Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: The Transformation of Noah

my baby [Music] hi everybody thank you for coming again I apologize for uh starting a little later I'm glad that people got to notice I and another thing I had to do and I thought it was only an hour event it was a two-hour event so things cut into scheduling conflicts anyway today's share is dedicated for a refuge Lima to Shimon Ben Adel to Mendel Ila Ben Freda Miriam and all of these are sponsored by Jacob and dvora Shore we hope that these columns should ever before Suleiman Israel and as well once again May Hashem bless all of these Harlem and all of the Holy Israel with the Refuge Lima and good good health and all of Chloe Israel and everybody should have the blessings of good and robust health uh so today we are in of course homage braces first a good good new month uh as I talked about last week this is the first regular month of the year so in a sense it's almost as if the year is beginning now because tishray had so many so many special times we were not in the rhythm of ordinary life but now ordinary life begins a pace and it's important to know as I said last week I don't want to repeat the whole Russia that the litmus test if we have grown from holidays and sacred moments is whether we carry over the inspiration into the regular rhythms of living meaning it's easy to be inspired when you're at a elevated Yom tof moment it's much more difficult to feel the presence of God in the day-to-day which does not have any holidays is the Paradigm of day-to-day regular living and therefore we are really starting 57.83 right now you can almost look at the month of tishuay as the introduction or the preliminaries that prepare you for the year and now you actually have to go through the year itself so uh hummus gracious Genesis is filled with very very difficult subjects in fact I often tell people kind of in a joke that they should start learning Hamish only from the third Parsha that talks about avraham and the history of the Jewish people racist and nalak are kind of Beyond us gracious for sure is beyond us the Garden of Eden the snake filled with Mysteries and that's besides the whole issue of how do you reconcile Genesis with science right so I kind of say all right we'll skip that one but not not really we'll skip that one uh but Noah has plenty of problems too the story of a worldwide flood that wiped out Humanity a lot of questions people raise there is no evidence that there was a worldwide flood and if you assume all of humanity was wiped out that means the entire human race is descended from Noah Noah's three children right Noah had three boys could that be possible and how do you explain animals like the kangaroos which don't appear anywhere else like where did they come from was there a kangaroo on the ark so a lot of questions and I'm not going to answer any of these questions tonight I just recognize that there are questions that people raise I do just want to call to your attention one particular aspect I think we would have to accept as Jews who believe in the Torah that Humanity was wiped out in the flood there were no survivors other than Noah Noah and his sons and their wives so all human beings come from Noah however that doesn't necessarily mean that the flood was a global flood the flood could have been a regional flood because it could be that the human race was concentrated in the Middle East area but in terms of animals like kangaroos maybe they didn't even experience the flood in fact there there are macaros that we don't have to assume that the whole world was covered with water on the other hand I don't see a way in which we could assume there were human beings in Australia or other places now of course as you know originally many of the continents were joined in single land masses and then there was continental drift and you know that might explain uh how some animals got separated from the mainland so there are many many scientific issues and there are books that are written about this how to reconcile Genesis with with science it's important to know of course that science itself can sometimes turn into a religion and you have to be careful not to worship the religion of science uh if one delves into the political aspects of science one can actually see that you know people look at science as pure objective unvarnished truth when you get into the scientific Enterprise you actually see that that is not always the case and one has to be careful but just because science says something doesn't mean that it's necessarily absolutely truthful remember Dr fauci throughout uh covert giving I am science right that that was his Mantra throughout we know that many scientists did not agree with that statement so one needs to balance it but still there are many many good books that deal with Genesis and Science and that's not going to be the tenor of my remarks tonight but I do want to talk about the flood story a little bit and in particular the personality of Noah you know God created a world and after 10 Generations God saw a world that degenerated in corruption a world that was filled with Hamas Hamas similar to the terrorist organization Hamas it's very good name I don't know if Hamas actually means in Arabic but it does correspond with the Hebrew Hamas is a combination of violent robbery not respecting boundaries and the world became corrupt the world became degenerate the world was filled with violence and God decreed there needs to be a reset we need to kind of get rid of this corrupt world and start over again and there was only one person or one family that God saw as a righteous person that was the