Ethics from the Weekly Torah Portion - Noach

NOACH

In this section, I write about messages we learn from within the weekly Torah portion and how this affects us from a moral viewpoint.

In this week’s Sedra there is a lot to be learnt about morals, seeing as most of the weekly Torah deals with the destruction of a corrupt world for being immoral!!

There are 3 points I would like to focus on:



1) The verse states that the “world was filled with corruption” – The word used for corruption here is חמס, “Chamas”. (note the similarity between a certain organisation that ironically uses that name today). What does this actually mean? In the Talmud, the word “Chamas” refers to someone who forces someone to sell something to him. Whilst this doesn’t seem as bad as stealing something, as in this case the person gets a fair value for the item, this means of attaining something by use of brute force indicates a breakdown in moral values. This breakdown is what caused the flood; a twisted distortion on what is right and wrong. We also know that they stole trivial amounts, which were less than a “perutah”, a Talmudic coin, (equivalent to about £0.02 or $0.03 !!!) which doesn’t actually merit a punishment for stealing as the amount is so trivial. They simply did this to indicate a corruption where things that couldn’t be punished for led to a breakdown in the judicial system, which distorted the whole system of legal reward and punishment.

2) God tells Noach to “go out of the ark”. This may seem puzzling. Surely after being holed up in a boat, Noach would be bursting to leave and go onto dry land. This however teaches us an important lesson and may even be speaking to us. God tells Noach to get out of the ark, this is telling us that even when we may want to lock ourselves up in an ‘ark’, whether it be at home, not wanting to go to work or school, whether it is in a certain place, where we are unwilling to move to a certain place even though we are supposed to move there; it is tempting to lock oneself in. However we are told to go out; to take responsibility for the world around us. To do out bit in improving and correction the world: to quote Apollo 11 – “One small step for mankind, one giant leap for humanity.”

3) In one seemingly out of place episode in this week’s Torah portion, Noach plants a vineyard and gets drunk from the wine this vineyard produces. He is then seen in a state of nakedness by his son חם, or “Ham”, who “looked at his father’s nakedness”. We see that when one sees another stumble or “mess-up-big-time”, there are two reactions one can provide: a) to be disgusted by the act and reprimand the person, b) to do one’s best to rectify the matter at hand.
Ham takes the first approach, and looks at his father’s nakedness, the negative aspect of his father’s misdeed. However we know that Noach’s two other sons, Shem and Jafeth שם , יפת, “did not see their father’s nakedness”. Instead, their backs turned, they walk towards their father and clothe him, without shaming him. This is the correct matter. When one sees another person in a negative state; do the positive thing.
The great Chasidic master and founder of the Chasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov comments on this. How did these brothers act in profoundly different ways?
The answer is simple. When one is himself repulsive; one sees and is frustrated by the repulsiveness of others. (This is related to today’s Short Thought for the Day that quotes a Mishnah that states that “One can determine all blemishes except for his own). However, one who is pure does not see the repulsiveness in his fellow human being. Instead, his only reaction is to think on how he can help the person and how his actions can benefit mankind as a whole.

This is the correct path to take.

May we all succeed in seeing only the good in others, and doing our best to contribute to a moral and peaceful society.

This week’s “Ethics from the Weekly Torah Portion” is dedicated in honour and recognition of Rav Chaim Drukman,שליט"א , who miraculously escaped the Holocaust, missing the first ship he was supposed to be on which was sunk by a German submarine with no survivors; and making his way to Israel, whereby in thanks to God for saving his life he devoted it to helping others, in his past roles as Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs and a Member of the Israeli Parliament, to his current roles as leaders of educational institutions across the country that help develop the youth of today into the leaders of tomorrow.