When God commands Abraham to leave Ur Kasdim He says that Abraham should go for his sake. God does not need us to obey the commandments. We need the commandments.

A Quick D’var Torah – Parshat Lech Lecha

Good morning. And now for a quick D’var Torah.

This week’s parsha, Lech Lecha, begins with God telling Abraham to leave his homeland, his family, and everything familiar to him, and travel to a land that God will show him.

But there is something very interesting about the words God uses. In Hebrew, the phrase is Lech Lecha. It doesn’t simply mean “go.” It can also mean “go for yourself” or “go for your own benefit.”

And this teaches us a very important lesson about Judaism and the purpose of the mitzvot.

God does not need Abraham to leave his homeland. God does not need Abraham to do anything. In fact, God does not need us at all. Let’s be very clear about that. We need God. God does not need us.

So when God tells Abraham, Lech Lecha, He is telling him that this journey is for Abraham’s own benefit. It is an opportunity for Abraham to grow, to develop spiritually, and to become the person he is capable of becoming.

And this brings us to a fundamental concept in Judaism.

Why do we observe the mitzvot? Why do we follow God’s commandments?

Not because God needs us to perform them, but because we need to perform them to become better human beings.

Think about prayer, for example. We are very careful about the words we say, the proper times to pray, and the way we conduct our prayers. But God doesn’t need our prayers. We need them. We need to stop and think about what we’re saying, what the words mean, and how they should influence the way we live our lives.

The same is true of the commandments between man and his fellow man. We are commanded to be honest, to give charity, to respect others, and to treat people fairly. Again, God doesn’t need us to do these things. We need to do them because they make us better people, better Jews, and ultimately create a better society.

And this leads us to another important point.

We often hear that the Jewish people are the Chosen People. But what does that actually mean?

It doesn’t mean that God chose us to receive special privileges or extra benefits. Quite the contrary. We were chosen to accept additional responsibilities.

We were chosen to demonstrate to the world how a nation can live according to God’s commandments. We are supposed to be Or LaGoyim, a light unto the nations.

And notice something else. Judaism doesn’t demand that everyone become Jewish. We don’t go around trying to convert people. According to Jewish tradition, non-Jews are expected to observe the Seven Noahide Laws. Jews, on the other hand, have 613 commandments.

Why the difference? Because our mission is different. We have been given additional obligations, not because we are better than anyone else, but because we have a particular responsibility.

And now let’s return to Abraham.

God tells Abraham to go to the land of Canaan, which will eventually become the Land of Israel.

But why that particular piece of real estate?

After all, God could have sent Abraham and his descendants to Fiji or New Zealand, someplace far away where nobody would bother them and nobody would even know they existed.

But that’s not what God wanted.

The Land of Israel was situated at the crossroads of the ancient world. If you wanted to travel from Mesopotamia to Egypt, you would generally pass through the region. If you were traveling from Egypt toward Syria, Anatolia, or the lands beyond, the area was a major route of communication and commerce.

Remember, there were no airplanes in those days, and traveling by sea was not always a pleasant experience.

In other words, God placed the Jewish people where the world could see them.

And why?

Because if we are supposed to be a light unto the nations, then the nations have to be able to see that light.

We were not meant to live in isolation, hidden away from the rest of humanity. We were meant to demonstrate, through our actions and the way we conduct ourselves, what it means to live according to God’s commandments.

And that brings us right back to the opening words of the parsha: Lech Lecha.

Go for yourself.

God is telling Abraham that the journey is not for God’s benefit. It is for Abraham’s benefit. And the same principle applies to every mitzvah we perform.

We don’t keep Shabbat because God needs us to rest. We keep Shabbat because we need Shabbat.

We don’t give charity because God needs our money. We give charity because we need to learn generosity and responsibility toward others.

And we don’t observe the commandments because God somehow benefits from our obedience. We observe them because they help us become the people God wants us to be.

The purpose of the mitzvot is not to change God. It is to change us.

And perhaps that is the most important message of Lech Lecha: The journey toward God is ultimately a journey toward becoming a better version of ourselves.

Something to think about.

Shabbat Shalom.

The differences between Noah and Abraham are important because this explains why Abraham was chosen to bring ethical monotheism to the world while Noah was not.

A Quick Dvar Torah — Parshat Lech Lecha

Noah and Abraham: The Difference Between Being Righteous and Taking Responsibility

This week’s parsha, Lech Lecha, introduces us to Abraham Avinu. Until now, the Torah has been concerned with the creation of the world and the history of humanity as a whole. But beginning with Abraham, the focus shifts. We are now introduced to the beginnings of the Jewish people. You might say we’re finally getting down to business.

One of the most interesting ways to understand Abraham is to compare him with Noah.

When Noah is introduced to us, the Torah tells us that he was a righteous man in his generation. The commentators debate what those extra words mean. Why does the Torah have to qualify his righteousness? Either he was righteous or he wasn’t.

Some commentators say that Noah was so righteous that even surrounded by wicked people, he remained a good man. Certainly, he would have been righteous in any generation.

Others take a less complimentary view. They argue that Noah was righteous only in comparison with the people around him. After all, in a generation filled with corruption, violence, and theft, simply being an honest person wasn’t setting the bar particularly high. Noah didn’t murder anybody. He didn’t steal. By our standards, that’s what we would consider normal behavior.