hope for Humanity and this was Noah and his wife and his three sons and Noah was told to build an ark in which he would bring in the animals a male and a female of every species and the pure animals the kosher animal is exactly very interesting because the laws of kashras were not really given yet but there still was a sense of certain animals being spiritually Superior there were seven by the way what does the seven animals mean meaning the two animals is male and female right that's simple what's the seven there are actually two ways of learning it some actually interpret there were seven pairs 14 animals seven male seven female of course that's going to create a very crowded Arc others say that no there actually were three pairs meaning to say three male female Pairs and the seventh was designated to be a sacrifice to God at the end of the process so the maclocus is is it 14 animals meaning seven pairs or is it three pairs with a spare animal to be a sacrifice offered to God but be it as it may when we are first introduced to Noah the Torah describes him as uh with two adjectives Ayla told us Noah this is the history of Noah was a righteous man he was perfect in his Generations now you'll notice the two words that the Torah uses in Hebrew Noah is called Sadiq righteous and Noah is called tamim perfect now the question is well well the question number one is what is the difference between the Meda of Sadiq and the media of tamim Sadiq tummy question one what is Sadiq and what is question two Noah is initially described as Sadiq tamim but you know later in the narrative when God commands him to go into the ark because it's going to start raining God says you go into the arkhara is because you are the only one that is eight Sadiq in this generation so you'll notice when God talks to Noah he does not call him a Sadiq tamim he only calls him a static why does he leave out tamim if Noah is now Rashi says ah there's a good reason to that when you praise a person to his face you should only Praise Him partially you shouldn't give him a swelled head so yeah but when God is talking to him God says only exotic this is called miksat shivajo that in front of a person you only say part of his praises that's rashi's answering but let's let's leave it as a question for now so question one is what is Sadiq what is tamim question two is why when Noah has initially described is it when Hashem speaks to him he's only Sadiq question three is the unusual words of is plural in his Generations plural the singular would have been doho now a person generally only lives in one generation I live in my generation whenever whatever time frame I live is when I live what does it mean to say it's across the generations right so these are the three questions what is Sadiq versus tamim why does God leave out the tamim when he speaks to Noah and what is the significance of the plural Bido Rosa okay these are the three questions we're going to discuss so in order to start off let's start off with the famous famous Rashi which is really from the Gomorrah but it's a famous rasi probably one of the most famous rashis inat in all of Hamish although again it's from the gemora itself and that is why does the Torah say Noah was righteous in his Generations without focusing on the plural or singular so Rashi brings Yash darshan some people darshan this in Noah's favor some people interpret this in a negative way right some people always look for the negatives some people interpret it positively if Noah was righteous when the whole world was evil how much more so would he have been righteous in a world that had other righteous people in other words the terror is emphasizing even in this evil generation he was righteous what a great man he was that he was righteous in the face of evil the terrorists emphasizing this to his credits that's the first opinion yaesh darshan some interpret it in a praiseworthy way the negative interpretation is ah interesting that's another when everybody is really so bad so he was the best of the bunch but if he would have been in the generation of aphraim no television he wouldn't have been anything so how do you interpret it he was even saintly in that generation what a righteous person he was or yeah he was good compared to everybody else but had there been a real Sonic in the in the room he wouldn't have been anything anything special yeah he starts in the good night so here's the thing the lavush the Bush was of Mordechai he was a Polish Rabbi who lived in the 1500s Yeti was one of the great great postkin uh he was a a cover and the talmud of the Rama in Krakow and he himself wrote a code that was actually a competitor with the chokinara for many of it it's called the bush in many ways I don't want to get into that LE bush is superior to the Shelton Ark because only gives you dry rules and the lavish gives you a lot of explanation and there was a time that the bush might have become the definitive code of Jewish law for whatever reason Hashem didn't make it that way but among the LA Bush's many writings are not just his great code of Jewish law but he actually wrote a commentary on Russian [Music] and the lavush actually points out that the Mac Locus whether durosov means Noah was exceptionally righteous means he was only better than everybody else there's actually no Mach Locus they are looking at Noah from two perspectives and both of those perspectives are true meaning the following I'm going to just make up numbers numbers have no meaning but they'll just illustrate the idea let's imagine that Rama Vino is exotic you know at a hundred Noah is exotic at 10 I'm just making up numbers so everybody's Moda there's