Noach

The sicha for parshas Noach is in Vol. III of Likkutei Sichos.

By way of introduction, we know that when a person does a mitzvah, the holiness and the reward for that mitzvah is eternal and permanent and cannot be lost or undone. However, when a person does a mitzvah under unholy circumstances or for unholy reasons, then the holiness of the mitzvah is trapped so to speak in the kelipah, in the shell of unholiness, and it is not available to the person who performed the mitzvah. However, there are ways by which that holiness can be released and freed from the kelipah, and once again become available to the person who is redeeming it, and to some degree credited to the person who performed the mitzvah.

With this we will understand the sicha in which the Rebbe explained the difference between the first ten generations from Adam until Noach, and the ten generations from Noach until Avraham.

The Mishnah says, in Pirke Avos, that they were ten sinful generations from Adam until Noach, but G-d was very patient and didn't punish them until the tenth generation, until the generation of the Flood.  Therefore all ten generations were finally punished for their sins in the tenth generation, in the times of Noach so that all ten generations can be referred to as the generations of the Flood.

The next ten generations from Noach to Avraham were also sinful, the Mishnah says, and G-d was patient, until Avraham came and Avraham collected the reward for all ten generations.  Now all of these ten generations can all be described as the generations of the Haflaga, of the Dispersion.  What was unique about these ten generations was that they spoke different languages and they lived in different places - they were dispersed, whereas before everybody lived in the same place, and spoke the same language.

So we have here two periods, one called the generations of the Flood, and the other one called the generations of the Dispersion.  Now concerning the first ten generations, the generations of the Flood, it doesn't say that at the end of the ten generations when Noach came around, and he was a tzaddik, that he collected the reward for all 10 generations.  But by the ten generations from Noach to Avraham, the Mishnah says, that Avraham came and collected the reward for all ten generations.

Why is there this difference?

Another question.  The wickedness of the first ten generations was punished by annihilation, by a flood that wiped out all the people.  The wickedness of the second period, of the ten generations of the Dispersion, their sin was punished only by being dispersed, but not by being annihilated.  What makes the question even more interesting, is that concerning their punishment in the world to come we find a difference between these two generations.  The generation of the Flood, there is an opinion that says, that they have a portion of the world to come.  Whereas the generation of the Dispersion, everyone agrees that they have no portion of the world to come.

So it seems strange that the generation that was punished with annihilation, a very severe punishment, does have a portion of the world to come, whereas the generations that was punished with a lesser punishment, only with dispersion, but in the world to come they have a more serious punishment, that they are excluded from a portion of the world to come.

To understand all of this, we have to understand the difference between their sins. What was the major sin, the primary reason for the Flood, that wiped out the generation of the Flood. The Gemarrah says the main reason was stealing – they robbed from each other. This means they violated the commandments between man and man. The generation of the Dispersion, which built the Tower of Babel, and were dispersed because of it, their sin was primarily against G-d. Between themselves they got along well, in fact, they all lived in the same place, spoke the same language, and were devoted to the same common project of building the Tower. Between man and man, they got along very well. Their sin was between themselves and G-d – their faith was lacking.

Therefore the generation of the Flood, who violated the commandments between man and man, and made life on earth impossible, their punishment was that their life on earth was taking away. The generation of the Dispersion because they were good to each other, they got along, life on earth wasn’t destroyed by their sin., therefore their punishment was not annihilation, only dispersion What was destroyed was their connection to G-d,  and because their sin was against G-d, between man and G-d, therefore on a spiritual level they had a more severe punishment, which was that they have no portion in the world to come. The generation of the Flood, on the other hand, had a more severe physical punishment because they were doing more damage to the earth, to the world, and a lesser punishment on the spiritual level because in their connection to G-d, they were not as bad. They weren’t lacking in faith. So b’gashmius they were punished more severely, b’ruchnius less severely, whereas the generation of the Dispersion was punished b’gashmius less severely but b’ruchnius more severely.

Then the Rebbe gives another explanation for why the generations of the Flood were punished more severely in this world, and less severely in the world to come. When a person sins against another person, Yom Kippur cannot bring forgiveness unless the person gains forgiveness from his friend whom he had offended, hurt or cheated. You have make amends, give back what you stole, restore what you broke, etc. Until you do that, the forgiveness is not complete. If a person can’t find the person whom he hurt, or stole from, so that he can’t give back what he stole, can’t ask the forgiveness and gain the forgiveness, or he asks for forgiveness but the person doesn’t want to forgive him, then even though he is doing tshuva and Yom Kippur comes and goes, the forgiveness is not complete because he hasn’t yet rectified or undone the damage that was caused by the offense that he committed.

