“And Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." These are the closing words of Parashat Bereishit. Our portion opens by explaining why Noah found favor in God's eyes: “Noah was a righteous man, wholehearted in his generations; Noah walked with God." As Rashi explains, “Since he was mentioned, Scripture relates his praise."
We are now on the eve of elections, a time when passions naturally run high. Let us therefore consider, by way of contrast, the qualities of the man chosen by the Creator in this week's Torah portion. Of all the people on earth, whom did God choose to ensure the continued existence of His world after His creation of Adam, the first man? This choice had to be made with the utmost care. It was not a matter of selecting someone to rule over others or serve as prime minister, but of making a critical choice of one exceptional individual, through whom all of humanity would be rebuilt from that point onward, while everyone else, without exception, was destined to drown in the waters of the Flood.
It is no coincidence that the Midrash counts Noah among three individuals, Noah, Daniel, and Job, who witnessed the world in different states. As the prophet Ezekiel says (14:14): “Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Lord God." Rashi explains that these three witnessed three different worlds. Noah saw the world built, destroyed, and built again. Daniel saw the Temple standing, first served as a prince over all the other princes, was eventually thrown into the lions' den, and then returned to greatness. Job, too, saw himself settled and secure, then devastated, and finally restored.
In our generation, we can add to these three our own parents and all Holocaust survivors. In a certain sense, we can also include the residents of Israel's Gaza border communities. They initially lived in what was almost a paradise on earth, suffered devastation beyond words, and, thank God, are now witnessing a world being rebuilt. This region is being reconstructed with tremendous energy, and thousands of new residents have already settled there.
Noah, who witnessed three worlds, is also counted among the three righteous individuals described as the foundations of the world: Adam, Noah, and Abraham our forefather (Midrash Tehillim 34:1). Abarbanel and others criticize Noah because the Torah says, “Noah walked with God," rather than saying that he walked with his contemporaries. In other words, he did not bring them to repentance. This is contrasted with Abraham, who, together with his wife Sarah, brought many people closer to the belief in one God. Indeed, when they left Haran, they took with them “the souls they had made in Haran."
At first glance, however, Abarbanel's approach seems to contradict an explicit passage in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 108b). There we are told that righteous Noah rebuked the people of the generation of the Flood, speaking to them in words as harsh as burning coals, while they mocked him, as scoffers have continued to do throughout the generations, including our own. According to Abarbanel, then, despite the humiliation he endured, Noah should have continued trying to bring them closer to the Torah, which he had learned from Adam himself.
It therefore seems more appropriate to adopt the distinction drawn in Midrash Bereishit Rabbah (32:2) and the holy Zohar between the leadership of righteous Noah and that of Moses our teacher. Although Noah was righteous, he was not worthy of having God preserve the world through his merit alone.
What was the fundamental difference between Noah and Moses? The Zohar (I, 67a) explains that when God told Moses, “Now leave Me alone that I may destroy them in an instant, and I will make you into a great nation," Moses responded, in effect: Should I abandon the fate of Israel for the sake of my own personal benefit? Moses prayed and pleaded for mercy on behalf of the Jewish people.
Noah, by contrast, was told by God that he would be saved in the Ark and that God would make him into a great nation. Yet he did not plead for mercy on behalf of the people of his generation, and they perished. It is true that Noah rebuked them harshly, but he did not say, as Moses did, “If You destroy them, then erase me, I pray, from Your book that You have written." In other words, Moses was prepared to die with his people. Noah did not demonstrate the same self-sacrifice for all of humanity that Moses displayed as a leader toward his people, the flock entrusted to his care.
Nevertheless, Noah was a righteous, wholehearted, and exceptional man in his generation. It is no coincidence that King David, the sweet singer of Israel, opens the Book of Psalms with words that the Midrash applies to Noah: “Happy is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the company of scoffers." The Midrash (Shocher Tov 1:12) explains: “Happy is the man" refers to Noah; “who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked" refers to the wicked people of three generations, the generation of Enosh, the generation of the Flood, and the generation of the Tower of Babel. “Rather, his delight is in the Torah of the Lord" refers to the seven Noahide commandments, while “and in His Torah he meditates" means that he reasoned from one idea to another.