no Mac location everybody's murder Noah was a 10. in that room is a hundred but the first opinion is saying if Noah managed to be a 10. in a bad generation he certainly would have been a hundred had he been with avram so the first opinion is not saying that Noah as he was as great as Opera it's simply saying if Noah managed to be a 10 in a degenerate environment he would have been a hundred with avram so the first mandiamar is looking at Noah as to what he would have become and the second opinion is looking at Noah as he actually was and both opinions are are right in other words it's not a Mach Locus rather one is looking at what Noah would have been and one is looking at what Noah was now that's an important lesson because it does tell you in other words that everybody is affected by their environment Noah was dragged down by his environment he managed to be a ten no matter what but he would have been a hundred in a better environment right one has to be very careful people sometimes say oh I'm strong enough I could put I could put myself in any type of society I have my values I have my strengths you never know you know I'll tell you I mean I I was a rabbi as many of you know I was a rabbi in Silver Spring Maryland for many years and the University of Maryland's main campus in College Park is located a short distance from Silver Spring and the number of kids who graduated Yeshiva high schools and even spent a year in Israel if they went on Today college they didn't go to Yu or whatever whether that was the right decision or not is a question but they went to colleges like University of Maryland I can tell you a surprisingly High number stopped davening every day stopped wearing filling some were Mahalo Chavez Within six months of their entering that college environment how could that happen a person has raised Orthodox all of his life he goes 12 years to an orthodox School elementary school and high school he goes to a year a year at least maybe two years in marriage Israel and within six months 15 14 16 years as well simply disappears the answer is yeah that's what happens you put yourself in an environment where these things are not important you put yourself in an environment where most of the kids are not following these mitzvahs you stop following these mitzvahs environments drag us down they can affect us in positive ways and they can affect us in negative ways and this was the situation with Noah this is what the lavish is saying the one that darshan's is not saying Noah was a hundred in that environment it's simply saying if Noah could be a ten then in a better environment he would have been a hundred but when I say he was a 10. the environment affected even so we have to be careful I mean the takeaway is very simple both for ourselves and for our children we want to find a surviva in which the morality is good the middle is good the Torah observance is good because people get affected now the gemara says in khajiga that different Torah are as difficult to acquire as gold and silver and as easy to lose and break as glass now when you hold glass you know you drop the glass it smashes you put in so much effort to get Torah in midvote and you can lose it in a week you can lose it right away you're in the wrong environment so that's the LA Bush's point but I want to make another point and you'll notice that when the negative comparison is made it doesn't just say if Noah would have been with Sadi Kim he wouldn't have been that much in other words the way he was if he took the 10 and put it to it specifically Compares them to one particular setting that if Noah would be side to side with Abraham Lo Haya foreign it's not simply saying this is the negative side it's not simply saying that Noah compared to sadikim would have been nothing it specifically says Noah compared to avraham would have been nothing what is it about avrah mavina that Noah left so the zower the zower offers the following commentary the Zohar says come and see what is the difference between avram avinu and Noah Hashem tells avram we're going to read in a few weeks I'm going to destroy the evil city evil cities of sudama namora because their sins are crying to high heaven for me to wipe them out of Rama vinu prays for the degenerate people of Saddam he doesn't only pray he argues he says to God how can the adjust God do this he bargains maybe there's 50 righteous people are you going to destroy the city if there's 50 righteous people and God says no if there's 50 righteous people I'll spare the city there are not 50 righteous so Albert says well what about 45 it's like bargaining in the Arab shook I don't know if they do that today but I remember years and years ago there used to be kind of a game that you'd play with all these bargainings 45 40 30 20 10. praise any Bargains and he argues of ram avino saw the Redemptive potential in the most degenerate evil people he prayed for them he wanted Mercy for them his tent was open to them people say today if abrahimovina would come back and do all of the stuff that he did there would be pascalville and there would be wall posters maybe putting him in heaven or maybe saying anyway avram is certainly a great person but maybe too much too much too much he shouldn't be patronizing Sinners Like This actually Rabbi Norman Lambs wrote an essay about what would happen if avram would come back now I have to say maybe I shouldn't say this that I'm pretty sure uh that Rabbi Lam got a takeoff from Dostoevsky that in the in the in the brothers karamazov there's a famous famous chapter what if yoshika would come back what if Jesus would come back and talk about helping the poor he says Jesus would be