Parashat Noah – Righteous in His Generations: Absolute Judgment and Relative Judgment

Article Contents

Parashat Noah — Righteous ‘in his generations’: Absolute Judgment and Relative Judgment — Rabbi Michael Abraham

Bulletin 563

Parashat Noah — Righteous ‘in his generations’: Absolute Judgment and Relative Judgment — Rabbi Michael Abraham

The Institute for Advanced Torah Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

In our Torah portion we find a complex evaluation of Noah: ‘Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generations.’ 1 The addition of the words ‘in his generations’ is interpreted by the Sages 2 in two opposite directions:

Rabbi Yohanan said: ‘In his generations’ — but not in other generations. And Reish Lakish said: ‘In his generations’ — and all the more so in other generations. At first glance, this is a dispute about Noah himself: whether he was truly righteous or whether he merely ‘stood out’ against the background of the people of his own generation. But from the language of the Torah, and also from the continuation of the remarks above, it appears that the man called Noah certainly was righteous in himself, and the question is about the proper mode of evaluation we should adopt toward people and phenomena against the background of their times. Everyone agrees that what determines our attitude toward Noah is what would have happened had he lived in another generation, one of righteous people; the disagreement is about an almost factual question: what really would have happened to him then,

that is, in another generation. Of course, the future here is only an indication of Noah’s spiritual condition in the present, just as we find in Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance, that a person is a complete penitent only if the Knower of hidden things can testify concerning him that he will never return to that sin again. 3 Foreseeing the future serves only as an indication of his state in the present. Another example may be found in Rashi, who cites the Midrash of the Sages regarding Moses our teacher, who saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man. In his understanding, the phrase ‘and he turned this way and that’ 4 means that Moses looked and asked himself, ‘Will there in the future come forth from him someone who will convert?’ and then decided to kill him!

Here too, it is reasonable that Moses did not judge him on the basis of the future, but rather used the future as an indication of his present state.

Questions of this kind trouble us as well. When a person behaves in a certain way, should we judge him on the basis of his behavior, or on the basis of the society in which he lives and its influence upon him?

There are extreme situations in which Jewish law determines that even wicked people should be judged leniently, for example when they are ‘like one captured among the gentiles’ 5 and are unaware of Torah standards of behavior. Does that mean that they are righteous?! No, but it is not their fault, since these are the ‘norms’ they know. In the past, war was conducted in a very brutal manner, and the international laws and public norms concerning it were far less enlightened. If a person behaved in those situations in a way that today arouses horror, should we condemn him, or should we understand that he lived in a different atmosphere?! From the Gemara here we learn that there is room both for absolute evaluation and for relative evaluation of the person. A person must be judged both against the cultural background within which he acts and against the background of his objective deeds. Continued on the next page

1 Genesis 6:9 2 Sanhedrin 108a. See also Rashi’s commentary here 3 Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 2:3 4 Exodus 2:12 5 Shabbat 68a

I do not mean to claim that there are no absolute principles of good and evil. I do not endorse moral relativism. My remarks here deal with the objective evaluation of the person. That is, a person who measures up well to absolute criteria while living and acting in a society in which those principles are treated with contempt objectively deserves appreciation for that, together with condemnation of the society around him. There is here an objective measure of righteousness. The subjective assessment, based on the effort a person invests and his relative level, is likewise an objective criterion for evaluating his morality — even though his condition in a more proper society is unclear. It may be that there he would remain at his level, and it may be that he would rise, accordingly. Later in the Talmudic discussion 6 two parables are brought:

Rabbi Hanina said: To what is Rabbi Yohanan’s view comparable? To a barrel of wine that was placed in a cellar of vinegar: in its place, its fragrance wafts forth;

not in its place, its fragrance does not waft forth.

Rabbi Hoshaiah said: To what is Reish Lakish’s view comparable?

To a flask of perfume that was placed in a place of filth: in its place, its fragrance wafts forth, and all the more so in a place of spices.

A barrel of wine has no special fragrance, but against the background of its surroundings it may be perceived as having a good smell. A flask of perfume is perfume, but against the background of its surroundings its fragrance will waft even more, because it is nourished by the environment, which enhances its own fragrance. If so, it does not deserve appreciation because of the contribution of the surroundings, but only if that contribution reveals something that was already within it.

Rabbi Kook, of blessed memory, writes and characterizes Noah as possessing special talents: ‘The convergence of these two talents is a wondrous thing that in better generations would have shone much more brightly.’ 7 He assumes that in a more complete generation this talent would have shone more brightly (like the flask of perfume), even though precisely there the background would have been more refined and should have blurred Noah’s distinction. His assumption is that a more complete generation ‘brings even more out of you.’ But here we have seen that even if this were not so (that is, if the more complete generation would דווקא have hindered his rising higher), there is still room for appreciation of Noah’s present level (like that barrel of wine).

6 ibid. 7 Orot HaKodesh II, p. 360

Source (Beit HaRav (PDF)): http://www.beit-harav.org.il/images/ps/ps563.pdf