So the generation that sinned between man and G-d was able to do tshuva and the tshuva was complete. Whereas the generation that sinned between man and man, they had to correct and gain forgiveness from each other and they didn’t do this. And therefore even if they did tshuva, even if they regretted their behavior, the tshuva is not complete because they didn’t gain the forgiveness from each other.

This explains what merit, what reward the generation of the Dispersion had that Avraham could collect. The fact that they were good to each other, between man and man they behaved properly, this earned them a reward. But the reward was not available to them, they couldn’t benefit from it because of the unholiness in which it was performed. So the goodness and the benefit and the merit that they had collected in these ten generations by being good to each other, remained uncollected by the people because of their sin in their relationship to G-d; the goodness was wrapped in unholiness, in kelipah, and unavailable to the people.

When Avraham came along, and he excelled in his goodness to other people, in his chesed, he was able to release and redeem all the goodness, all the chesed that existed in the previous ten generations that had been locked away in the kelipah of unholiness due to their lack of emunah. Because they didn’t perform the chesed in holiness, Avraham was able to benefit, gather up and collect all that chesed and deserve the credit for all of it, because he released it.

In the generation of the Flood, they had not collected any such merit for physical existence, for merit in this world, and even if they had, Noach was not the one to collect it because he too did not excel and was not special in his treatment of his fellow man. We see that he was not able to bring anyone, except his own children, to the belief in the Flood, and was not able to make baalei tshuva of anyone at all, even though he was given a hundred and twenty years in which to build the ark and convince people of the truth of what G-d had said.

So Noach was not going to collect the goodness that was gathered in the ten generations even if there had been goodness, when in fact there hadn’t been. So the difference is that Avraham collected the goodness of the mitzvahs bain adam l’chavero, between man and man, that the people of the generation of the Dispersion excelled in, and he was able to collect it because he too excelled in his mitzvahs bain adam l’chavero.

This gives us a very powerful lesson in that we are the last generation of golus, and in golus much goodness was performed from the time of creation until our time that was not collected, that has accumulated and is waiting to be released and collected and put to use so that we can benefit from all that goodness. Through our mitzvahs, by our avodah today we gain not only the reward for the individual mitzvah that we do, but by doing these mitzvahs, we are releasing the holy sparks that were collected and accumulated throughout the generations over all of history, that was perhaps not collected because of the unholiness of the circumstances in which they were performed. In our generation when we do a mitzvah, we get the reward for all that goodness that we release like Avraham released by his goodness. We can collect as the last generation of golus the benefit and the virtue of all previous generations that need this finishing touch to be released from its unholiness. By doing that, like the midget standing on the shoulders of giants, we earn and we deserve not only the reward for our mitzvah but we deserve the geulah haametus hashlema, the coming of Moshiach, b’karov mamush.

In Vol. X of Likkutei Sichos, the second sicha on parshas Noach, the Rebbe points out a very practical and very necessary lesson in seeing evil. The Torah tells us that after the Flood, Noach planted a vineyard and he drank from the wine, and was drunk and was uncovered in his tent. His son, Ham, went in, and saw his father’s nakedness, and he came out and told his brothers, Shem and Yafet, and the two brothers, Shem and Yafet, walked in backwards, with their faces averted from their father, and they covered him a blanket, and the nakedness of their father they did not see. So the Rebbe asked, once the Torah tells us that they walked in backwards, then it’s obvious that they didn’t see. Why does the Torah then have to say again that the nakedness of their father they did not see.

The Rebbe explains that in general we need to understand why one person can see the ugliness of another. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that every time we see a fault in another person, it is like looking in a mirror and we are really seeing our own faults. That’s because everything is by Divine Providence, so it must be part of the divine plan that G-d arranged for you to see the fault of another person. However that would seem like G-d is talking lashon hara. So it can’t be that G-d is showing you ugliness in another person, revealing another person’s faults and weaknesses to you for no reason.

