CHOCHMAS NASHIM: NOACH: FAR FROM PERFECT
By: Suri Davis
The torah starts off this week’s Torah portion stating that Noach was righteous[…]for his generation. Ummmm, we try not to talk negatively about a person, and Rashi tells us that Noach was righteous, but only for his generation.
Later in the torah portion we learn that Noach found favor in G-d’s eyes. The three words, Noach Matzah Chen/Noach found favor, caught my eye. Look at the three words in Palendrome:
נח מצא חן (בעיני ה)/Noah found favor
נח אצם חן/Noah’s essnece is favor
Whats the essence of Noach, chen/favor.
We seen chen/finding favor many times throughout the Tanach/24 canon books of Judaism.
We see Esther finding favor in the eyes of the Persian King, Achashverosh.
We see Ruth finding favor in the eyes of her husband’s distance relative, Boaz. It isnt love, it is a tentative beginning.
Noach was not an righteous man of all time, but his generation was so wicked, so very wicked that they all had to be destroyed, so as compared to his generation, he was righteous, but as to his relationship to G—d, he had the beginnings of a relationship, where there is hope for more.
We are just coming off of Yom Kippur, where we asked for forgiveness, even though G-d and we know that between last Yom Kippur and the next, we will sin.
All hope is not lost because we are not righteous, it is ok at this moment to want to find favor in G-d’s eyes and work to bettering ourselves. We know we will not be perfect, but we should aspire to putting in the effort to start with finding favor in G-d’s eyes, and working our way to being called righteous for who we are, the generation we are in and the facts and circumstances of our lives.
Aspire higher.
Shabbat Shalom.
-Suri