When Righteousness Isn't Enough

Noach (Genesis 6:9-11:32 )

Noah: an island of righteousness in an ocean of wickedness; a lone beacon of morality in a world gone mad. And yet, do we celebrate Noah as one of the forefathers? Do we look at him as the model of human being we aspire to achieve? No. In fact, most commentaries look at the story of Noah as a cautionary tale. A tale that shows us that sometimes, righteousness just isn’t enough. But where, exactly, did Noah fall short? And what more could be expected of a man who achieved remarkable personal righteousness in a generation of utter depravity?

Our first clue that there's more here than meets the eye is the transformation in how the Torah describes Noah. We meet him as an "Ish Tzaddik" - a righteous man. Yet by the end of his life, the Torah calls him an "Ish Adama" - a man of the ground. Consider, in contrast, the arc of Moses, who is first introduced as "Ish Mitzri" - a man of Egypt, yet at the end of his life, God describes him as an "Ish Elohim" - a man of God. What could these shifts in title indicate about these two protagonists?

Aish

Even more telling is how the Torah describes Noah's relationship with the Divine: "Noah walked with God." Yet of Avraham, it says he "walked before God." Rashi, the greatest of all Torah commentators, explains this contrast pointedly: Noah relied on God like a crutch, whereas Avraham "drew his moral strength from himself and walked in his righteousness by his own effort" (Bereishis 6:9).

Perhaps most startling, though, is what we find in the Haftara for Parshas Noach. Isaiah refers to the flood as "Mei Noach" - the Waters of Noah (Isaiah 54:9). The commentators interpret these words with ruthless literalism; Noah caused the Flood - were it not for Noah's failures, his generation would've been spared. How could we possibly blame the flood on Noah? He did exactly what God asked!

Let’s use these clues to discover what led to Noah’s downfall.

As we saw above, Rashi contrasts Noah's walking with God to Avraham's walking before God. When we compare the lives of Noah and Avraham, we see dramatically different paths of leadership. When God reveals His plan to destroy humanity, Noah builds an ark. Though God gave him 120 years to complete this task - years that Rashi tells us were meant for Noah to influence his generation toward repentance - he failed to save even a single soul beyond his family. Avraham, in contrast, dedicated his life to reaching out to others. He opened his tent to weary travelers, gave them food and shelter, and taught them the ways of God. As the Alshich, a 16th century Kabbalist of Tzfat, explains,

"Noah was personally righteous but did not teach others as Avraham did. If his sons had not been worthy of salvation in their own right, he could not have saved them, just as he was unable to save even the children of his contemporaries."

But the most telling contrast between Noah and Avraham was Avraham’s response when God shared His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Unlike Noah, Avraham boldly negotiated, pleading for the cities to be spared if even a handful of righteous people could be found.

We see a similar theme when we compare the life of Noah to the life of Moses. As we mentioned earlier, Noah descended from an "Ish Tzaddik" to an "Ish HaAdama". Noah's fall from righteousness reaches rock bottom when, after exiting the ark, God gives Noah and his children the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply and populate the earth." Instead of fulfilling God's will, Noah's first action is to plant a vineyard, make wine, and drink himself into a stupor. According to the Midrash, the gruesome end to this story is that one of Noah's sons, Cham, finds him comatose in the tent and castrates him. Whether literal or not, we draw an essential lesson from Noah's castration; at a time where the world desperately needed optimism and new life, Noah indulged in self-centered escapism. Measure for measure, Noah's son castrated him; "If you don't use it, you lose it."

On the other side of the spectrum, Moses rose from an "Ish Mitzri" to an "Ish Elohim''. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the first set of tablets, he found the Jewish people worshipping the Golden Calf. Outraged, he destroys the idol and punishes the people for their wickedness. But when God proposes to wipe out the nation and start anew with Moses alone - offering him the same opportunity given to Noah - Moses takes the exact opposite approach. He puts his own life on the line, pleading for mercy on behalf of his people and compelling them toward repentance.

Despite his flaws, we can certainly empathize with Noah. He achieved complete piety in a generation of complete perversion. Even his decision to indulge in wine to numb the pain of walking out to a world of complete destruction and desolation is one we can relate to as painfully human. He was a great man. But he failed his mission as a leader. Because of his failure to lead, the great flood became known as the “Waters of Noah”. Unlike Noah, Avraham, the progenitor of our people, and Moses, the leader of our nation, transcended personal righteousness and risked everything before God to save those for whom they felt responsible. Unlike Noah, Avraham and Moses became the heroes we all aspire to be.

There's a telling story about Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, the founder of the Mussar Movement. When someone came to tell him about a man who he felt qualified as one of the 36 hidden tzaddikim of the generation, Rabbi Yisrael responded, "In this generation, I don't believe someone can be hidden and still be a tzaddik."

In the Ethics of Our Fathers, a book of 2000-year-old wisdom from our sages, Rabbi Hillel the Elder teaches, "In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man." The message resonates across millennia: where leadership abounds, focus on personal growth, but where there is no one else teaching and leading the generation, you must step forward and become that leader.

This week, make time to do a self-accounting. Ask yourself: Where am I meant to work on my personal righteousness and where does God need me to step up and serve His people? Our nation is more in need of Jewish leaders and activists than ever before. I encourage you to find those opportunities where there are no men and be the man (or woman) that the situation requires of you.

May we be blessed to grow together through the difficulties of our times, to unite as a nation, and to bring about a world filled with more peace and blessing as a result!

The Talmud (Succah 45B) tells us that in each generation, there are 36 righteous people whose good deeds hold up the world