“Righteous and wholehearted", as Solomon says in Proverbs (11:5): “The righteousness of the wholehearted makes his way straight." The Malbim explains that when a wholehearted person practices righteousness consistently over time, the path of righteousness becomes second nature to him. This habit straightens his course and guides him along the proper path, the way of God. As Moses declares in the Song of Haazinu: “The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice; a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, righteous and upright is He."
The Sifrei comments on this verse: “‘The Rock, His work is perfect’, the Artist who first fashioned the world and formed man within it, as it is written, ‘And the Lord God formed man.’ ‘His work is perfect’ means that His work is complete with regard to all His creatures, and no one should question His judgments." No person looks at himself and says, “If only I had three eyes, three hands, or three legs; if only I walked on my head or had my face turned backward, how beautiful I would be!"
“The ways of the Lord are justice" means that God judges each person individually and gives him what he deserves. “A God of faithfulness" means that He placed His trust in the world and created it. “Without iniquity" means that human beings were not brought into the world to be wicked, but to be righteous, as Ecclesiastes (7:29) says: “God made mankind upright, but they have sought out many schemes."
Despite all the schemes people devise, “Noah walked with God" in uprightness. He followed the straight path, in accordance with the way God created humanity: to fulfill the will of our Father in Heaven. This quality of righteousness and integrity also characterizes Job, whom we mentioned earlier: “A blameless and upright man, who fears God."
The divine plan described in the Book of Bereishit is called by the prophets Joshua and Samuel the “Book of the Upright." It describes a world in which uprightness collapsed almost everywhere, with the exception of Noah and our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As the Netziv writes in his remarkable introduction to the Book of Bereishit, God is upright and cannot tolerate even righteous people who fail to conduct themselves with uprightness in their everyday dealings. They must not act crookedly, even when their intentions are for the sake of Heaven, because such behavior brings destruction upon creation and undermines the settlement of the land.
It is not enough to use the word “upright" as a slogan, just as it is not enough merely to call something “the Land." The deeper, authentic meaning lies in living and settling the Land of Israel in an upright manner.
The Sifrei also makes another observation worth hearing, particularly at this time, as we mark three years since the terrible massacre: “‘The Rock, His work is perfect’, His work is complete with regard to all His creatures, and no one should question His judgments." No one should look at the world and ask: Why were the people of the generation of the Flood swept away by water? Why were the people who built the Tower of Babel scattered to the ends of the earth? Why were the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire and sulfur? Why was Aaron chosen for the priesthood? Why was David chosen for kingship? Why were Korah and his congregation swallowed by the earth? “For all His ways are justice", He judges each individual and gives him what is due. “A God of faithfulness", He is the Keeper of the trust.
Noah did not ask such questions. “Noah was a righteous man, wholehearted in his generations", through three generations, he withstood his trials and continued to walk with God. The Kli Yakar explains that the generation of the Flood corrupted itself through three forms of wrongdoing mentioned in the Torah portion: idolatry, sexual immorality, and robbery. The Torah therefore emphasizes that Noah remained free of all three. He was “righteous" because he did not rob others; “wholehearted" because he refrained from sexual immorality; and he “walked with God" because he did not turn to other gods.
All this was true even though his contemporaries indulged in all three forms of corruption. Noah stood apart, endured his trials, and remained righteous, following the straight path.
The corruption had spread astonishingly far, reaching even the judges. “The earth was corrupt before God" can be understood as meaning that it was corrupt before the judges. There is nothing new under the sun. These violent, corrupt people operated like a mafia, in a manner that made it impossible to bring them to justice. They worked together, with each person stealing less than the minimum value required for a theft to be legally actionable, so that no one could be prosecuted.
I remember that when one law concerning the rules of evidence was still at the proposal stage, members of the criminal underworld were already devising ways to circumvent it, and they succeeded. Today, we see how the practice of evading the law, whether through interpretation or other means, has spread through various institutions, including the judicial system. It is no coincidence that the Men of the Great Assembly instituted the prayer: “Restore our judges as in former times."
Noah understood that when humanity was created ten generations earlier, “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and guard it." As my dear friend Rabbi Elisha Vishlitzky, of blessed memory, once put it, God did not place man in a house of study, but in a garden whose nature was almost entirely physical: “pleasing to the eye," “good for food," and “a delight to the eyes." Man was placed in the Garden of Eden to work its soil, sow crops, and plant fruit trees. That was his purpose there: to enjoy and delight in life, with the trees of the garden providing his livelihood, the streams of Eden supplying his drink, and the clouds of glory serving as his garments.
