Parasha Noaj - 1 Cheshvan 5781

The Yetzer Hara

When Noach entered the Teivah (Ark), the Torah describes this by saying, “Noach, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, went into the Ark because of the waters of the Flood” (Bereishit 7:7). Rashi explains the intention of the words, “because of the waters of the Flood”: “Noach too was lacking in faith. He believed and did not believe that the Flood would come, and did not enter the Ark until the (rising) waters forced him to enter”.

This seems hard to understand for we are told about Noach at the end of Bereishit “But Noach found grace in the eyes of Hashem”. Similarly, at the begin-ning of Parshat Noach, it says “Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations”. If the Torah testifies about him that he was a tzaddik and found favor in Hashem’s eyes, why did he not enter the Teivah im-mediately when Hashem told him to do so? Why did he enter only when the waters forced him to seek ref-uge?

We can answer this according to the Mishna that tells us “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die” (Avot 2:4), for even someone who toiled and in-vested himself in Torah study his entire life, observ-ing all the mitzvot the minor as well as the major, the Yetzer Hara still does not despair and tries to make him stumble at all times, as Chazal say (Succah 52a), “One who is greater than his friend, his Evil Inclina-tion is greater”. The Yetzer Hara never gives up and the greater and more righteous a person is, his Yetzer Hara too becomes more sophisticated and intensifies according to the greatness of the person that he is within.

Noach was righteous and perfect and even found favor in Hashem’s eyes, but he made the mistake of thinking that after achieving such a high level, he no longer had to battle his Yetzer Hara. But his Yetzer Hara did not rest and continued trying to make him stumble, and since Noach no longer fought against the Yetzer Hara, his faith in the Creator cooled off and he vacillated in his faith.

When Noach left the Teivah he planted a vine and stumbled, for he did not realize that the Yetzer Hara continues to attack him without let up, and as is his way he persuaded him that there is nothing wrong with planting a vine. Even though his claim was correct, Noach should have conducted himself as behooves a tzaddik who follows the dictum ‘Sanctify yourself through the permitted’, to make restrictions for himself so as not to come to transgress the Torah.

Someone once came to visit me in Lyon. His was dressed in an immodest shirt, black leather jacket and metal-studded belt. He looked the picture of a reckless, empty-headed person, and I could not un-derstand what he was doing in my home. To my great astonishment, he asked me, “Don’t you recognize me? We studied together in Yeshiva in England!”

Slowly I recalled that he did appear familiar, but it was hard for me to believe that this was the same person that I was thinking of. However, to my amaze-ment, he was indeed that young man who had stud-ied together with me in Yeshiva. I remembered him as being extremely diligent in his Torah learning, and when I first arrived in Yeshiva we had even been study partners.

I then asked him how he had fallen so low. He re-plied that he deteriorated spiritually due to the Yetzer Hara’s incitement. It started with a quick glance at forbidden things and then he was slowly pulled inside the swampy mud from which it is so hard to extricate oneself. And when impurity enters Torah escapes, and that is why today he looks as he does. This was a clear demonstration for me of the great power of the Yetzer Hara.

Lujos

The Parsha begins with the verse, “These are the offspring of Noach, Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations”. Rashi quotes two different opinions.

Some Sages maintain that the phrase “in his genera-tions” is in Noach’s praise – he was righteous even in his corrupt generation; how much more righteous would he have been had he lived in a truly righteous generation. According to others, it is critical of him - only in his gen-eration, by comparison with his extremely wicked con-temporaries, did Noach stand out as a righteous man; but had he lived in the time of Avraham Avinu, he would have been insignificant.

The second opinion is difficult to understand. Noach performed Hashem’s will with all his heart and soul, to the extent that the verse says about him, “But Noach found grace in the eyes of Hashem” (Bereishit 6:8). Even when he was commanded to build the Teivah and his generation wished to kill him for this, he did not refrain from Hashem’s command and continued building the Teivah. If so, what reason is there to judge him nega-tively and say that had he lived in Avraham’s generation he would have been insignificant? Even if he was on a lower level than Avraham Avinu, he was still righteous.

It can be explained in the following way. When No-ach left the Teivah, the first thing he did was to plant a vineyard and from this act he became drunk and sinned. Planting a vineyard is not a forbidden act, a person may plant as many vineyards as he wishes. If so, how did this act bring him to sin? Because Hashem expected Noach to do more than just follow the commandments. He ex-pected him not to engage in the vanities of this world, even in matters that may be permitted. Certainly one may plant a vineyard, but this should not be the first act after being saved by Hashem from certain death by the Flood. He should have rather built a House of Worship to serve Hashem in prayer and Torah study.