But there is another, perhaps more important, difference between Noah and Abraham.

Noah was obedient. Abraham was proactive.

Think about Noah. God tells him to build an ark, and he builds an ark. God gives him the dimensions, tells him which animals to bring aboard, and Noah follows the instructions.

According to the traditional interpretation, Noah spent 120 years preparing for the Flood. Yet we never hear him pleading with God to spare his generation. We never hear him arguing that perhaps the people could repent. Unlike Jonah, who eventually went to Nineveh and warned its inhabitants to change their ways, Noah never emerges in the biblical narrative as someone who actively tries to save his society.

He saves himself, his family, and the animals. But what about everybody else?

Now compare that with Abraham.

When God tells Abraham that He intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham doesn’t simply say, “Well, God knows best.”

Quite the opposite.

Abraham challenges God. He asks, “Will You sweep away the righteous along with the wicked?”

He begins negotiating. What if there are fifty righteous people? What about forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?

Imagine that! Abraham is arguing with God on behalf of the people of Sodom, a society notorious for its wickedness.

And notice something else. Abraham isn’t arguing on behalf of his own family. He’s arguing for strangers, people whose behavior he certainly doesn’t approve of.

Abraham understands that righteousness carries a responsibility for other people.

We see this same quality in this week’s parsha when the war breaks out between the four kings and the five kings.

Lot, Abraham’s nephew, is taken captive. Abraham could have said, “Well, Lot made his choice. He decided to live in Sodom. Let him deal with the consequences.”

But that’s not Abraham.

He organizes his men, goes to war, defeats the enemy, and rescues Lot. Abraham doesn’t wait for someone else to solve the problem. He takes action.

And that’s the fundamental distinction.

Noah is concerned with preserving righteousness in a wicked world. Abraham is concerned with changing the world.

There’s also an interesting contrast in what happens after the great events in their lives.

After the Flood, Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, gets drunk, and ends up in a humiliating situation involving his son Ham. The man who saved humanity from destruction ends his story in a rather unfortunate way.

Abraham, on the other hand, continues to build, to teach, to struggle, and to establish a relationship with God that will be passed down to future generations.

Even Ishmael, despite being sent away from Abraham’s household, maintains a connection to his father. In fact, the Torah later tells us that Ishmael joins Isaac in burying Abraham. Whatever their differences, the relationship between father and son is not completely severed.

This helps explain why some commentators suggest that had Noah lived in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered particularly remarkable.

Noah was a good man. But Abraham was something more.

And perhaps that’s the lesson for us.

Judaism doesn’t ask us merely to be good people. It asks us to do good.

It’s not enough to say, “I don’t steal, I don’t cheat, I don’t hurt anybody.” Those are certainly important qualities, but they’re only the beginning.

The real question is: What are we doing to make the world around us better?

Are we helping other people? Are we willing to take responsibility when something needs to be done?

Noah survived the world as it was. Abraham set out to create a better world.

And that is why Abraham, rather than Noah, becomes the father of the Jewish people.

Something to think about.

In this week’s portion we have the recreation of the world through the family of Noat. This time God makes a covenant with Noah and we get the seven commandments of the Children of Noah.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Parshat Noach — The Covenant of Civilization

Good morning.

In this week’s parsha, Parshat Noach, we encounter something very interesting: a second creation story.

The first creation story appears at the beginning of the Torah, when God creates the world. The second comes after the Flood, when the world has been destroyed and Noach and his family are given the responsibility of rebuilding civilization.

But there are some very important differences between these two accounts.

In the original creation story, God repeatedly declares that His creation is good, and finally, that it is very good. Man is created in the image of God, b’tzelem Elokim. There is tremendous hope and optimism about humanity and its potential.

But in the second creation story, after the Flood, the emphasis changes.

God again speaks about man being created in His image, but this time in a very different context. The Torah tells us that murder is forbidden because human beings are created in the image of God.

Think about that distinction.

In the first creation story, the emphasis is on the dignity of man himself. In the second, the emphasis is on recognizing that same divine image in someone else.

In other words, it is not enough to recognize that I was created in the image of God. I must recognize that you were created in the image of God as well.

And that means I have responsibilities toward you.

This brings us to another important difference. After the Flood, God establishes a covenant with Noach and his descendants. The explicit covenant is God’s promise never again to destroy the world through a flood. But alongside that covenant, the Torah establishes the foundations of human responsibility, which Jewish tradition identifies with the Seven Noahide Laws, the Sheva Mitzvot Bnei Noach.

These are seven commandments that apply not merely to Jews, but to all humanity. After all, according to the Torah, every human being is a descendant of Noach.

What are these seven laws?

Six are prohibitions.

First, you may not eat a limb taken from a living animal. Even animals must be treated with a certain degree of respect. You cannot simply torture a living creature for your own pleasure or convenience.

Second, you may not blaspheme God.

Third, you may not steal. You must respect other people’s property and their rights. You cannot simply take something because you want it. This prohibition also encompasses kidnapping.

Fourth, you may not murder. Human life is sacred because every human being is created in the image of God.

Fifth, you may not worship idols.

And sixth, you may not engage in forbidden sexual relationships.

Notice something interesting about these six commandments. They are directed primarily at the individual. They tell us what we may not do, and they establish boundaries on individual behavior.

