Noah's Vibes

This week's Torah portion is Noah. The Torah is telling us that Noah was a righteous person, but he was righteous only in his generation, which means that if Noah would have lived in a different generation, he would not be considered righteous or anything. The question is Why does the Torah make an effort to let us know that he was righteous only in his generation, and if he would live in a different generation, he would not be considered anything? Why is it so important for us to know that? In the stories of the Torah, there is never anything really negative. The Torah is a very positive when it comes to tell stories. The Torah emphasized that he was righteous in his generation rather than telling us that Noah was righteous man in any generations. The Torah avoids any type of negative terms when it tells stories. So again, when it comes to the laws of conduct, the Torah is very clear, tells us this is pure, this is impure, stay away from this, stay away from that, don't eat this, don't eat that. But to say that Noah was righteous only in his generation comes to prevent us from making a big mistake. Noah's behavior had a very negative side to it. And if Noah had been described only in a positive way as a righteous person, we might have thought that his behavior was good, and maybe we would have copied his behavior. Maybe we should learn from him. And that was— and that's the way to be. But when it comes to Noah, that's not the case. This is why the Torah emphasized that he was righteous, but he was not complete. There was something in his behavior that we should not learn from. Noah's mistake was that when he knew that the world is about to come to an end and there is a big flood, Unlike Moses, who prayed for his people and asked mercy from God to spare his people, Noah didn't really care about his generation. Noah did not ask God to spare them. He was only taking care of himself, his family, and the animals he invited to the ark. That's it. Noah did not pray for his generation. The generation of Noah didn't have much merits. They didn't have righteous ancestors to lean on, unlike the generation of Moses, which had Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to lean on. But still, he, you know, you would have expected somebody who is considered righteous to pray for those people who are about to drown in the flood. And the fact that he didn't do that means that he was righteous only in his generation. What is the takeaway for us? We need to understand the importance of praying for the well-being of our fellow men, the importance of praying for our communities, praying for our countries, for our families, praying for our friends. We should never only pray for ourselves. Even if we feel that our generation is not behaving in a proper way, or there is a group of people that are acting in a negative way, or maybe there is a friend who went the wrong path, we still have to pray for them, and we have to ask God to forgive them and ask mercy for them. We have to act like Moses. Moses was praying and asking mercy from God to, to save the Israelites, to save his people. He did not want any harm to happen to them, unlike Noah, which didn't even once ask for mercy for his generation. From this, we also learned that for Noah not to pray for his generation is actually a merit. Because of Noah, we now learned the importance of praying for our fellow man, the importance of praying for our community, praying for our families, and praying for our friends. We learned from Noah a way to influence our environment in a positive way. We now understand that if you did everything right, and something did not work out for you, maybe you're praying only for yourself. Maybe it's time for you to pray, to add more prayers for other people. And maybe we need to influence and ask mercy and pray for the well-being of everyone around us. Noah's generation was a terrible one. It was very corrupt and evil, and that's why God had to bring the floods to begin and restart humanity. But not even this generation deserved this. They still deserve to be prayed for. Imagine our generation, how much prayers do we need, having pandemics, going through wars. We are a generation that's about to experience the redemption. The Rambam said that the Torah promised that if people will repent at this time and we will reach a critical mass, we are literally going to bring the redemption. This is why we need to ask and pray for the mercy of every human being in this generation. And just by asking for mercy and the well-being of every human being that will bring us to repent, and that repentance will bring the real and complete redemption. And may it happen now. Thank you for watching.