Therefore we must conclude that what you are seeing is really a reflection of your own evil, and you have that fault, and you are projecting it on the other person. But then the Rebbe asks, isn’t it also true that one Jew is responsible for another, and that we are responsible to help others overcome their faults and deal with their sins, and so on, so maybe when we see another person’s faults, it’s not that we are seeing a reflection of ourselves but that we are given an opportunity to help the person with his faults. Particularly since the other person wouldn’t be used as a tool just for my benefit, to reflect back to me my faults, there must be something that can be done for him, some benefit that will come to him in my seeing faults in him.

So how do we know whether we are seeing a true fault that needs to be corrected in the other person, or we are seeing merely a projection of our own fault being reflected at us for our benefit so that we know what to correct in ourselves.

The Rebbe points out that in the Torah, the Torah avoids using unholy words. Like for the word “tameh” the Torah prefers to say “ not tahor”, rather than saying “tameh”. So the Torah goes out of its way to add extra words in order to avoid using a word that is not so nice. However we see constantly in Torah, that the Torah uses the word tameh in reference to the laws of tumah and tahara, of impurity and purity.

The explanation is that where there is a halacha that needs to be stated, where the Torah is telling us a law, the Torah does not avoid using clear and precise words even if they are not so pleasant. For the sake of clarity of halacha, the Torah will use even a harsh term, or a negative term in order for the halacha to be clear and certain. But where the Torah is narrating a story, or an event and so on, here the Torah will go out of its way to avoid using the word “tameh”. For example, the Torah tells us that when a person is not tahor, such a person has to live outside of the camp. So here it seems to be saying a halacha, and yet it avoids using the exact word for uncleanliness. That’s because the Torah is not telling us the halacha of the cleanliness of this person. It is already been determined that he is not tahor, it has already been determined what his status is, and that is that he is tameh, so now the Torah is simply telling us where such a person needs to live. And since the halacha here is about the living space, and not about his essential condition of tumah or tahara, therefore the Torah does not use the word tameh but rather says the person who is not tahor.

What do we see from this? That when we see a fault in another person, G-d is telling us two things: one, we see a halacha, the halacha is that when we see a fault in another person, we have to chastise him, correct him, and help bring him to a higher level. So when we see the halacha that pertains to us, when I see what I need to do, when what I see in the other person reflects on me, as my responsibility, my obligation, my mitzvah, my opportunity to do another Jew a favor, then I am seeing the halacha and in terms of halacha, and for the purpose of halacha, G-d will show us an unclean or an unholy thing in order to make the halacha clear as to what we need to fix.

But when we also see the ugliness of the person, the fault is not reflected upon us as an obligation or a mitzvah or a halacha, but rather we see it as a fault in the other person per say, that is telling us that we have that particular fault. Because if we did not have that fault, we wouldn’t see it as a fault in the other person, we would only see it as a halacha pertaining to us and not a description of the other person and his faults.

That’s why the Torah says, when Shem and Yafet went in backwards and physically did not see their father, that was not their only virtue but in addition to that, the nakedness of their father they did not see, they saw only the halacha, the need to do something, to correct a situation, and that is to bring a cover, and to cover their father. But they didn’t see, they didn’t lose respect for their father, they didn’t see it as a fault in their father per say, because they didn’t have that fault in themselves. Whereas Ham had that same fault and therefore he saw it reflected back at him in his father.

And the lesson of all of this is, that Shem and Yafet, because they refused to see ugliness in another person, they were blessed and rewarded for this conduct with the bracha of Baruch Hashem Elokei Shem and yavta Elokim l’Yafet v’yishkem v’ohalei Shem. So by treating each other this way, and by not seeing a fault as it stands by itself, but seeing only the halacha of it, and when we do think we see a fault in another person, to realize that we are really seeing a reflection of ourselves, through this we merit to become a keli for Torah, because Torah is all about peace, as the Midrash says, that the Torah is “culo shalom” that G-d says, My Torah is all about peace. Who should I give it to? I will give it to the Jews, the nation who love peace. And by behaving this way, we become worthy and we become capable of being the keli for shalom, which is the building of the Bais HaMikdash, which is in the portion of Eretz Israel that belongs to Shem, and then Yafet also comes to dwell b’ohalei Shem and that comes through achdus and ahavas Israel.

Shopping cart

0 Product(s) in cart

Total $0.00

» Checkout

It's Good News