B"H

Friday, Mar-Cheshvan 5 5784 / October 20, 2023

Questions & Answers on this week's Parsha, Noach, the story of Noach (Noah) and The Great Flood.

Q.   Why was he named "Noach"?

A. Noach comes from the word comfort. The Torah tells us that his father, Lemech, named his son Noach (Noah) saying, "This one shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands from the ground which G-d had cursed." He was called "Noach" for he brought "comfort" to the world.

Q.   The Torah tells us (Genesis 5:32) that Noach was 500 years old when the first of his three sons was born. What is the reason that, unlike anyone else in that generation, Noach didn't have children until such a late age?

A. G-d knew that as a result of the sins of that generation, He would bring The Great Flood. G-d said, “If Noach will have children at a younger age and they will be sinners, as the rest of that generation, I will have to destroy them along with everyone else and I don’t want to cause this pain to Noach, who is a righteous man.  If, on the other hand, they will all be righteous, then Noach will be forced to build a much larger ark, or many more arks to accommodate all his descendants.” Thus, G-d prevented Noach from having children until the age of five hundred. As a result, at the time of The Flood he didn't have any grandchildren yet.

It took Noach 120 years to build The Ark, in order to give the people a chance to repent. Even when this didn’t help and the people didn’t repent, G-d still didn’t bring the waters with destructive force. He still gave mankind a chance to repent. Only when this too didn’t help, did G-d send the waters with tremendous destructive force.

Our sages ask: Why does the Torah describe Noach as being, "A righteous man in his generation."

Rashi, in his commentary, brings two opinions; 1) It emphasizes the great virtue of Noach--that even in his generation, where everyone was wicked, Noach was righteous. Had he lived in the generation of Abraham, he would have been even more virtuous. 

2) According to other opinions, the term in his generation has a negative implication: Noach, they say, was righteous in comparison to his generation, who were all wicked. But had he lived in the generation of Abraham he would not have had such great merit compared to Abraham.

Said Rabbi Yechezkel of Kuzmir:  This is the price of leadership. There will always be those who will find fault with a leader no matter how good his intentions are.  This is the quality of true and just leadership. Great leaders are not ones who try to do things in order to please everyone, but who do what is right, regardless of the criticism. For one who always tries to please everyone in the end pleases no one.

SHABBAT SHALOM

Montreal candle lighting time: 5:42 / Shabbat ends: 6:43