crucified by the Catholic Church to this very day that was Dustin had a tremendous resentment against the Catholic Church he said it became materialistic it became selfish it became exploitive and he said they would crucify their own God so Dr Lam Rabbi Lam kind of adapted that to have ramadina taken from the grand Inquisitor chapter in The Brothers karamaza but whatever it is the point is still a good point Dostoevsky was right Rabbi lamb was right that sometimes I mean a lot of things are that way the rambam almost certainly would be condemned as not because for not believing in the 13 principles of faith I the rambam wrote the 13 principles of Faith okay whatever it is but the way he interpreted it is not the conventional interpretation that the ultra Orthodox world has today so the radar would have been put in as well right all of these things so the Zoar says look at avram's love look at avram's Compassion look at avram praying and hoping that Hashem will show Mercy when Hashem tells Noah I'm going to wipe out the whole world so no expense 120 years building an ark now granted it took 120 years so that people would ask questions but we don't find that Noah prayed for the generation we don't find that no Ox sought Mercy avram prays and Bargains and argues Noah Builds an ark to protect himself and his family and the zower says that is the difference between Noah who cared only for himself in avram who cared for every single person even if they were undeserving and that is why we find in the Navy the Zohar says that the flood is called means the Waters of Noah so it doesn't just mean it happened in Noah's time but it means Noah is responsible because he could have prayed he could have been misspala he could have asked Hashem to have mercy Moshe Urbana was the same thing after the Hashem says to Moshi I'm going to eradicate these people and I will make a covenant with you and I will erase them from the book what does Moshe say if you erase them then you erase me I'm not going anywhere without them that does most European news media as well but the difference is Moshe was praying for the Jews everyone was praying for the rashem of sudoma even that so that's what this always says the Zoe are false for not being mitzpalel for his generation foreign who wears a fur coat what's the analogy let's imagine you're in a room middle of a Siberian winter no heat freezing cold or Denmark also gets cold very cold so there are two ways you can address the situation one is to turn on the heat and the other is to put on a coat now you'll be comfortable either way but the difference is when you put on a coat you're comfortable everyone else is still freezing when you turn on the heat you're benefiting everybody [Applause] was exotic with a fur coat he didn't help the rest of the world he only helped himself this is Noah and Abraham and this is what the gemara means when it says if he would have been in avram's generation Rev destler says the following insight how long was Noah and his family in the table how long were they in the ark so if you look at the Torah you actually see 365 years it is a solar year they entered the table of the 17th of of uh and on the 27th of kreshment which is 365 days later they left they were in the Teva a year right it rained for 40 days and then it took a number of days till the till the water went down otherwise there's a whole process a comp a complicated chronology of when they eventually left but they were there for a whole year now if you think about it this is Rev destler point of the whole year I mean God wants to destroy the world and God wants to reconstitute the world through Noah and his family this could have been done in five minutes no God could have put Noah in a cave a lead-lined cave God could have had a nuclear War destroying the world he would have cleared away the radiation until Noah could come out like what is the need to extend this process over a year siriv Jester says the purpose of the year was not to destroy the world the world could have been destroyed in much less than a year and in fact it was destroyed if you think about it I mean Humanity died very early on in the flood and it didn't take a whole year for everybody to die but rather the year was necessary for Noah how so the Morrison hadron recounts that many many decades later the last Survivor who experienced life on the ark was shame the son of Noah Noah died shame was still alive and nearly other avaram's Faithful Servants actually interviewed shame and he asks shame tell me what was life like on the ark for a whole year tell me a little bit about what life was like and shame said you don't want to know my father was running from morning to night and into the night having to feed every type of animal some animals only ate in the daytime and some animals were nocturnal they only ate at night and Noah had to respond to every type of animal every type of diet and one time he was late feeding the lion and the lion couldn't take the impertinence of the lion swiped at his arm and took off his arm he lost his arm from the Lion Noah was perpetually exhausted in taking care of all of the animals for a year what's the purpose of that should have destler says the posic says unto heal him Olam IDE ibane the world is predicated unloving kindness Noah was going to be the second edition version 2.0 of a world that had been destroyed if Noah had a certain character flaw that he didn't care enough about other people that he was focused predominantly on himself and on his family he could not be the progenitor of the new world until he inculcated within his personality kindness compassion and responsibility for others he needed