roles of Avraham and Yitzchak as compared to Yaakov. Avraham and Yitzchak were not just the progenitors of the Jewish people. They were also the ancestors of many other nations. They therefore had a diversified role. Avraham’s relationship with Yishmoel was different from his relationship with Yitzchak. Likewise, Yitzchak related differently to Yaakov and Eisav. To the former he gave all of his most powerful physical and spiritual blessings and to the latter he bequeathed physical power.
Yaakov, by contrast, was exclusively the father of the Jewish people. He represents the singularity and immortality of Jewish existence. The Talmud states that Yaakov never died. One way of understanding that statement is that Yaakov is embodied in the entire Jewish people. Indeed, the Kabbalists say that all of the souls of all Jews for eternity were consolidated in the soul of Yaakov. Just as the Jewish people are an eternal people, so was Yaakov. Yaakov’s life and legacy is the continued existence of the Jewish people until the coming of Moshiach.
Whereas Noach’s singularity was designed to keep the world going, Yaakov’s was designed for Jewish continuity, which leads the world inexorably to its intended goal – the coming of Moshiach.
We can now appreciate why we must live with Noach for an entire week. His example provides us with the power to maintain a single-minded obsession with our goal. Before we learn about the multifarious avenues that we inherited from our Patriarchs and the twelve sons of Yaakov, we must instill within ourselves the singular Noach-consciousness that will enable us to focus on the goal of Moshiach and Redemption.