But the seventh commandment is different.

The seventh commandment requires the establishment of courts of justice.

That is a societal obligation.

It is not enough for individuals to behave properly. Society must establish a legal system that protects people, their property, their dignity, and their rights.

And here we come to one of the great political lessons of Parshat Noach.

The Torah presents us with two disastrous models of human society.

The first is the generation of the Flood. This was a society characterized by corruption, violence, theft, and lawlessness. Everyone did whatever he wanted. There was no meaningful respect for the rights of others.

This is anarchy.

But later in the parsha, we encounter the generation of the Tower of Babel.

Here we have the opposite extreme. Everyone speaks the same language and uses the same words. Everyone is united in a single collective project. But individuality and independent thought seem to have disappeared.

This can be understood as a model of totalitarianism.

In the generation of the Flood, the individual recognizes no limits. In the generation of the Tower of Babel, the individual is swallowed up by the collective.

The Torah rejects both extremes.

The Seven Noahide Laws offer a different vision of civilization.

They establish moral limits on individual behavior while requiring society to create institutions of justice. The individual has dignity, but also responsibilities. Government has authority, but that authority must serve justice rather than simply impose uniformity.

This is a fundamental idea underlying what we today call liberal democracy: a society governed by law, in which individuals possess rights, but also obligations toward one another.

And there is another remarkable aspect of these laws.

Judaism does not demand that everyone become Jewish. Jewish tradition recognizes that non-Jews can live righteous lives and fulfill their obligations to God without converting to Judaism.

What is expected of humanity is adherence to these basic principles of morality and justice.

That is not an unreasonable demand.

The lesson of Parshat Noach is that civilization cannot survive on individual freedom alone, nor can it survive when the collective destroys individual freedom.

It needs both moral responsibility and the rule of law.

The generation of the Flood teaches us what happens when there is no respect for law. The generation of the Tower of Babel warns us what can happen when unity becomes more important than the individual.

And the Seven Noahide Laws remind us that a just society must respect both the dignity of the individual and the responsibilities we owe to one another.

Being created in the image of God gives us dignity. Recognizing that same image in others gives us responsibility.

Something to think about.

Shabbat Shalom.

The sin of the Tower of Babel was that is was a totalitarian government. There is no freedom of thought in such a society. God wants us to disagree and debate that way we will arrive at the truth.

A Quick Dvar Torah: The Tower of Babel and the Danger of Totalitarianism

In this week’s parsha, Parshat Noach, we come across two forms of society that the Torah warns us against: anarchy and totalitarianism.

The generation of the Flood represents anarchy. People did whatever they wanted. They robbed, stole, committed acts of violence, and had no respect for private property or the rights of others. There was no effective moral authority. Everybody did as he pleased, and the result was the destruction of civilization.

But at the end of the parsha, we encounter the opposite extreme: the generation of the Tower of Babel.

The entire story of the Tower of Babel occupies only nine verses. That’s it. Yet those nine verses contain a remarkable lesson about the dangers of totalitarianism.

The Torah begins by telling us that the entire world spoke one language and used the same words: Safah achat u’devarim achadim.

Now, think about that for a moment. If everybody spoke the same language, wouldn’t they naturally use the same words? Why does the Torah have to tell us both?

One interpretation is that the Torah is describing something much more sinister than linguistic unity. Everybody spoke the same language, but everybody was also expected to think the same way. There was no freedom of thought, no freedom of expression, and no room for disagreement.

That is the essence of totalitarianism.

The Tower of Babel was a society in which power was centralized. Everybody had to participate in the same project, follow the same leadership, and accept the same ideas.

And that’s what happens in totalitarian societies. You don’t have genuine debates. You don’t have differences of opinion. You don’t question the leadership. You simply do what you’re told.

Now, among Jews, we have a very different tradition. We love to debate. Open a page of the Talmud and what do you find? Arguments! Hillel disagrees with Shammai. Rabbi Akiva disagrees with other sages. We argue back and forth, and that’s perfectly legitimate, provided, of course, that the arguments don’t become personal.

The Jewish tradition recognizes that disagreement can be a source of wisdom.

But in a totalitarian society, disagreement is dangerous.

As they used to joke about the Soviet Union, you had a choice: you could vote for the Communist Party or join the going-away party!

If you didn’t follow the party line, you could find yourself in serious trouble.

Many years ago, I knew a dentist who participated in a professional exchange program with the Soviet Union. He went there to observe how Soviet dentists practiced dentistry.

During one visit, he noticed that a Soviet dentist was treating a patient without Novocaine. Instead, he was using some form of electrical stimulation to control the pain.

The patient was a huge Russian soldier, a big bear of a man. But the treatment was so painful that tears were streaming down his face.

My dentist friend turned to his Soviet counterpart and said, “Excuse me, but that man is obviously in terrible pain. Whatever you’re doing isn’t working.”

And the Soviet dentist replied, “He’s not in pain. They told me he’s not in pain.”

Think about that answer.

The evidence was right in front of him. The man was crying. He was suffering. But none of that mattered because the authorities had declared that the treatment was painless.

In a totalitarian society, truth is not determined by reality. Truth is whatever the authorities tell you it is.

And that brings us back to the Tower of Babel.

