I heard an interesting twist on an old classic.
The Meshech Chochma points out from a Midrash that we often see characters in tanach evolve over time, and he contrasts the careers of Moshe Rabeinu and of Noach. Noach is introduced in this week’s parsha as “eesh tzadik,” but after the flood he is referred to as “eesh haadamah.” Whereas Moshe’s career begins with him referred to as an “eesh mitzri” (as he helps Yitro’s daughters at the well) and ends in the final parsha of the Torah where he is “eesh haelokim.”
The Meshech Chochmah explains that in our lives, we have trajectories. Some of us are going up, and some of us are going down. We strive to emulate the career trajectory on Moshe Rabeinu and not of Noach.
This is a beautiful idea, but as you may know I am not a big fan of Noach bashing, so I would like to share a positive spin I saw this week in Kol Simcha by Rav Simcha Bunim of Pshischa. Rav Simcha Bunim explains that Noach being an eesh haadamah after the mabul was not a negative thing; it was a compliment! Noach was able to live in the world and combine his great spiritual stature with the physical world. Before the mabul, Noach was a tzadik, but he had in a sense isolated himself from the world. Now that Noach has survived the flood, he has a new opportunity to use his spiritual prowess to engage in the physical world, and he is praised as being an eesh ha’adama.
I think we can learn both the message of the Meshech Chochmah and of Rav Simcha Bunim. When we find ourselves going through a spiritually difficult period, we can perhaps motivate ourselves to improve by recalibrating our trajectories. At the same time, we must be careful how we define success. When a Yeshiva student returns from studying in Israel and begins college, he realizes he will decrease the number of hours he spends learning Torah. He may look at this like a spiritual decline, but hopefully he can appreciate that his new role as eesh haadama can be empowering. Noach had new potential after stepping off the teiva to engage in the world, and by emulating that worldly engagement with spiritual vigor, we can really reach the higher level of an eesh haadama while maintaining our upward trajectories towards eesh haelokim.
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