Many people are on a quest for luxuries. They de-sire a nice car, a beautiful home, tasty, appetizing food, and many other things that enhance our pleasure in life. Chazal teach us that we should behave in the opposite manner, “Eat bread with salt, drink water in small mea-sure, sleep on the ground, live a life of deprivation, but toil in the Torah!” (Avot 6:4). We are certainly permitted to spread butter on our bread or drink sweet or alcohol-ic beverages. The point is that Hashem does not want us to invest all our thoughts in the pleasures of this world, for if one’s head is not occupied with worldly gratifica-tions, this leaves room for “but toil in the Torah!” The more one’s head and body are filled with futilities, the less space there is for the truly important spiritual mat-ters, since one is constantly occupied with amassing wealth so that one can acquire ever more luxuries.

I had the opportunity of visiting the home of my master and teacher, Rabbi Binyamin Zev Kaufman zt”l several times, and I was always impressed by its sim-plicity. Besides several pieces of furniture that dated back fifty or sixty years, the house was empty. Not due to a lack of means, for had he just hinted slightly that he was prepared to change his old furniture and live a more comfortable lifestyle, many of his worthy follow-ers would have willingly covered the cost and set him up in a more comfortable and spacious home. But he shunned all material concerns and his heart was not captivated by luxuries. He found no pleasure in new fur-niture or a tasty dish. His sole pleasure was toiling in the service of Hashem and His Torah. This was his single source of joy and pleasure throughout his life.

We must learn from Noach’s oversight and even if we have not achieved the high level of despising all worldly pleasures, we should at least try not to con-stantly pursue them and leave some time for Torah lec-tures and mitzvah observance.

Torah Study in All Situations

Noach’s name )חנ( symbolizes his essence, for his approach was to serve Hashem amid tranquility and serenity )החונמ(. Although Noach’s approach was not intrinsically forbidden, since there is no prohibition against living in peace and tranquility if one invests

one’s time in Torah study and mitzvah observance. However, this kind of lifestyle can bring man to stum-ble easily, for as soon as the tranquil conditions dis-appear, he is no longer capable of investing himself in Torah for he has not become accustomed to studying in stressful and hard times too.

Indeed, in the end, Noach stumbled and commit-ted an unfitting act. For an entire year he was con-fined to the Teivah and had to work day and night feeding the many animals, as Chazal describe. That year when he was bereft of tranquility and peace of mind, could have been the cause of Noach not en-gaging in a positive act when he left the Teivah, rath-er with the worldly planting of a vineyard.

The physical conditions of the Yeshiva where I studied in my youth were extremely challenging. I studied Torah in abject poverty, possessing one sin-gle suit that I wore for many years. When it became too threadbare and torn, the Rosh Yeshiva offered to buy me a new suit. We were given meagre rations of food, our main source of sustenance during the week was plain potatoes, and on Shabbat we merit-ed some extra dish that was entirely poor man’s fare.

During the freezing winter nights, lacking a warm blanket with which to cover ourselves, the cold would penetrate our very bones. Despite these con-ditions, we strove to continue toiling in Torah with all our strength. Those years of studying Torah amid

poverty are what stand for me until today. I recall them as the most beautiful years of my life, even though from a material perspective they were ab-solutely lacking. It is those years that push me still today to immerse myself in Torah in difficult times too, when I am weighed down by numerous troubles and concerns. For Torah that is studied amid stress becomes engraved in man’s heart more than Torah that is studied amid tranquility and affluence.

Someone who has become accustomed to living a life of affluence and abundance with all of life’s pleasures at his disposal, will find it hard to believe that one who is satisfied with little, lives a happier life. But the Tana (Avot 6:4) says that this concept cannot be understood until one tries it: “Eat bread with salt, drink water in small measure, sleep on the ground, live a life of deprivation, but toil in the Torah! If you do this, ‘You are fortunate, and all is well with you.’ ‘You are fortunate – in this world; ‘and all is well with you’ – in the World to Come”.

This Mishna is puzzling. We can understand that it will be good for you in the Next world, for through toiling in Torah out of strain one merits the Next World, but how does a life of strain and suffering lead to being fortunate in This World”?