His existence there was filled with great pleasure, primarily spiritual and to a lesser degree physical, accompanied by a tranquility and contentment beyond compare, as he was entirely intellectual in nature.
After humanity was expelled from the Garden of Eden, ten generations passed before God took Noah and placed him on earth, surrounded by material concerns and violent, corrupt people. Yet Noah stood firm, relying on his integrity and righteousness to withstand all the trials God placed before him. That is why he was chosen and found favor, his Hebrew name, Noach, contains the same letters as the Hebrew word for favor, in the eyes of the Lord. He and his family were the only ones to survive the Flood, and from them a new world was built.
May God grant that, by embracing integrity and wholeheartedness, we merit the favor of a place upon its inhabitants, of a wife in the eyes of her husband, and of a purchase in the eyes of its buyer, as the Talmud teaches in Avodah Zarah (52b).
We customarily say in the Grace After Meals: “And may we find favor and good understanding in the eyes of God and man." Rabbi Elazar teaches that anyone who possesses grace or favor is known to be God-fearing, as it is written: “The kindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him" (Sukkah 49b). The grace that rests upon a person's face is no coincidence. It reflects that person's fear of Heaven, integrity, and pure inner character. This integrity brings a person to find favor in the eyes of both God and humanity.
In the second blessing following the recitation of the Shema, we declare that everything we have said in the Shema, accepting the yoke of God's sovereignty, affirming His unity, and so forth, is “true, firm, correct, enduring, and upright," and so on. This truth is stable, correct, and enduring when founded upon integrity. From that foundation, it becomes trustworthy, beloved, cherished, pleasing, agreeable, proper, acceptable, good, and beautiful.
Some have the custom of blessing a newly married couple that their marriage should rise from “true" to “beautiful," passing through all fifteen qualities in between, thereby ensuring that “this matter shall endure for us forever."
The same principle applies to a person's business dealings. The Talmud (Yoma 86b) describes a person who studies Scripture and Mishnah and conducts his business faithfully, that is, with integrity. What do people say about him? “Fortunate is his father who taught him Torah, fortunate is his teacher who taught him Torah. See how beautiful his ways are, how proper his deeds!"
Of such a person, Scripture says: “He said to me, ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified’" (Isaiah 49:3).
But what do people say about someone who studies Scripture and Mishnah yet conducts his business dishonestly and speaks harshly to others? “Woe to so-and-so who studied Torah, woe to his father who taught him Torah. See how corrupt his deeds are, how repulsive his ways!"
Of him, Scripture says: “They profaned My holy name when people said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, yet they had to leave His land’" (Ezekiel 36:20). Integrity is what lends grace and beauty to a Torah scholar and to his Torah in the eyes of those around him.
The diamond industry deserves praise in this regard. Integrity is effectively an entry ticket into the trade, while its absence is an exit ticket. Anyone who reneges on a deal after shaking hands or saying “Mazel u'bracha", the customary expression of good fortune and blessing when concluding a transaction, will be called to a brief arbitration hearing and may soon find himself excluded from the diamond exchange.
It is no coincidence that in Avodah Zarah (20b) and numerous Midrashim, King Solomon describes the Torah as “a loving doe and a graceful gazelle" (Proverbs 5:19), just as Noah found favor in the eyes of God. The Torah bestows grace upon those who study it, not because their outward appearance changes, but because studying and consistently following the upright path refine a person's character over time, allowing kindness and integrity to radiate outward.
By contrast, King Solomon warned us against false, deceptive, and misleading grace that lacks integrity: “Grace is false and beauty is vain; a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" (Proverbs 31:30).
This is a warning from King Solomon that is especially relevant in our time, in the face of all the “fake news" and false reports dressed up as truth. In our generation, particularly as the coming elections approach, we live in an age saturated with artificial intelligence and deceptive impulses that generate fabricated reports, acts that fall under the category of “one who strikes his fellow in secret." We would do well to draw strength from Noah's qualities and character.
Noah stood firm in the face of trials and the many schemes devised by human beings. We should also reflect on the criteria behind God's choices and the individuals He selected. First, from all humanity, He chose righteous, wholehearted, and upright Noah. Ten generations later, He chose our holy forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He chose Moses His servant, as we read in the Haftarah for Bereishit: “You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He."
Above all, He is the One who chooses His people Israel in love.
The author is the CEO of Tzifha International Real Estate