The problem wasn’t that people were working together. Cooperation is a wonderful thing. The problem was that unity had become enforced uniformity. Individual judgment and freedom of thought had been sacrificed to the demands of a centralized authority.

The generation of the Flood had too little restraint. The generation of the Tower of Babel had too much control.

One society was destroyed because everybody did whatever he wanted. The other was dispersed because everybody was expected to think and act alike.

The Torah teaches us that neither extreme is acceptable.

A healthy society needs laws, moral standards, and respect for the rights of others. But it also needs freedom of thought, room for disagreement, and limits on the power of those who govern.

The lesson of Parshat Noach is that civilization cannot survive without order, but neither can human freedom survive when order becomes absolute control.

Something to think about.

The reason the Torah gives for the flood was that society was corrupt. They had no respect for private property. When that happens then society will collapse.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Corruption and the Generation of the Flood

Parshat Noach

One of the great sins of the generation of the Flood was corruption. There was immorality, certainly, but what ultimately sealed the fate of that generation was corruption.

The Torah tells us, “Vatímalei ha’aretz chamas” — “The earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11). Our Sages explain that this included gezel, theft.

Now, what was so terrible about the theft taking place in that generation?

The Midrash tells us something fascinating. People would steal amounts worth less than a perutah, the smallest unit of monetary value. They knew exactly what they were doing. They understood that stealing such a small amount would make it difficult for the victim to recover the property through the courts.

Imagine that you own a store. One person comes in and steals something worth less than a perutah. Then another person does the same thing, and another, and another. Eventually, your entire inventory is gone, but no individual theft is large enough to pursue through the normal legal process.

These people weren’t simply stealing. They were deliberately exploiting the law to destroy the property rights of others.

And that’s a very serious matter.

The Torah recognizes the importance of private property. If you own a business, you have a right to that business. You work to support yourself and your family. And for an economy to function, people have to respect one another’s property.

Interestingly, the great economist Adam Smith made a similar observation in The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776.

Smith pointed out that we don’t get our dinner because the butcher, the brewer, or the baker is especially concerned about our welfare. We get it because they’re concerned about their own interests. They want to earn a living and support their families. And in order to do that, they have to provide something that other people want.

In other words, economic cooperation depends on people being able to deal with one another.

Another great economist, Friedrich Hayek, who wrote The Road to Serfdom, emphasized the importance of moral traditions and established rules of conduct in maintaining a functioning society. Hayek himself was an agnostic, but he recognized that institutions such as religion could help sustain the moral traditions on which civilization depends.

And what’s at the heart of all of this?

Trust.

Without honesty, without trust, you cannot have a successful economy.

Think about the diamond business in New York’s Diamond District. Traditionally, transactions involving hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars have been conducted on a handshake. Why? Because the people involved trust one another. They believe that when someone gives his word, he will honor it.

But imagine a society in which nobody trusts anybody else. Every business transaction becomes a struggle. Everybody assumes that everybody else is trying to cheat him.

Eventually, the entire system collapses.

And that’s exactly what happened in the generation of the Flood.

Now, here’s something very interesting.

Compare the generation of the Flood with the generation of the Tower of Babel.

The generation of the Tower of Babel rebelled against God. They wanted to build a tower reaching into heaven. Yet God did not destroy them. Instead, He confused their languages and scattered them throughout the world.

Why?

Our Sages explain that although they rebelled against God, they had one important quality: they were united. They got along with one another.

The generation of the Flood, on the other hand, was filled with theft, corruption, and mistreatment of others.

And so God destroyed that generation.

There’s a remarkable lesson here.

God seems to be telling us that He can tolerate offenses against Himself more readily than He tolerates people mistreating one another.

It’s almost like something my mother used to tell me when I was growing up. She could tolerate all sorts of misbehavior, but there was one thing she absolutely could not stand: my siblings and me fighting with one another.

She would say, “You’re a family. You have to get along with one another.”

And in a sense, that’s what God is telling humanity.

You’re all one family. You have to respect one another.

This isn’t just a religious principle. It’s also an economic principle.

Look at countries where corruption is widespread. In parts of Africa, South America, and Asia, corruption has been a major obstacle to economic development.

I was recently in Kenya, where poverty remains a serious problem. And one of the major challenges facing that country is corruption. When people cannot trust public officials, when businesses must pay bribes, and when the rules are not applied fairly, economic development becomes much more difficult.

Corruption doesn’t simply hurt the person who is being cheated. It damages the entire society.

And that brings us back to Parshat Noach.

The generation of the Flood was destroyed not simply because people committed individual sins, but because corruption had become the foundation of their society. People no longer respected one another. They no longer respected private property. They no longer trusted one another.

And when that happens, society begins to destroy itself from within.

The message of the Torah is that honesty is not merely a nice personal quality. It is the foundation upon which civilization rests.

We must be honest in business. We must respect other people’s property. We must keep our word. And above all, we must treat one another with dignity and respect.

Because ultimately, God is reminding us of something very simple:

We’re all part of the same human family. And a society that loses its honesty and its trust cannot survive.

Something to think about.

The fact that Noah was either unable or unwilling to get the people of his generation to repent shows a failure on his part.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Parshat Noach

The Responsibility to Speak Up and Care for Others

This week’s parsha, Parshat Noach, begins with a very interesting statement. The Torah tells us that Noah was a righteous man in his generation.