Maran Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian zt”l explained that the Tana himself already answered this difficulty by

saying, “If you do this”. Meaning, one has to try and

live like this for a certain period of time so as to be-lieve and experience this wonder, for one who does so, will come face to face with the reality of how much a life of making do with little is full of satis-faction and joy. This is how one merits a feeling of fortune in this world too.

 

Building the World Anew

The Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr Elchanan, the Gaon Rab-bi Elazar Simcha Wasserman zt”l once noted that Parshat Noach teaches us how to conduct ourselves in times of crisis. He explained: We were part of an established world, we witnessed the prospering and thriving of European Jewry in the period before the World War, with all its numerous institutions of To-rah and chessed, with its Gedolim and Chachamim and all its ‘simple’ people. This is a world that today’s generation is familiar with only from stories related by their parents and grandparents. We later merited seeing how Hashem takes the ruins of His people and rebuilds them, how the Torah and Yeshiva world took root, developed and flourished with accelerated speed, in a way that one would never have imagined possible. Besides, today we are witness to the won-drous and beautiful phenomenon, the return jour-ney to Judaism that has never been more proliferate than in our generation.

Noach too experienced a world before its de-struction, while during the Flood he witnessed the annihilation of the entire world. When he left the Teivah and stepped into a desolate and destroyed world, he had to begin building the world anew. But Noach began with planting a vineyard which brought him to sin. The Jewish outlook teaches us that if G-d forbid, a Jew finds himself facing an era of de-struction, if he is surrounded by blood and fire and columns of smoke and eventually finds himself the solitary survivor, he must know and internalize that not for nothing did he remain alive. It is expected of him to begin building a new world.

The Torah tells us this so that we too should have the strength to stand up to the small ‘destructions’ that we experience in the course of our lives. If G-d forbid a person goes through a period of a miniature ‘Flood’, once the storm subsides he must pick himself up from the ashes despite the difficulties, and rather than escaping from life and becoming immersed in depression, he must invest his life and strength in re-building, establishing, and restoring the ruins.

When a person engages himself in restoring the world, he will be sent Heavenly Assistance, and through him will be fulfilled the verse (Tehillim 113:7), “He raises the needy from the dust, from the trash heaps He lifts the destitute”.

I once met someone who, while he was still ex-tremely wealthy, slowly drew closer to a religious lifestyle, eventually becoming a fully observant Jew. However, at this stage in his life, he was faced with difficult challenges. He suddenly lost all his money and was thrown into great debt. In addition, he be-gan experiencing problems with his marital harmony for several reasons that were not in his hands. Ac-cording to nature, someone like this who is accus-tomed to living a life of ease, can easily fall into de-spair when faced with this kind of situation.

But I noticed something astonishing. The more his troubles and challenges grew, the more joy he felt at hearing Torah insights. He added more and more Torah shiurim to his schedule and began living a life-style completely dedicated to Torah.

Once when I spoke to him about this, he told me that he feels that Hashem intensified his challenges and suffering only so that he should find the great-est pleasure in Torah study, and understand that the pleasures of This World are tenuous, in just one mo-ment they can disappear. It is the Torah alone that is Eternal. This man merited transforming his personal devastation into a spiritual edifice.

 

The Names of Hashem in the World

Hashem explains why He destroyed the entire world in the generation of the Flood, “And Hashem saw the earth and behold it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth” (Bere-ishit 6:12). That is to say that mankind corrupted its ways and cohabited with other species, and this be-came so widespread that it extended to the animals that learnt from man’s immoral conduct and also co-habited with species other than their own.

Hashem created the world with a prearranged organized design where each species seeks the inti-macy solely of its own kind. Similarly, with the pro-hibition of kilayim, Hashem forbade us to plant two different kinds of seeds adjacent to each other in one field, and it is also forbidden to plough the field with a plough that is attached to an ox and donkey, since harnessing two kinds of animals together is also con-sidered as kilayim. Furthermore, we must ensure that the garments we wear not be made from a mix-ture of wool and linen fibers. These mitzvot demon-strate Hashem’s desire that each species should pro-tect its uniqueness just as it was created in the Six Days of Creation, and not merge with other species.

