Parasha Noach

"G-d said: I will obliterate humanity that I have created from the face of the earth; man, livestock, land animals and birds of the sky. I regret that I created them. But Noach found favour in G-d's eyes. Noach was a righteous man, faultless in his generation. Noah walked with G-d." (Genesis 6: 7-9).

When you think about this line, you realize how amazing it is. In the midst of a world so corrupt that G-d planned to kill everything init, Noach managed to not only stay righteous, but be righteous enough to cause G-d to rethink his plan to wipe out humanity.

In fact, no where else in the Torah, do we find G-d describing a man in such glowing terms. Why is it then that we only talk about Noach once a year, but we talk about our founding fathers and Moshe constantly? Some of our Talmudic Sages teach that Noach was only righteous compared to his generation, but compared to Abraham Avinu he was nothing. We get a hint of that from the phrase “Noach walked with G-d”. Noach needed G-d’s help to be so righteous, where as Abraham Avinu was righteous on his own.

Still, to be righteous in a world as corrupt as his is a great thing. So why did he not merit to be the first Jew? We get a hint from the end of Parash B’Reshit. The Torah bring down a list of the generations of Adam. Everyone has there first child between age 65 and 187, and fathers many more children. Noach had (only) three children, and not until age 500. Noach did not want to bring children into such a corrupt world. Even though he was a great person, he did not believe he could instill that in his children.

Rabbi Jay Kelman writes: “While understandable, this is not and can not be a Jewish attitude. It is not up to us to be derelict in our own duties due to possible fears about the future. Furthermore our job is to change that corrupt and morally depraved world by having children who will serve as a living example of righteousness and purity. While we must protect and prepare ourselves from the corrupting influences of the world at large, we must never give up hope of changing the world for the better. In times of despair we need to have additional, not less children. It is our children who are the hope for the future. And Judaism, regardless of the present, teaches that the future can and must be a better one. Without this mindset we could not have survived all these years under extremely trying circumstances.”

The honour of being the first Jew had to wait for someone who despite the corruption and around him, prayed desperately for a child. Abraham never gave up on the world around him. He was committed to bringing the world to a realization of one G-d. Being descendants from Abraham, we must carry his positive attitude and constant striving to improve the moral climate.