Now, there’s a great debate among the commentators about what those words actually mean. Was Noah so righteous that he managed to remain a good man despite living among wicked people? Or was he considered righteous only because everyone around him was so terrible? In another generation, perhaps he wouldn’t have been anything special.

I think we can find an interesting hint to this question in the dimensions of the ark.

God tells Noah to build an ark 300 amot long, 50 amot wide, and 30 amot high.

Now, if we look at these numbers through gematria, we discover something interesting.

The number 300 corresponds to the Hebrew letter shin. Fifty corresponds to nun, and thirty corresponds to lamed.

Rearrange those letters, and they spell the Hebrew word lashon, meaning tongue or language.

What might this be telling us?

Perhaps God was hinting to Noah that he had a responsibility not merely to build an ark and save himself and his family, but to use his tongue. He had to speak to the people of his generation.

Remember, Noah was living in a terribly wicked society. God had decided to destroy the world because of the corruption and violence that had become widespread.

But perhaps that destruction could have been avoided.

Imagine if Noah had gone out among the people and said, “Look, I’m building this enormous ark because God has warned me that the world is going to be destroyed. But you still have a chance. Change your behavior. Stop stealing. Stop hurting one another. Repent!”

Would they have listened? We don’t know.

But we do know that repentance is always possible.

Think about the story of Jonah, which we read on Yom Kippur. God sends Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people that their city will be destroyed. Jonah delivers the warning, and what happens?

The people repent!

They change their behavior, and God does not destroy the city.

So perhaps the people of Noah’s generation also had an opportunity to repent.

And yet, when the flood came, who entered the ark? Only Noah, his family, and the animals. Not a single other person.

Now, perhaps Noah tried to convince people and they simply refused to listen. Perhaps he spoke, but wasn’t particularly convincing. Or perhaps he didn’t put his heart into the effort.

Whatever the explanation, the result was that Noah saved himself and his family, but he did not save his generation.

And this is where we see an important difference between Noah and Abraham.

When God tells Abraham that He intends to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, what does Abraham do?

He argues with God!

He asks whether there might be fifty righteous people in the city. Then forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten.

Abraham doesn’t simply say, “Well, I’m righteous. My family is righteous. That’s all that matters.”

He worries about everybody else.

That is the difference between being righteous yourself and feeling responsible for the righteousness and welfare of others.

And I think this has an important lesson for us today.

One of our responsibilities as Jews is to demonstrate what Judaism means through the way we behave.

I’m not talking simply about wearing a kippah or displaying other outward signs of Jewish identity. Those things have their place, but they are not enough.

I’m talking about how we treat other human beings.

When we see a poor person, do we help? When we see someone standing outside in the freezing winter without proper clothing, do we offer a pair of gloves?

Here in our shul, we actually have gloves that someone donated specifically for that purpose. Someone recognized that there are people who need help and decided to do something about it.

That is Judaism in action.

We sometimes talk about helping humanity on a global level. That’s wonderful, but we must never forget the individual standing right in front of us.

The person who is hungry. The person who is cold. The person who is lonely. The person who needs someone to care.

And that responsibility extends into our own community as well. We have to look after our poor, our elderly, and those who may be struggling quietly without anyone noticing.

Because ultimately, people should be able to look at the way a Jew behaves and say, “That is how a person who believes in God should act.”

Not because of what we say about ourselves, but because of what we actually do.

And perhaps that was Noah’s shortcoming.

He understood that he had to be righteous. He understood that he had to obey God. He built the ark exactly as he was commanded.

But perhaps he didn’t fully understand that righteousness carries with it a responsibility for other people.

The purpose of the warning about the flood was not necessarily that the world had to be destroyed. It was also an opportunity for humanity to change.

The tragedy is that nobody did.

And while that certainly tells us something about Noah’s generation, perhaps it also tells us something about Noah himself.

The lesson for us is that it’s not enough to be a good person. We have to use our words and our actions to help others become better, and to make their lives better.

That’s what it means to live as a Jew.

Something to think about.

The lesson of the flood story in the Torah is why God brought the flood. It was due to the immorality of man. The God of the Torah is not fickle. He acts for a reason.

A Quick Dvar Torah — Parshat Noach

The Flood: A Question of Morality

This week’s parsha is Parshat Noach, and in many ways, it’s a very strange and fascinating parsha.

The Torah begins by telling us that Noach was a righteous man, a tzaddik in his generation.

Now, why does the Torah add those words, “in his generation”? Why not simply say that Noach was a righteous man?

After all, we know that Abraham would have been considered righteous in any generation. Moses would have been considered righteous in any generation. So why does the Torah specifically emphasize that Noach was righteous in his generation?

Our sages offer two very different interpretations.

One interpretation is that Noach was an extraordinary individual. Think about it. He lived in a society filled with corruption, violence, and immorality, and yet he managed to remain righteous. If he could maintain his righteousness surrounded by such wickedness, imagine how much greater he might have been had he lived among righteous people.

But there’s another interpretation, and it’s not nearly as complimentary.

Perhaps Noach was considered righteous only because everybody around him was so terrible. After all, if you live in a society where everybody is a thief, and you’re the one person who doesn’t steal, you’re going to look pretty good. But that’s not exactly setting the bar very high.

