Noach was a good man
a good man, a good man
Noach was a good man
….In his time
– A Cheder Song
Noach is described as a Tzaddik, but the first Rashi on the Parsha casts a shadow on his righteousness. Dig in to the parsha and rediscover Noach’s greatness.
Update: Rabbi Nebenzhal has a good analysis of the above issue here. Hat tip: Bob Miller
As mentioned previously, Rabbi Rietti was kind enough to allow us to post the outline here, but you can purchase the entire outline of the Chumash for the low price of $11.95 for yourself and your family.
Noach
#6 Building Noach’s Ark
#7 The Flood
#8 Mt. Ararat
#9 Rainbow – Noach Drunk
#10 The Descendants of Shem, Cham & Yafet
#11 Tower of Bavel – 10 Generations of Noach
#6 Building Noach’s Ark
* Praise of Noach
* The Three Sons of Noach
* World corruption
* “Behold! I will destroy them utterly!”
* Build an ark
* Compartments
* 300 X 50 X 30 cubits
* Skylight – Slanted Roof – 3 Stories
* 1 Male – 1 Female of every animal – Store Food
#7 The Flood
* 7 pairs of kosher animals
* 2 pairs of non-kosher animals
* 7 pairs of birds
* Noach 600 years old when flood began (2nd month, 17th day)
* 40 days & 40 nights – 15 cubits above the highest mountain
* Total destruction
* 150 days
#8 Mt. Ararat
* 150 days till water receded
* 7th Month, 17th day, the Ark rested on Mt. Ararat
* 10th Month, 1st day mountain tops become visible
* Raven
* Dove #1, #2, #3
* 1st Tishrei Noach opened gate of Ark
* 2nd Month, 27th day, land was totally dry (exactly 365 days after the flood began).
* ‘Leave the Ark!’
* Noach built an Altar
* G-d appeased & promises never to flood the earth again
* Four seasons
#9 Rainbow – Noach Drunk
* Blessing to Noach “Be fruitful and Multiply!”
* All living creatures will fear you
* You can eat meat but not flesh from living animal
* Violation of suicide
* Death penalty for murder
* Command to be fruitful and multiply
* G-d promises never to flood entire world again
* Rainbow is sign of this promise
* Noach planted a vineyard
* Drunk
* Canaan cursed: slave of slaves to his brothers
* Blessed Shem and Yafet
* Noach died 950
#10 The Descendants of Noach
* Descendants of Yafet and Cham (Nimrod grandson of Cham & 1st world despot)
* Descendents of Canaan
* Descendants of Shem
#11 Tower of Bavel – 10 Generations of Shem
* One Language
* The Tower
* HaShem scattered them
* 10 Generations of Shem
* 11th Gen. Shem 600
* 12th Gen. Arpachshad 438
* 13th Gen. Shelach 433
* 14th Gen. Ever 464
* 15th Gen. Peleg 239
* 16th Gen. Re’oo 239
* 17th Gen. Serug 230
* 18th Gen. Nachor 248
* 19th Gen. Terach 205 – Avram-Nachor-Haran
* Haran – Lot – Milka & Yiska (Sarai). Haran dies in Ur Kasdim
* Avram marries Sarai
* Nachor marries Milka
* 20th Gen. Avram
* Terach leaves Ur Kasdim with Avram, grandson Lot & Sarai
* Terach dies in Charan
It is all too easy to view the life of Noah from the prism of before and after the flood.Even Rashi, who quotes both views as to Noah’s level of Tzidkus, describes Noah as one who is “Ketanei Emunah” before the flood because he almost had to be dragged into the ark and because he did not engage in trying to change the behavior of his generation.
It’s indisputable that he was a Tzaddik because the Torah calls him such. The question is how does b’doratav modify the word Tzaddik. Some say it means a bigger Tzaddik and some say it means a lessor Tzaddik. But I think everybody agrees that he was not as great as Avraham.
let us not forget that Rashi quotes both sides of the debate in chazal, both the side that says he was a tzadik “for his generation” and the one that says he was a tzadik EVEN in that generation.
Even looking at it from the side that is doresh “b’dorotav” legnai (negatively), how many of us (or even those we know or have heard about and consider to be much greater than us) have had God speak to us directly (“ki otcha ra’iti tzadik lifanai bador hazeh” etc)? The Torah wants us to know that Noach was a great man, even if there were some who were greater.
I’d hesitate to say that Rashi or Chazal overplay anything. It’s more in the way we use their analysis in sermons, etc.
This is from wiki. I never really thought about it like this.
“In 2009, John D. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research wrote that, “if the flood of Noah indeed wiped out the entire human race and its civilization, as the Bible teaches, then the Ark constitutes the one remaining major link to the pre-flood World. No significant artifact could ever be of greater antiquity or importance… [with] tremendous potential impact on the creation-evolution (including theistic evolution) controversy.”
The question is why Rashi, based on Chazal do in fact overplay his shortcomings.
The discussion of Noach often revolves around how he’d stack up relative to Avraham Avinu. I’d imagine that we today wouldn’t compare well at all to Avraham Avinu! Since in our generation a Noach could easily be a great tzaddik, we shouldn’t overplay his shortcomings.