The Torah describes No’ach as a perfectly righteous person. However, some of our ancient rabbis were critical of him. They explained that, unlike Abraham, he didn’t have the strength of character and the power of persuasion to engage in arguments with his wicked neighbours and friends. He secluded himself concentrating on learning about spiritual matters and praying to God. For this reason he had no impact and changed nothing in the world around him. In fact, he thought that if he would engage with his contemporaries, he and his family would be in danger of being influenced by them.
When No’ach was born, people placed great hopes in him. He gave them enormous comfort. They said that he was destined to remove the curse from the face of the earth, which Adam had caused when he sinned. No’ach did not disappoint in this respect. He did remove the curse. He became a man of the earth and planted the first vineyard. Indeed, that vineyard brought the tragedy upon his family in which he cursed one of his sons. He did not bring blessings to the world. That privilege was reserved for Abram. When Abram appears on the scene, the word blessing is mentioned five times. It counteracts the five references to curses in the first two Sidrot of the Torah.
The first verse in the Sidra has attracted some interesting comments. It starts with the words: ELEH TOLDOT NO’ACH. “These are the children of NO’ACH”. But, then, the Torah continues to tell us about Noach’s righteousness. The lesson is that when we mention a person’s name and we know that he has good qualities, we should mention them. It is a mitzvah to praise people especially in their absence. It creates good will and friendship. The first verse in chapter 7 reads: The Lord said to No’ach: “Enter the Ark with your family, because I have seen that you are a righteous man in this generation”. Rashi asks: Why did God not say to him ‘perfectly righteous’, as it says about him in the first verse of the Sidra? He answers that it comes to teach us that when you praise a person in his presence, you don’t say everything good that you know about him. You limit yourself. You must not create jealousy and attract negative comments.
One of the major lessons which the Torah wants to teach us in the story of the flood is that when society abandons its faith in God, people lose their moral and ethical values as well. Judaism insists that this is true, even if there are many people who do not believe in God and nevertheless lead moral lives. Sometimes the process of degeneration in moral and ethical standards can take a few centuries. The catastrophic decline in morality which culminated with the flood was also a gradual process and took 10 generations.
This lesson is implicit in the text of the Sidra. The first verse tells us that: “No’ach was a perfectly righteous man in his generation and that he walked with God.” The second verse tells us that “the Earth became corrupt before God”. The expression ‘before God’ implies that society denied the existence of God. According to the Talmud, they proclaimed: Who is the Lord, that we should serve him? The direct result of this denial was that the world became filled with violence. Enduring good and decent conduct is achievable only when society is imbued with faith in God and the fear of Him.
When Noah came out of the Ark, God gave him and his family seven Mitzvot which are known by the Hebrew title: ‘SHEVA MITZVOTH BNEI NO’ACH’. Three of those Mitzvot are the most serious of crimes. They are so grave that a Jew has to give up his life rather than violate them. These Mitzvot are: the prohibitions against idolatry, incest and murder. Jewish people have given up their lives in order to sanctify God’s name, by not abandoning their faith. Abram was put in a furnace of fire, but was miraculously saved Chanaiah, Misha’el and Azariah, whose story is told in the Book of Daniel, were also put in fire for refusing to abandon the faith. They too survived. During the persecutions which led to the Festival of Chanukah, a woman by the name of Channah gave up her life together with all her seven sons, who did likewise, in defiance of the Greek commander who demanded that she and her sons should bow down before his idol. Many other situations in which Jews gave up their lives for the sake of their religion arose during the period of the Crusades and later.
When No’ach came out of the Ark, he was given permission to eat meat for the first time. Adam had only been allowed to eat vegetables. The reason for this permission was educational. The Almighty wanted to train people and impress upon them their extraordinary status in the world and and also to emphasise that there is a huge difference between human beings and animals. The root of all the terrible sins and crimes which had been committed by humanity before the flood, was that people did not understand the value of being human and imitated animals. This is a great mistake which can be found nowadays in many quarters and for which we are paying a very high price.
The first three HAFTAROT of the year come from the chapters of comfort and reassurance in the second part of the book of Isaiah. Thus they constitute a natural continuation of the theme of consolation in the last seven of the HAFTAROT which we read between Tisha b’Av and Rosh Hashanah. This remarkable sequence may not have been intentional. Nevertheless, it brings the total number of prophetic readings of comfort to 10, which is a significant figure.
Almost every Haftarah in the annual cycle has a clear connection with the Sidra. In the case of No’ach the link is completely obvious. The Haftarah mentions the flood by describing it as the Waters of No’ach. Our rabbis remark that this may indicate that the prophet Isaiah blamed No’ach for the flood. He also thought that No’ach could have done more to save his generation.