Had Noach lived in the generation of Abraham, perhaps nobody would have considered him particularly special.

It’s an interesting question, and one that our sages have debated for centuries.

But there’s something else in Parshat Noach that I find even more fascinating, and that’s the story of the Flood itself.

Now, many people don’t realize that the Torah isn’t the only ancient text that tells the story of a great flood.

There are numerous flood stories from the ancient Near East. The Sumerians had one, the Babylonians had one, and perhaps the most famous appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving works of literature.

The existence of these different accounts suggests that the memory of a great flood was deeply embedded in the cultures of the ancient Near East. Whether they all refer to the same historical event is another question.

But what’s really interesting isn’t simply that these stories describe a flood.

It’s why the flood happened.

In the Mesopotamian traditions, the gods decide to destroy humanity for reasons that have little to do with morality.

In one account, human beings are making too much noise. They’re disturbing the gods. In another tradition, humanity has become too numerous.

Imagine that! The gods decide to destroy the world because human beings are making too much noise!

And what about the man who survives the flood?

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, his name is Utnapishtim. He’s warned about the coming disaster by one of the gods, Ea, who tells him how to build a boat and save himself and his family.

But nowhere is his survival presented as a reward for being a righteous man.

Now compare that with the Torah.

The Torah is very specific about why God brings the Flood.

The world had become corrupt. It was filled with chamas, violence and wrongdoing. People were mistreating one another. Society had descended into a state of moral anarchy.

And Noach was saved because he was righteous.

That’s an enormous difference.

In the Mesopotamian stories, the gods are concerned about their own comfort. In the Torah, God is concerned about how human beings treat one another.

And there’s another fascinating difference.

After the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice. The gods gather around the offering because they have been deprived of sacrifices during the Flood.

In the Mesopotamian religious worldview, the gods depended upon human offerings for sustenance.

In fact, one of the gods recognizes that destroying humanity was a terrible mistake.

Why? Because the gods had nearly destroyed the very people who provided their offerings!

Now compare that with what happens in the Torah.

After the Flood, Noach also brings sacrifices.

And the Torah tells us that God smells the pleasing aroma.

But nowhere does the Torah suggest that God needs to eat the sacrifices. God doesn’t need our food. He doesn’t depend on human beings for sustenance.

The sacrifices are about our relationship with God. They express our devotion, our gratitude, and our willingness to serve Him.

God is concerned with the intention behind the offering, not with satisfying some physical need.

And this brings us to what I think is the most important lesson of the entire story.

The ancient flood narratives may share many details. There’s a great flood, a boat, the preservation of life, and sacrifices afterward.

But the theological messages are fundamentally different.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity is at the mercy of gods who can be unpredictable, quarrelsome, and concerned with their own interests.

In the Torah, God acts according to a moral standard.

Human beings are not destroyed because they’re making too much noise. They’re punished because they’ve abandoned morality, because they’ve become violent, because they’ve stopped treating one another as human beings.

And that distinction is revolutionary.

The Torah is telling us that the universe is not governed by arbitrary divine whims. It is governed by a God who demands moral responsibility.

And there’s something else here.

The Torah isn’t simply telling us what happened thousands of years ago. It’s teaching us something about ourselves today.

We are responsible for the kind of society we create.

We cannot simply say that everybody else is doing something wrong, so why shouldn’t we?

Noach lived in a corrupt generation, but he still had a responsibility to behave righteously.

And so do we.

The lesson of Parshat Noach is that righteousness isn’t determined by what everybody around us is doing. It’s determined by whether we live according to the moral standards God expects of us.

And perhaps that’s why the Torah begins by telling us that Noach was righteous in his generation.

Because every generation has its own challenges, its own temptations, and its own excuses for doing the wrong thing.

The question is whether we have the courage to do what’s right anyway.

Something to think about.

After the month of Tishrei comes another test. Will we do what is right even though there is nothing special for a month? The month of Cheshvon has nothing special. No holidays of any sort.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan — The Test of Everyday Life

Now for a quick Dvar Torah.

Today is Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, or as it’s sometimes called, Mar Cheshvan.

There are several explanations for why it’s called Mar Cheshvan. One interesting explanation is that the Hebrew word mar means bitter. And why is Cheshvan bitter? Because we’ve just finished the month of Tishrei, a month filled with holidays, and now we have an entire month without a single Jewish holiday.

Think about what we’ve just experienced.

We started with Rosh Hashanah, when we stood before God and looked toward the future. We examined our lives and thought about what we needed to change and how we could become better people.

Then came Yom Kippur, when we looked back at the past year, acknowledged our mistakes, asked for forgiveness, and promised God that we would do better.

Then came Sukkot. And what’s one of the most important mitzvot of Sukkot? Besides sitting in the sukkah and taking the lulav and etrog, it’s simply to be happy. The Torah tells us, V’samachta b’chagecha — you shall rejoice on your festival.

And there’s an interesting idea here.

Our tradition teaches that although the judgment begins on Rosh Hashanah and is sealed on Yom Kippur, there is another stage associated with Hoshana Rabbah, when the final judgment is delivered.

Why?

Perhaps God is saying, “I know how you behave when you’re standing before Me in judgment. I know how you behave when you feel like you’re on trial. But let’s see how you behave when the pressure is off. When you’re celebrating with your friends, eating, drinking, and enjoying yourself. Do you still remember all those promises you made?”

