פרשת נח
In this week’s Parsha, Noah warns the people that Hashem is going to bring a flood. The Gemara in Sanhedrin (ק”ח) says that for 120 years, Noah rebuked the people of his generation, yet all this didn’t help — the people didn’t do teshuva. And so G-d brought the flood, causing mankind, animals and plant life to perish.
It’s very hard to understand why the rebuke of Noah didn’t work. Picture it: every single day, for 120 years, Noah warned everyone passing by his football-field-sized ark, “You must change your ways! Look at yourselves! You must stop robbing, worshipping idols, cheating and doing immoral acts! You’re bringing destruction upon yourselves!” And yet, not a single listener was persuaded to change his ways. The passuk says he was a צדיק תמים – a perfectly righteous man – who “walked with G-d.” Why would anyone be reluctant to hear the words of such a holy man? Moreover, Noah was an expert in public relations. The Sforno says he excelled in all mitzvos בן אדם לחברו – between man and his neighbor. The Medrash Tanchuma relates that Noah was Avraham Avinu’s role model in all matters involving chesed: the Medrash says Avraham once met Noah’s son Shem and asked him, “Through what deeds did you merit to be saved from the flood?” Shem responded, “It’s because day and night, we were doing chesed, feeding all the animals in the ark. We didn’t have time to sleep, eat or rest. In this merit, we were saved.” Avraham said, “If this is what chesed can do, I am also going to do chesed.” Noach’s kindness was the inspiration for Avraham to open up a hotel for all mankind to eat, drink and sleep. So again, we must ask: If Noah was such a tzaddik and such a big baal chesed, why didn’t his rebuke have any effect, such that not one person was chozer b’tshuva because of him? How could this be? Consider that even the worst baal teshuvah yeshiva – so an old joke says – attracts a few students!
The Sforno sheds light on this difficulty. He answers that Noah truly did rebuke them, but it was not the type of rebuke that would cause them to change their ways. By scolding them that they were deficient in דרך ארץ – that their ways were not proper for people to act – Noah himself was giving deficient rebuke. Why is this? It’s because when you rebuke someone based on what you claim is improper behavior, that person can easily claim that his behavior is, in fact, proper and that it’s completely OK to act this way. It’s your word against his — which is why this type of rebuke doesn’t work. Contrast this with the rebuke of Avraham Avinu. When he wanted to change people’s actions, he started by telling them, “There is a G-d, and He sees all what we do. He controls the whole world and all that happens in the world — and He holds people accountable for their actions.” This type of tochacha takes hold, since when a person considers that there is a G-d who tells us all how to act, who expects certain behaviors from us, he is open to feeling truly ashamed of his actions and motivated to make real changes in his life.
Rav Moshe Schwab, the Mashgiach of Gateshead, provides a deeper insight into this difference between Noah and Avraham Avinu. He points out that said Noah’s outlook was based on proper manners, whereas Avraham’s was based solely on Hashem. He elaborates on this by citing the Medrash Tanchuma (Noah, 13), which says that when Noah planted the vineyard, the Satan came to him and said, “Let us be partners.” Significantly, Noah agreed. Then the Satan killed a sheep, a lion, a pig and a monkey, and he used their blood to water the vineyard. Noah asked why. The Satan responded that when a person drinks wine, at the beginning, he’s like a sheep, tame. When he drinks more, he becomes confident, like a lion. When he drinks still more, he’s like a pig, who happily wallows around in his own excretions; and finally, when he becomes completely inebriated, he’s like a monkey, who jumps around like a fool. We see that Noah was willing to become a partner with the Satan and even listen to his mussar. However, when the Satan came to Avraham Avinu during the incident of the Akeidah of Yitzchok, asking Avraham, “How can you slaughter your only son? How can you kill a pure neshama?” – Avraham retorted, “I can’t talk to you. I have to do the will of Hashem.” This, Rav Schwab notes, was the crux of the difference between Noah and Avraham: Noah was willing to hear, and to partner with, the Satan, as long as what he said made sense and did not contradict the Torah. Yet Avraham Avinu had only one thing on his mind: Hakadosh Baruch Hu – and thus he wouldn’t hear what the Satan had to say. Noah was willing to influence others using secular means, yet Avraham employed only Divine methods.
The Sefas Emes brings a chazal which says that Noah היה צריך סעד לתומכו — “needed help to support him” — in his service of G-d, whereas Avraham Avinu “went in his righteousness” — all alone. Even though both men were alive before the Torah was given at Sinai, Noah lacked spiritual strength and needed Hashem to push him, but Avraham Avinu, through his total focus on Hashem and great self-sacrifice for G-d’s sake, was zoche to know the whole Torah before it was given. He had tremendous spiritual strength from the Torah, and this was the foundation of all his actions. He was a ben Torah, in the truest sense.
We see from this week’s Parsha how important it is to be a true ben Torah. A real ben Torah is not only someone who puts all his strength into Torah learning at every moment, but he is also someone whose entire outlook — everything he says, does and thinks, as well as all his mannerisms and interactions with people — is wholly based on Torah. All his ideas in life, he gets from the Torah. Such a person is complete in his Avodah. Anything external — whether it’s a newspaper, secular radio, or the Internet — takes away from his being a ben Torah.
There’s a powerful Gemora (Chagigah 15b) which introduces a great Tanna named Acher, who was the Rebbe of Rebbe Meir. Acher was a tremendous chacham and taught huge amounts of Torah to his generation. Unfortunately, Acher, towards the end of his life, went off the derech and committed gross averas. The Gemora asks, “What happened to him?” The Gemora answers, “Even when he was younger, Italian songs didn’t stop from his mouth, and he read secular books.” Even with all his Torah, these seemingly harmless outside influences caused a great Tanna to fall. We see how careful we must be to guard anything foreign and keep ourselves totally involved in Torah.
May we all be zoche to be true b’nai Torah, controlled totally by the Torah!