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.