And then comes Simchat Torah, when we reach the height of our joy. We dance with the Torah. We celebrate the fact that God has given us this extraordinary gift. We’re not studying the Torah at that moment. We’re simply rejoicing that we have it.

And then, suddenly, it’s over.

Now comes Cheshvan.

No Rosh Hashanah. No Yom Kippur. No sukkah. No lulav and etrog. No dancing with the Torah.

Just ordinary, everyday life.

You get up in the morning. You have to go to work. You have to daven. You have responsibilities. You have bills to pay. You have all the little problems and frustrations that come with everyday living.

And that’s where the real test begins.

You see, it’s relatively easy to be inspired when you’re surrounded by holiness. It’s easy to make promises on Yom Kippur when you’re standing in shul, fasting, and thinking about your relationship with God.

But what happens three weeks later? Or a month later?

What happens when there’s no holiday coming up, no special prayers, no great spiritual excitement?

Do those promises still mean something?

That’s really the lesson of Cheshvan.

God isn’t only interested in how we behave on the special days. He’s interested in how we behave on an ordinary Tuesday morning when we’re tired, when we’re late for work, when somebody irritates us, or when we have an opportunity to do something wrong and nobody seems to be watching.

That’s when we discover whether all those promises we made during Tishrei have really changed us.

And perhaps that’s why Cheshvan is so important. We might think of it as a bitter month because there are no holidays. But in a sense, it’s one of the most important months of the year.

Because Tishrei is when we make our promises. Cheshvan is when we have to keep them.

It’s when we show God that our commitment wasn’t just something we felt on Yom Kippur or while dancing on Simchat Torah. It’s something we’re prepared to live by every single day.

And that’s an important lesson for all of us.

The true measure of our relationship with God isn’t just how we behave when life is special. It’s how we behave when life is ordinary.

Something to think about.

Chodesh Tov!

God took Hanuch after 365 years at a time when people lived for about 900 years. God was afraid that Hanuch would fall into sin so he took him early.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Enoch and the Power of Our Surroundings

Parshat Bereishit

One of the most enigmatic characters in the entire Torah is Chanoch, known in English as Enoch.

Chanoch was the seventh generation from Adam. Now, remember, in those days people lived extraordinarily long lives—800, 900 years, and sometimes even longer. But Chanoch lived only 365 years. And what’s even more interesting is that the Torah doesn’t actually say that he died.

Instead, the Torah tells us:

“And Chanoch walked with God, and he was no more, because God had taken him.” (Genesis 5:24)

What does that mean? What happened to Chanoch? Why did God take him?

Rashi offers a fascinating explanation.

Chanoch was a tzaddik, a righteous man. But there was a problem. He was living in a generation that was becoming increasingly wicked, and his righteousness was not necessarily strong enough to withstand the influences around him.

According to Rashi, God knew that Chanoch might eventually be influenced by his surroundings and become wicked himself. So God took him from the world before that could happen.

Now, that’s an extraordinary idea.

Here was a righteous man, someone who actually walked with God, and yet even he wasn’t necessarily strong enough to resist the pressures of society.

Our sages understood this problem very well. Pirkei Avot tells us to distance ourselves from bad neighbors and bad influences. Why? Because whether we realize it or not, the people around us influence how we behave.

Not everybody can stand up to social pressure.

Someone says, “Come on, let’s go out and have a few drinks. What’s the harm?” Or, “Everybody’s doing it. Why shouldn’t you?”

And before you know it, you’re doing things you never intended to do.

It’s very easy to be tempted. It’s much harder to resist temptation.

We see an interesting example of this in Israel today, in the debate over whether yeshiva students should serve in the army. One of the arguments made against their service is that exposure to the army’s secular environment might weaken their religious observance.

Now, I’ve always found that argument rather revealing. If your religious education is so fragile that exposure to a different environment might destroy it, perhaps we ought to be asking some serious questions about that educational system.

But that’s a discussion for another day.

The point is that the concern about outside influences is a very real one. And according to Rashi, even Chanoch was vulnerable.

There’s another beautiful tradition about Chanoch.

According to a later Jewish tradition, Chanoch was a shoemaker. And as he worked, with every stitch he made, he would direct his thoughts toward serving God.

Think about that.

He wasn’t sitting in a yeshiva studying Torah all day. He wasn’t a priest offering sacrifices. He was making shoes!

But to Chanoch, making shoes was itself a way of serving God. Every stitch had a purpose. He was creating something that would help another human being walk through the world and, hopefully, serve God.

That’s an important lesson in itself. You don’t have to be a rabbi or a great scholar to serve God. You can bring holiness into the world through the ordinary work you do every day.

And there’s another interesting detail about Chanoch.

He lived exactly 365 years. That’s the same number as the days in a solar year.

Perhaps there’s a lesson there as well. Every year of his life can remind us of a day in our own year. Every day is an opportunity to bring God into our lives, through the things we do, the people we encounter, and the choices we make.

But let’s return to Rashi’s explanation.

There’s a wonderful story about Billy Graham, the famous American evangelist.

Graham was known for maintaining very strict personal boundaries. He had a rule that he would not be alone behind a closed door with a woman other than his wife. He understood that even a religious leader needed to protect himself against temptation and against situations that could lead to wrongdoing.

