Shabbat Shalom October 8-9, 2010

TWO VIEWS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Parhsat Noach 5771
Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas

A Jew once came to Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk and asked him for advice about how to warm his frigid home in the winter (after all we’re talking a Polish winter.) He said to the Jew, “When the house is cold, there are two ways to get yourself warm. You can warm up the house, or you can put on a coat. The first way warms up the house for everyone, while the second way warms you up but leaves everyone else in the cold.

While he may have been talking about a cold house, in reality the Kotzker Rebbe was highlighting two fundamental worldviews. When faced with the complexities of human living, we can see ourselves as living in a world of the self that does not include others or we can try the harder task of seeing the world of the self as inclusive of others. We can warm ourselves with a coat, or we can warm others by raising the temperature of the entire house.

This debate is an ancient one, with roots planted deep in the Talmud’s discussion of this week’s Torah portion, Noach:

‘Noach was a righteous man, and perfect in his generation’ (Genesis 6:9). Rabbi Yohanan explained [that Noach was righteous and perfect] only in his own generation, but not [in respect] to others. But Reish Lakish explained the verse saying, Noach was righteous in his own generation, and how much the more so would he have been [in respect] to others! (Sanhedrin 108a)

Framed as a question of righteousness, both Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish see Noach as a righteous individual. For Rabbi Yohanan, Noach was not extraordinary - he was a simple, moral human being and his righteousness stemmed from the fact that he was surrounded by wickedness. Reish Lakish, on the other hand saw the story of the flood as an extraordinary event that required an extraordinary level of moral heroism. From this debate, our two worldviews again emerge. In the face of great adversity and moral turpitude, Noach saves himself, his family, and the animal kingdom. He is either indicted for being selfish (he didn’t save other human beings), or lauded for taking a moral stand when it wasn’t popular. In fact, further in Talmud, Noach is cast as the prophet, who tells humanity to repent, but is rebuffed by a populace consumed by avarice and greed. (Sanhedrin 108b). Either Noach is selfish, wearing a warm coat to protect only himself, or he tries to warm the house – and fails.

In many ways, the ancient debate between a strict sense of self-interest and a strong belief in communitarian values defines the political debate that is raging in our country. Do we as a community of individuals hold strong to our sense of personal liberty, defined by our desire for autonomous living, or do we see ourselves engaged in a wider communal project where we quest for human commonalities, defined by equal rights and protections. The political philosopher Isaiah Berlin pointed out the conflict between liberty and equality in a number of places, most poignantly in his essay, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” where he says, “Liberty- without at least a modicum of which … there is no possibility of remaining human – may have to be curtailed to make room for social welfare, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless…to allow justice or fairness to be exercised. ”

In this light, the choice Noach makes is crucial to our understanding of radical biblical individualism. Nowhere in the story or in the rabbinic interpretation of it does Noach argue with God as Abraham did on the hills overlooking Sodom and Gomorrah or cast his lot with the people as Moses did in the wilderness. Noach in fact is silent the entire time. Perhaps this is why the rabbinic tradition tends to indict Noah, for he chose the most radical of positions in the most critical of moments by saving himself, while allowing the rest of the world to drown.

While conceding that our values are often at war with each other, the Jewish tradition overcomes the tragic notion of value incommensurability by looking to integrate the values together under the rubric of Holiness, imagined as the Holy One in who is the loadstone of all value. This is the lesson that Noach failed to learn through the trial of the Flood. I believe this is also the lesson that we as a nation are failing to learn in our current political climate. Instead of integrating the notions of the individual and the community, of liberty and equality, we devote ourselves to a single value, often floating it seriatim over other values, and refusing to acknowledge that other values carry moral weight. We fail to see what all values share in common with each other, and what they share with the role of God – namely that they all direct us to pursue a flourishing life.

If we learn anything from the story of Noach, it is that he makes the choice to be a radical individual and the world suffers because of it. For that, we as a Jewish people do not trace our heritage through him. Instead, we learn what Noach learned upon his departure from the ark, that in a world devastated by the Flood, we can cast our eyes upward and see a better model for communal discourse. In that instant when our eyes peer into heaven, we can see the rainbow, the visual symbol of the covenantal integration of values that is becoming of a Godly individual and a Godly community.