Noach: 5785 - "Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations": Why do some interpret this to his discredit? Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld, at the conclusion of the daily Daf Yomi class of Rabbi…

00:00 Speaker 1 Please.

00:02 Speaker 2 One of my grandfather’s well-known sayings—he was the rabbi of Jerusalem—was his interpretation of the verse, “See the good of Jerusalem.” We need to look at the good side of Jerusalem. If you go looking, if you dig around, you can always find things that aren’t good. We need to look at things positively: “See the good of Jerusalem.” Along the same lines, our Sages say in Pirkei Avos, “Judge every person favorably.” With any person, if you start digging and searching, you’ll find all kinds of things. Right? “Judge every person favorably.” We always, always need to look at the good things. So a question arises. The Torah says, “These are the generations of Noach. Noach was a righteous man, perfect.” The Torah testifies that he was righteous. What does Rashi say? Some interpret it to his praise, and some interpret it to his discredit. Why interpret it to his discredit? The Torah testifies and says that Noach was a righteous man. So why interpret it to his discredit? Especially when we say that we must “judge every person favorably.” Why interpret it to his discredit? The Rebbe asks this question too, and it becomes even more difficult. We know that in Parshas Noach, in that very parsha, the Torah uses eight extra letters to avoid saying something negative. Right? It says “the animal that is not pure,” not “the impure animal.” So why interpret Noach to his discredit? If we say this about an animal, how much more so about Noach, whom the Torah calls a righteous man. Yet some interpret it to his discredit. Why? It’s a very strong question. There are various answers. One answer explains what it means to interpret it to his discredit: Noach’s righteousness and piety came precisely because he lived in a generation of wicked people. Precisely in a generation of

02:16 Speaker 2 wicked people, he had to strengthen himself even more so they wouldn’t influence him, lead him astray, or sweep him along with everyone else in his generation. So he had to make himself even stronger. Yes, so that is why some interpret it to his discredit. In other words, when was he righteous? Precisely in his own generation, the generation of the Flood,

02:37 Speaker 3 a generation of wicked people.

02:39 Speaker 2 So that’s what “to his discredit” means. Some explain it that way, but the Rebbe offers a different idea. The Rebbe explains what it means that some interpret it to his discredit. He says there isn’t a dispute here, with one interpreting it to his praise and the other to his discredit. They don’t disagree. Both know and agree that Noach was righteous. The Torah testifies, “Noach was a righteous man, perfect.” Rather, the two views concern how we interpret the word “in his generations.” After all, the Torah says, “Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.” What does “in his generations” mean? Right?

03:20 Speaker 3 His generation.

03:21 Speaker 2 So here’s the point. First, some interpret it to his praise: the Torah is indeed speaking in praise of Noach. Even in such a generation, when the people were wicked—the generation of the Flood—he was a righteous, perfect man. How much more so would he have been righteous in other generations. The second view doesn’t disagree. It too holds that Noach was righteous and perfect. Certainly—the Torah testifies to it. But how does it interpret “in his generations”? What lesson will people take from this? What effect will it have later on? How will people interpret it? If there was something about Noach that wasn’t right—and there were things, as detailed elsewhere; it says that Noach was “of little faith.” He didn’t believe the Flood would actually come—people might say, “That’s what a righteous man is like? A righteous man can have shortcomings too.” That’s how they could interpret it. So the precise wording is that some “interpret it” to his discredit. It’s about the interpretation—how people will understand it later—and something discreditable could come out of that. But they don’t disagree about whether Noach was righteous. The question is how to interpret him: how do I understand the word “in his generations”? One view says that “in his generations” specifically expresses Noach’s praise. If he was righteous in his generation, a generation of wicked people, then he certainly would have been righteous in other generations, among righteous people. The second view interprets it not as a statement about Noach, but in terms of its effect on others: what might people learn from it? But there is no disagreement between them. According to both, “Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations.” Have a good Shabbos, a good Shabbos.