According to a story told about him, a reporter once asked, “Reverend Graham, surely a man like you doesn’t have to worry about such things!”

And Graham reportedly replied, “Before I was a reverend, I was a man.”

What a wonderful answer!

He understood something very important about human nature. Being religious doesn’t mean that you stop being human. Being righteous doesn’t mean that temptation disappears.

We all have weaknesses. We all have temptations. And sometimes the wisest thing we can do is avoid putting ourselves in situations where those weaknesses might overcome us.

That’s the lesson of Chanoch.

Here was a man who walked with God, who brought holiness into his everyday work, who was considered righteous—and yet, according to Rashi, he was still vulnerable to the influence of the world around him.

If Chanoch had to worry about his surroundings, how much more should we?

We have to choose our friends carefully. We have to think about the environments in which we place ourselves. And we have to recognize that being a good person isn’t simply a matter of having good intentions. It’s also a matter of creating the conditions that will help us remain good people.

The Torah tells us that Chanoch walked with God. Perhaps the lesson for us is that if we want to walk with God, we have to pay attention to whom we’re walking with.

Something to think about.

Shabbat Shalom.

The mistake of many people is that they refuse to admit their guilt when they do something wrong. It is interesting to note that the first person in the Bible who admits their mistake is Abraham. And that is why he became the great leader.

A Quick Dvar Torah: Learning to Take Responsibility

Now for a quick Dvar Torah.

One of the interesting things that happens in this week’s parsha, Bereishit, is the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

God tells them that they can eat from any tree in the Garden, with one exception. There is one particular tree from which they are forbidden to eat.

And by the way, according to a Midrashic tradition, this all happened on Friday afternoon. Had they simply waited until Shabbat, they would have been permitted to eat from that tree.

That tells us something interesting about human nature. Tell someone that they can do anything they want, except for one thing, and what will they want to do? That one thing! They want to know why they can’t do it.

And that’s exactly what happens.

The serpent convinces Eve to eat from the tree. Eve eats from it and then gives some to Adam, who also eats.

Now comes the interesting part.

God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?”

Of course, God knows exactly where Adam is. Adam and Eve are hiding, which is rather ridiculous when you think about it. How do you hide from God?

Adam explains that he was afraid because he was naked.

And God asks, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?”

Notice what’s happening here. God is drilling down, as we would say today. He already knows what happened. He’s not looking for information. He’s giving Adam an opportunity to take responsibility.

And what does Adam say?

“The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

In other words, it’s her fault! And if you look carefully at his answer, he’s also putting some of the blame on God. After all, God gave him the woman!

But wait a minute. Couldn’t Adam have said no? Couldn’t he have said, “God told us not to eat from that tree”?

Instead, he makes excuses.

Then God turns to Eve, and what does she say?

“The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Again, somebody else’s fault!

And the serpent? Well, a serpent behaves like a serpent.

But notice what nobody says.

Nobody says, “I made a mistake. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

And that’s the important point.

A little later in the parsha, we have the story of Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother, and God asks him, “Where is Abel, your brother?”

And what does Cain answer?

“I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Again, instead of taking responsibility, he tries to evade the question.

He doesn’t say, “I did something terrible. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

And this is one of the great lessons of Bereishit.

It’s interesting that we read this parsha immediately after the holidays of Tishrei. We’ve just gone through Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when we spent so much time examining our behavior, admitting our mistakes, and asking forgiveness.

And now the Torah gives us examples of what happens when people refuse to do exactly that.

This theme continues throughout the Bible.

Think about King Saul.

God commanded Saul, through the prophet Samuel, to destroy Amalek. But Saul failed to carry out the command completely. He spared Agag, the king of Amalek, and allowed the people to keep the best of the sheep and cattle.

When Samuel confronts him, he asks a wonderful question:

“What, then, is this sound of sheep in my ears?”

In other words, if you did what God commanded, why am I hearing sheep?

And once again, we see the same pattern.

Saul begins making excuses. He blames the people. He explains that the animals were kept to offer sacrifices to God.

Samuel keeps pressing him, and eventually Saul admits that he sinned. But even then, he explains that he was afraid of the people and listened to them.

The result is that Saul loses the kingship.

Compare this with King David. When the prophet Nathan confronts David over his wrongdoing involving Bathsheba and Uriah, David responds with three simple Hebrew words:

חטאתי לה׳ — Chatati LaShem.

“I have sinned against God.”

No excuses. No blaming somebody else. Just an admission that he had done wrong.

David still had to face the consequences of his actions. Taking responsibility doesn’t mean that punishment disappears. But it makes repentance possible.

And that is really what the Torah is teaching us.

We all make mistakes. We’re human beings. God created us with free will, which means we have the ability to make choices, including wrong choices.

The real test isn’t whether we ever make a mistake. The real test is what we do afterward.

Do we admit that we were wrong? Do we try to correct what we’ve done? Or do we spend our time making excuses and blaming somebody else?

Very often, the excuses we make create more problems than the original mistake.

And that’s something worth remembering, especially after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

The Torah is reminding us that repentance begins with something very simple, but sometimes very difficult:

The ability to stand up and say, “I was wrong. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

It’s a small sentence, but it takes a great deal of courage to say it.

Something to think about.