a year where his Focus was outer directed taken care of every type of animal in which he learned to be responsive to even their needs to learn compassion to learn to learn responsibility to learn commitment to others and doing it over and over and over again is the rambam writes our emotions are educated by our actions this is a very important idea we think my actions come out of my emotions I feel kindness so I do kindness that's true but the opposite is also true by doing kind things you develop a kind disposition so Noah needed a year to be trained in kindness and then and only then was he ready to be the founder of the new world Olam said okay so we have a little commercial in the middle right so it's not only the word the temple should be rebuilt but it's rebuilt through Allah through loving kindness so you see with Tesla writes the purpose of the Tava was not to give God time to destroy the world and save Noah the purpose of the table was for Noah to learn the qualities that he needed to have to be the founder of humanity After the flood with this we can now go back to the three questions and you see a beautiful answer first of all Noah has initially described as Sadiq and tamim what is the difference between Sadiq righteous antonym perfect so the Martin Sanhedrin says Sadiq refers to your relationship to God's what we call Bain Adam llama come sadik serves God tamim nigamara says refers to the kindness and compassion that you show others eventually eventually was both that Sadiq and the tummy right so that answers question one Sadiq and tamim but question two is why when God speaks them and tells them to go into the ark he only calls him its attic here is the shot Before the Flood Noah was only at Sadiq because he didn't care that much about others so when God is speaking to him before the flood the most God could say is eurothetic when the Torah up front is describing Noah which is where the Torah is writing this description after everything happens foreign as a result of the experience in the ark so we've answered what is we've answered that although Noah eventually became both at Sadiq and the tamim Before the Flood he was only Sadiq and then the third question is what is the plural of do rose of Generations says because Noah really lived in two generations he lived in the generation of the old Humanity Before the Flood and he lived in the generation of the new world so now it's beautiful Sadiq tamim in his Generations meaning in the first generation he was only Sadiq in the second generation he became it from him see he's very beautiful because if Noah graduated from being Sadiq to being tamim that metamorphosis straddled the two generations because his first generation was life Before the Flood his second generation was Life After the flood the transition was the year that they spent in the ark and therefore Sadiq Before the Flood tamim After the flood and once again that's why Before the Flood Hashem only describes him [Music] So eventually no luck comes out okay Noah did become the tamim but he needed one year of developing the Meda of compassion of rahmanas of care of concern and even though this was to animals that's part of character building as well because they'll tell us the reason why Moshe or avenu was a shepherd before he became the leader of the Jewish people was that that's how one develops compassion in fact everyone knows the uh the 23rd psalm miss markimon one of the famous tehilim Hashem rowi Hashem is my shepherd Lo XR I will not lack so I came across a book many many years ago I actually don't own the book but I started to refer to very very fascinating it was written by an Arab Christian uh who happened to be a shepherd He says you know Jews do not understand their own Bible because most Jews don't work with sheep so they don't understand the meaning of being a shepherd it's a very good point if you really want to know what it means to God is my shepherd you have to know what a Shepherd actually does so I think his book is called a Shepherd explains the 23rd psalm and he talked about the fact that sheep are very frightened and timid animals unlike goats goats are very confident goats run all over the place sheep apparently have very poor eyesight they don't really see much in front of themselves and because they're they're sometimes weighted down with all of their wool if a sheep Falls over the Sheep cannot get up so they're kind of helpless they don't see very well and a Shepherd has to as kazal described it a Shepherd has to carry the Sheep sometimes pick up the Sheep there's a certain tenderness that has to be goats are very independent right goats are like cats and the Sheep are more like dogs but even dogs have more Mobility than sheep have right so being a Shepherd can train a person in compassion and kindness and that is why God chooses Shepherds to be leaders of men Governor as well was a I was a shepherd by the way as an aside some of you might remember the um the former Chief Rabbi of England before Rabbi Sachs is Lord jacobowitz who is the first of the chief rabbis who has actually made a a lord then a rabbi sacks that was made a lord as well so somebody who had been a congregant of rev Jacob who had said I've always known the Lord is my shepherd but now I see my shepherd is I Lord because the rabbi is called the ship my shepherd has become a lord so it's kind of a an inverse of that but okay um so now though now that we've answered these three questions there is one other point that I need to address and every time I talk about this I always feel very very guilty because who am I to knock Noah who am I to be critical if not right the Zohar is critical of him but