Weekly Davar: The Power Of The Individual
Noach
(Genesis 6:9 – 11:32)27th October 2011
29 Tishrei 5772
Noah is a very decent man – the exception rather than the rule in his generation. The world around him is full of debauchery. They worship idols, murder and are experts in sexual immorality. Not vastly different to the world we live in.
God decides to take action and it rains…. and rains….. and rains……and rains. Sounds like a British summer, but it was much worse. The world is filled with water and everyone drowns – except for Noah, his family and loads of animals who were on his famous Ark.
Noah leaves the Ark and immediately plants a vineyard – preferring the escape of wine to the challenging task of rebuilding humanity.
The world is repopulated via Noah’s sons and once again, they slip into immorality and build a tower in a place called Babel in order to ‘fight’ with God. This time he mixes up their languages and creates 70 nations and the diversity of the human race is set in place for all time.
Davar Torah
The Power Of The Individual
Last week the Torah listed the ten generations between Adam and Noah.
This week it lists the ten generations between Noah and Abraham. Now we
Rabbis don’t view the Torah as a history book; history is the medium
rather than the message. So why are these, seemingly superfluous,
lineages included?
The Sages explain: the message is to highlight God's mercy; each generation mentioned, is successively more evil than its predecessor. Yet God allows the world to continue for generations, providing opportunity after opportunity for humanity to change for the better.
A lovely idea, but it still leaves a question. If the Torah wanted to show God's mercy, it could have done so by listing one set of the ten generations (Adam until Noah). Why does it need to give us the same message a second time (Noah until Abraham)?
The answer lies in a contrast that we can clearly see between the two sets of generations. Adam to Noah: generations that only got worse and worse. In the end they were destroyed. Noah to Abraham: generations that only got worse and worse. In the end they were not destroyed. So what was the difference?
The difference lies in one man: Abraham. In what must be the greatest indictment in all of history, the Rabbis say that Noah could have saved his generation; but he did not care enough. Abraham did. Whereas Noah was happy to build an ark to save himself – and forget about humanity, Abraham reached out to those around him. He taught everyone he could about monotheistic values. He didn’t do enough to change his generation entirely. But, the Rabbis say, he did enough that God allowed the world to continue.
The message is very clear; one individual who cares enough can shape world history. And while we may often tell ourselves that forces beyond individuals create history, even a glance at the past shows this to be false. For better or for worse, there would almost certainly have been no October revolution without Lenin, no victory at Waterloo with Wellington, no holocaust without Hitler. Who’s to say how the Second World War would have turned out without Churchill, the Civil Rights movement in America without Martin Luther King and South Africa’s transition to equality without Mandella? How different would the world be had Einstein, Freud or Darwin never lived?
Individuals shape history. And that means you and me.
The world has many problems – terrorism, famine, natural disasters, financial instability. The Jewish world has many problems – assimilation, apathy, disunity, intermarriage. Do we care enough to do something? Or, like Noah, will we chose to build an ark only for ourselves?
Abraham was nothing special. He just cared enough to try. Noah was nothing special either. He just didn’t.
If we care enough and don’t hide behind the excuse (and it is only an excuse) of, ‘who am I?’ every one of us has the ability play an active role in shaping the future of our community and even our world.
The Sages explain: the message is to highlight God's mercy; each generation mentioned, is successively more evil than its predecessor. Yet God allows the world to continue for generations, providing opportunity after opportunity for humanity to change for the better.
A lovely idea, but it still leaves a question. If the Torah wanted to show God's mercy, it could have done so by listing one set of the ten generations (Adam until Noah). Why does it need to give us the same message a second time (Noah until Abraham)?
The answer lies in a contrast that we can clearly see between the two sets of generations. Adam to Noah: generations that only got worse and worse. In the end they were destroyed. Noah to Abraham: generations that only got worse and worse. In the end they were not destroyed. So what was the difference?
The difference lies in one man: Abraham. In what must be the greatest indictment in all of history, the Rabbis say that Noah could have saved his generation; but he did not care enough. Abraham did. Whereas Noah was happy to build an ark to save himself – and forget about humanity, Abraham reached out to those around him. He taught everyone he could about monotheistic values. He didn’t do enough to change his generation entirely. But, the Rabbis say, he did enough that God allowed the world to continue.
The message is very clear; one individual who cares enough can shape world history. And while we may often tell ourselves that forces beyond individuals create history, even a glance at the past shows this to be false. For better or for worse, there would almost certainly have been no October revolution without Lenin, no victory at Waterloo with Wellington, no holocaust without Hitler. Who’s to say how the Second World War would have turned out without Churchill, the Civil Rights movement in America without Martin Luther King and South Africa’s transition to equality without Mandella? How different would the world be had Einstein, Freud or Darwin never lived?
Individuals shape history. And that means you and me.
The world has many problems – terrorism, famine, natural disasters, financial instability. The Jewish world has many problems – assimilation, apathy, disunity, intermarriage. Do we care enough to do something? Or, like Noah, will we chose to build an ark only for ourselves?
Abraham was nothing special. He just cared enough to try. Noah was nothing special either. He just didn’t.
If we care enough and don’t hide behind the excuse (and it is only an excuse) of, ‘who am I?’ every one of us has the ability play an active role in shaping the future of our community and even our world.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt
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