My father asked me this week, as he does many weeks, what I will be speaking about this Shabbos. I told him, as I tell him many weeks, that I haven’t decided yet. Before the conversation ended, he commented
Just make sure to stay away from any Noach bashing.
Noach seems to be a magnet for criticism. At each step of the story, Noach does something wrong: he fails to inspire his generation, he does not pray for their survival, he waits until the rain picks up before entering the ark, his first thought leaving the ark is to plant a vineyard.
This attitude stems from a famous Rashi at the beginning of the parsha.
Noach ish tzadik tamim haya bdorotav. Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generation.
Rashi comments on the word bdorotav, in his generation. Why does the Torah stress the fact that Noach was righteous in his generation?
Rashi provides two possibilities:
1) Lshvach, To praise him- Noach remained righteous despite the fact that evil surrounded him on all sides. He was righteous even in his generation.
2) Lgnai, To put him down- Noach righteousness was relative to his generation. He was a big fish in a small pond. Had he lived in the generation of Avraham, he would not be considered a tzaddik.
I understand the first explanation of Rashi. The Torah stresses that Noach was righteous in his generation to stress how tremendously righteous he was.
But according to the second position, why does the Torah add an extra word to degrade Noach? What does that accomplish, why would the Torah want to put down the protagonist of the story before it even begins?
I saw a YouTube video recently featuring the baseball team at Mesa Community College, a small college in Arizona. The team was told that a transfer student wanted to try out for the team. Little did they know this “transfer student” was Chicago Cubs All Star Kris Bryant pranking their team. Jaws dropped as they watched him hit batting practice, hitting home run after home run until they realized they had been fooled. At one point in the video, he turns to one of the students and ask what position do you play? Third base. Me too.
Comparing any of us to Avraham Avinu would be like competing against a major league MVP. We don’t stand a chance. We do not perform the level of chessed of Avraham, we cannot even fathom the sacrifices Avraham was willing to make in his life.
In a sense, the Torah telling us that Noach pales in comparison to Avraham makes Noach’s character more relatable.
Noach was a regular guy. When other people sinned, he stood to the side. He may have had some deficiencies, but in his community, he was a tzaddik. We should all strive to be like Avraham, but striving to be like Noach is a meritorious goal as well.
The Torah puts down Noach, pointing out bdorotav, to create a model of tzaddik that each of us can emulate. The lofty standards of Avraham may be beyond us, we can each be great in our situation.
Hashem views each of us in the position He has placed us, taking into consideration our predispositions, our upbringing, and the challenges we face. The gemara (Sanhedrin 37a) teaches that a person must tell him or her self bishvili nivra ha’olam — For me the world was created. Our actions matter even if we are not an Avraham, as we see the entire world was saved for a person who was able to excel in his environment, bdorotav.
It reassures us to realize that Hashem is willing to save the world for the regular guy who does a pretty good job, and this is something we can all live up to. The Noachs of a shul make an extra effort to be involved, to reach out to new and old faces in shul, to uphold the decorum of davening, to commit themselves to setting time for Torah study. Outside of shul, the Noachs serve as role models at the office, at home, and on the road.
We may have a valid excuse to not match up to Avraham. But by emulating the paradigm of Noach, each of us can strive to excel on our own sliding scale, achieving greatness in our unique situation.
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