imagine a person in a world that's totally evil and he's the only one who is righteous I don't want to sit pass judgment to anybody else in the room but you know my guess is if I would have been around in that world you know I probably would have been with the vast majority of everybody else so one has to be careful not to criticize Noah whose righteousness was unparalleled the venicionos that he faced the trials that he faced and in many ways one might say that Noah's lack of involvement in the needs of others was not necessarily callous but it was his own need for self-preservation as I said before you get affected by your environment if you're living in a world which is full of evil Maybe the only response you can take is separation you see because he has no other support system so the greatness of avram was that even though Abram II was the only one he was able to go out interact be matariff but you can't really be critical of someone who is more insular because in a world where you're fearful that you're going to be dragged down sometimes the only thing you can do is withdraw right we see this issue all the time uh you know as I say people sometimes are confident they can navigate any type of environment but they sometimes discover that the environment is too powerful and we see this aspect with Noah you know Noah comes out of thee comes out of the Ark and it's like a Twilight Zone picture the world is desolate there are no people empty I mean you know imagine you wake up one morning and again there are a few Twilight Zone episodes like these wake up one morning and like everybody's gone nothing's here one could be overwhelmed with despondency depression no luck plants a Vineyard Noah gets drunk now why did Noah get drunk you know different explanations but one explanation might be this is just simple Pleasant shot he got drunk because he was crushed with despondency despair loneliness but what do you see with Noah once he gets connected to materialism it drags him down it affects them in negative ways as a result he needed to separate himself he needed not to be part of that environment so it wasn't that he didn't care it wasn't that he was callous it wasn't that he was indifferent he says I have to focus on myself and my family because otherwise we're gonna be destroyed Sarah put your points out that there are two architectural structures in the Torah that are good I mean there is the Tower of Babel which is bad and maybe we'll talk about that another time but the two architectural structures that are considered to be structures of kadusha is one is the Teva of Noah the Ark of Noah and the other is the mishkan the Tabernacle of the desert that was the prototype for the base what is the difference between the Teva and the Michigan the Tava creates a hermetically sealed environment that keeps out the Raging Waters right the Teva keeps out the destructive flood the mishkan creates a structure that radiates light and caducea outwards the Mishka I'm sorry the Tava locks up and contains the mishkan radiates outwards so here's what Doug destler says I'm sorry this is what your foot Witnesses the same way chronologically their first was a Teva and then eventually there was a Michigan and of course avram represents the Michigan as well radiating his light outward so too in each of Our Lives in each of our individual Journeys to God we have to create a tava before we create a mission meaning the ultimate goal of life is to be a source of light that radiates Holiness outward to influence people to care about people to elevate your environment to create Holiness in the world but before you can create that holiness you need to have a period of insularity of separation you need to separate from the world before you're able to give to the world you need to solidify your commitments your knowledge your beliefs you need to separate yourself from that which is corrosive and degrading and then at some point you can develop a spiritual strength where you can confront that external reality and influence it in a positive way so an example would be this is why we would say for example that if it's at all possible a person should have some time in a Yeshiva or a seminary because essentially that's like the table that's like an ark you separate yourself from the world a little bit and you focus on learning on prayer now that may not be your long-term World your long-term world will be involved in the world in different ways but I need kind of that Foundation of insularity to give me the strength to then confront all of the challenges of my external environment so if Whitner says the same way there was first to Noah and then there was an avraham in their own lives I need a takufa when I am in Noah and only after the takufas being a Noah I am am I then ready to try to be in a microcosm to try to be an avraham right that's kind of the message of what is is going on uh again maybe there's again a commercial for for yeshivas for seminaries for some notion in which I separate myself from the world a little bit the Jewish people themselves in the desert we had 40 Years of the desert living on man and only then are we ready for the challenges of coming to Eric Israel okay so that's kind of the story that we see of the Sadiq and the tomim the DeRose of the transformative effect of the Teva and Noah and the fact that Noah's decision was right for who he was but eventually one spiritually progresses to the madriga of avram the madraga of the mishkan rather than the rather than the Tava um okay I think that's about it a little shorter than usual how much so I'm happy to take some questions I do have to leave around 10 o'clock [Music]