The reason for this is that the Holy Zohar (sec-tion 1, 161:1) explains that Hashem looked in the Torah and created the world. Since the entire Torah is made up of Hashem’s Names, it follows that the entire creation was created using Hashem’s Names. Therefore, since the Names of Hashem are imprinted within every creature and creation in the world, we are forbidden to mix different species together, since this would cause chaos and disorder in Hashem’s Names. This disarray then presents a grave danger to the very existence of the world.

During the generation of the Flood, its people were exceedingly wicked and sinful toward Hash-em. They did not guard the sanctity of the family unit and the licentiousness and adulteration of this generation were so great, even to the extent that the animals and beasts were drawn after mankind’s im-purity and began cohabiting with species other than their own.

When Hashem saw how the land had become so corrupt, causing a complete jumble of the Holy Names with which the world was created, He had no choice but to destroy the entire world and create a new world in its place.

To our sorrow, in our day the entire world has turned into an obscene and corrupt generation, with the depravity of each new day surpassing that of the previous day. If in the past, a man had to go to a brothel to defile his soul, today immorality and licentiousness is found on every street corner. In recent years the Yetzer Hara has gone even further by implanting the abomination inside each person’s pocket, and the prohibition of immorality can be ef-fortlessly transgressed with just the press of a single button, may Hashem protect us and save us.

But the world is not free for all, and even if Hashem is patient and does not punish immediately, there is no doubt that such great disarray will sooner or later bring about the destruction of the world. We must guard ourselves closely and be extremely care-ful with all these abominations so that on the day of reckoning we will merit entering ‘Noach’s Ark’ and be saved from punishment. Only those who merit en-tering the Ark will merit being part of the new world that will follow the destruction, the days of Mashi-ach, may he come speedily in our days.

 

The World is Built on Kindness

 

The generation of the Flood was punished with a severe punishment that had no parallel, the destruc-tion of the entire world. The Torah details the sin of that generation that was the cause of such a great punishment, “Now the earth had become corrupt be-fore Hashem, and the earth had become filled with robbery” (Bereishit 6:11), meaning that they stole from each other.

One who steals from his friend is egoistic and selfish and does not care about his friend’s well-be-ing. If he would care about his friend, he would not cause him distress by stealing from him. When soci-ety as a whole behaves in his way, Hashem sees no reason to sustain the world.

Hashem made sure the world would continue to exist and told Noach to enter a small Teivah, tak-ing with him each kind of existing animal so that af-ter the destruction all the creatures could multiply and build a new, better and rectified world. During the year that Noach was in the Teivah, his role was to feed the animals day and night, for by engaging in kindness with all the creatures of the world, he atoned for the sin of his generation.

Performing kindness for a deceased person (tak-ing care of the burial ritual or participating in the fu-neral) is called ‘chesed shel emet’, true kindness, for the deceased cannot repay him for this kindness. It is an act of kindness that is done for Hashem’s sake alone. Similarly, when a person does kindness with animals he does not anticipate that they will repay him, and this is the most perfect kind of kindness that exists. Therefore, during the year of the destruc-tion of the world, Hashem desired that Noach should occupy himself particularly with kindness to animals.

One year, when I was with my father and teacher zya”a in Morocco, we stopped at a gas station to fill up the fuel tank. A group of poor people noticed us right away and approached us with their hands out-stretched. There was only one Jew among this group of Gentile Moroccans, and my father zya”a instructed me to first give charity to the Gentiles and only after that to the Jew.

After distributing the charity and filling up with petrol, I asked my father zya”a why he was partic-ular to give charity to the Gentiles first. Abba zya”a replied that we have a natural tendency to help our Jewish brethren, but we must not forget that these other people are also Hashem’s handiwork. Just as Hashem does kindness with all His creations, Jews and Gentiles alike, we too should accustom ourselves with the attribute of kindness and help each person without relating to his origin. And when the nations see how the Jews act charitably towards them, it causes great sanctification of Hashem’s Name.

Many times couples come to me and tell me that they wish to divorce. When I try to clarify the reason for this, they reply that any love felt between them has long died out. My reply is standard: I begin by quoting the verse, “The world is built on kindness” (Tehillim 89:3), and explain that just as the world is built and founded on acts of kindness that we per-form with each other, so too, to feel love and con-tinue with preserving the home, one must give and bestow on one’s partner without any limit, giving for the sake of giving without anticipation of any sort of compensation. If the couple are absorbed in only benefitting themselves and constantly seek only their personal good, it is only natural that they lose the ability to do good with their spouse and then the love between them quickly disappears.

Shabbat Shalom