A short and long lesson from Parshat Noach


“Noach’s son, Cham told others about his father’s drunkenness and was cursed, whereas Noach himself was not.  Thus, speaking ill of one who has sinned is worse than he who committed the sin.” ~ R’ Moshe Amiel zt”l (Torah Tavlin)

—————————–

Additionally, for those of you who have time to read a beautiful D’var Torah, I saw the following from a friend of mine, Rabbi Noach Peled:

In the very end of parshas Bereishis, the possuk tells us that Noach’s sons were born after he had turned 500 years old.

Quoting Chazal, Rashi points out that all others before and during Noach’s time had children when they were a bit less than or a bit more than one hundred years of age. Why then, did Noach have to wait the extra four hundred or so years to have kids?

Continues Rashi, Hashem reasoned that if Noach will have sons in his “youth” like everyone else, if they will be resha’im, they will need to perish in the mabul, and it will be a calamity for the tzadik Noach. And if they will be righteous, he will be inconvenienced by having to build numerous arks to house his children and their many households (4 hundred years worth of descendants).

Therefore, to save Noach from tragedy or hardship, Hashem delayed him, and disabled him from having any children for an extra 400 years, so that when Hashem decreed the mabul, Noach’s oldest son was not yet of punishable age and could not be included in the decree.

Those are the words of Chazal brought by Rashi.

This enlightens us to an amazing concept and teaches us a tremendous lesson.

Just imagine Noach and his wife during that 400 year period, how sad they might have been, how depressed, how hopeless. Everyone else is having kids. Everyone else had kids a hundred years ago. Everyone else had kids two hundred years ago. Everyone else had kids three hundred years ago and are now celebrating with grandkids and some with great-grandkids. And Noach and his wife have nothing but an empty home. How horrible it seems.

Yet Chazal teach us here that Hashem orchestrated it all this way purely for Noach’s good, to protect him from tragedy and pain.

What to us seems horrible may very well be Hashem at work for our own good sake and protection.

We do not always have the ability to see the entire picture, to know what divine thoughts lurk behind what may seem a harsh reality. But we do have the ability to believe and to know that all Hashem does is for the best, even when it seems otherwise.

We do not always have the ability to see the picture in its entirety in order to know the divine thoughts which lurk behind what may seem a harsh reality. What we do have is the ability to believe and to know that anything and everything Hashem does is for the best, even when it seems otherwise.

Incidentally, this is actually a Halacha in the Shulchan Aruch “A person should forever accustom himself to say “all that Hashem does is good”.

This halacha is based on two famous stories in the Gemorah, one with Rebbi Akiva, and one with Rebbi Nachum Ish Gamzu.

With a bit of hard work to rewire our thinking, we can and we must train ourselves to think this way, for as limited human beings, never may we assume we really understand what and why things happen as they do. We may hope to understand things fully one day in the future, but till then, we may live in peace knowing that “everything Hashem does is for the best”.

This entry was posted in Emuna, Shmiras Haloshon. Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to A short and long lesson from Parshat Noach

Leave a comment