Noah's greatest virtue is obedience - whatever God wishes to do, Noah is ready to accept.
By SHLOMO RISKINnoah ark 88(photo credit: )
How may we best understand Noah's complex personality? On the one hand, he is a towering personality who "found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6:8) and was saved from the global deluge apparently because he was righteous and wholehearted (ibid. 9).
Both of these superlatives are used with regard to Abraham, the first Hebrew - "And the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, 'walk in front of Me and be wholehearted'" (Gen. 17:1); "for I have loved [Abraham] … in order that he may command his household… to do righteousness and justice" (Gen. 18:19).
On the other hand, Noah was not chosen as the first Jew, and even our introductory glimpse describes him as having found "grace" in the eyes of the Lord. Remember, "grace" (hen, Hebrew) connotes undeserved favor, with hen related to hinam, for free, a divine gift rather than a reward.
Even more to our point is a very strange Midrash cited by Rashi on the phrase "wholehearted in his generations": "There are those of our sages who expound it to his detriment; …only in his generation was he considered righteous; had he lived in the generation of Abraham, he wouldn't have been worth anything."
What would cause the rabbis of the Talmud, who, against the plain meaning of the text, praise Esau for his filial respect and the desert generation for its fealty to God, to come down so heavily on Noah, when the text seems to be lauding him unqualifiedly?
The Maharal places the emphasis on a comparison between Noah and Abraham in which Noah emerges clearly wanting. First of all, a textual comparison: Abraham is always pictured as walking in front of God, as clearing the rubble (corrupt and idolatrous rabble) in order to allow the Almighty to enter, whereas Noah is pictured as walking alongside God. As Rashi declares: "Noah required [divine] help to support him, whereas Abraham strengthened himself, and went forward by himself in his righteousness."
Most significantly, when these individuals were faced with similar challenges they each reacted very differently. When the Almighty tells Abraham His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the first Hebrew argues aggressively, railing against a wholesale destruction: "Will you then destroy the righteous together with the wicked?... Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous together with the wicked!... Will the judge of the entire earth not act justly? (Gen. 18:23-25).
And Abraham goes on to bargain with God as if they were standing in the Mahaneh Yehuda market.
In stark contrast, when God informs Noah that He is about to destroy the world, we hear not a peep of protest.
It seems to me that precisely in this contrast we can understand the entire picture. Noah's greatest virtue is obedience - whatever God wishes to do, Noah is ready to accept. He takes the world as it is, and submits to whatever plan God suggests.
That is not the mission that God wishes to impose on His chosen people. God knows that He has created an imperfect world, and wants His people to perfect it, to challenge and goad even Him to cause His compassion to overcome His anger and even His strict justice. God is not seeking pure obedience; He wants to be challenged.
The fundamental source for this point is a beautiful Midrash (Tanhuma Buber on Noah 14) which faults Noah for waiting for God's permission to leave the ark; the author of this teaching, R. Yehuda bar Ilai, apparently wanted Noah to refuse to enter the ark in the first place, to dare God to kill him together with the mass of humanity, much as Moses dared God to "wipe him from His book" before destroying the Jewish nation. On the biblical words "Get out of the ark" (Gen. 8:16), R. Yehuda declares: "Had I been there, I would have broken the ark apart and left."
Moses importunes God, dares God, argues with God again and again on behalf of his errant nation - and he (most probably as a result of this attitude) is the greatest Jewish prophet who ever lived. The very root word for prayer is probably derived from the noun which means "wrestling" - t'fila, naftali - since the act of prayer must be an act of "wrestling with God," as it were. This is referred to in the verse which rewards Jacob with his new name, Israel - "because you have wrestled against God and against people, and you have overcome" (Gen. 32:29). And even the generic name Ivri (Hebrew) according to the Midrash, comes from the fact that Abraham stood on one side ("ever") of the world, with everyone else on the other.
I believe that the operative voice of the Jew vis-a-vis God and the world must be that of Job; "Yes, though He slay one, in Him shall I trust; but I must prove my ways (and what I believe is right) in front of Him" (Job 13:15).
Since Noah was the essence of compliance and obedience, he could not become the first Jew.
The writer is the founder and chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs, and chief rabbi of Efrat.
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