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October 2002 by Student Rabbi Sari Laufer I will admit a weakness now for cheesy teenybopper movies. And actually, after Yom Kippur ended and I was lying awake in my hotel room, I decided the best way to relax after the chaggim would be to rent a totally mindless movie. Conveniently, one of the movies available in my hotel room was "The Sweetest Thing." Now, this movie is not a hotbed from which to glean pearls of wisdom. Yet, being a believer that you can find a little bit of Torah in everything, I cocked my head at one of the inane lines, where one character tells another that she should be playing the field. Says Cameron Diaz: "Stop looking for Mr. Right, and start looking for Mr. Right Now." Mr. Right - the perfect man. (Ms. Right - the perfect woman. It works both ways. Don't worry). The person you have been looking for your entire life, the one who fulfills all your dreams and can meet all your needs. Mr. Right Now - the person you might just stumble across, the one who you need in the moment, when Mr. Right is nowhere to be found. Everyone and everything needs something sometime. There are a lot of people out there looking for Mr/Ms Right Now a whole lot of the time. In this week's portion, Noach, G-d is faced with a pretty tough problem. Seeing a world filled with evil and violence, G-d apparently sees no other choice than to destroy all of creation. Faced with this decision, G-d plans a huge flood to wipe out the earth and all its inhabitants. Putting aside any judgement on that decision, G-d obviously feels that it canıt be done alone. G-d needed someone - one of G-d's creation - to salvage some remnant of the rest of creation, to help in the process of recreating the world. Enter Noach. In the opening lines of the parsha, we learn that Noach ish tzaddik tamim hayah b'dorotav, et Ha-Elohim hithalech Noach - Noah was a righteous man, he was blameless - b'dorotav & shy; in his generation, Noah walked with G-d. There is a direct comparison in these words with Abraham, who several chapters later receives a message from G-d as well. G-d appears to Abraham and says: "Ani El-Shaddai, hithalech lifanai v'heyeh tamim". I am El Shaddai, walk before me and be blameless. Be blameless, period. Both Noach and Abraham are described with the word tamim - blameless, or innocent. The wording of their descriptions in the Torah is very similar, and the various commentators on the Torah have taken these similarities to mean that we are meant to compare Noach to Abraham. Abraham is simply described as tamim, whereas Noach is described as tamim bıdorotav. It is this addition of b'dorotav, in his generation, which invites the most commentary. For generations, scholars and rabbis have used the qualification of "b'dorotav/in his generation" to suggest that perhaps Noach was not such a righteous man. Midrash Tanhuma, an ancient collection of stories about the Bible, suggests that Noach was righteous in his generation but not in others. To what may this be compared? If a man places a silver coin among copper coins, then the silver appears attractive. So Noah appeared righteous in the generation of the flood. In other words, the generation of the flood was so awful that even Noah, who was not so righteous, appeared "a giant among men." Ten generations later (just a moment in Biblical time), G-d calls out to Abraham. So, Abraham may have been just around the corner, but G-d needed someone at that very moment. Enter Noah - G-d's Mr. Right Now. There are a lot of criticisms you can make of Noach, particularly in comparison with Abraham and his actions. A common criticism compares the flood with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Faced with the threat of mass destruction and death, Abraham argues with G-d, saying "What if there should be fifty innocent people within the city; will You then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent fifty who are in it?" He continues this tack right down to the last; G-d promises not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if Abraham can find 10 righteous people (which, apparently, he can't). Noach, on the other hand, has no response when G-d informs him of a flood about to destroy the earth. There is no argument; G-d gives the instructions for the building of the ark, and "Noah did so; just as G-d commanded him, so he did." Noach is accused of being selfish; of only looking out for himself and for his family. I find many of these criticisms to be unfair. There is no doubt that Abraham was a righteous man; his argument over the innocent of Sodom and Gomorrah can serve as a model for modern social justice advocacy. Yet, these arguments utterly discount the fact that by building the ark, Noach laid the foundation for the rebuilding of the world. G-d picked Noach for a specific purpose, and Noach served his function quite well. For a Mr. Right Now, you could not ask for much better than Noach. I can understand why one might say that Noach was less righteous than Abraham, but I keep coming back to the same question: Who cares?? All of these debates seem to focus on this idea of "in his generation," as if it is not good enough to be righteous only in your generation. If you ask me, the important part here is the ish tzaddik, tamim hayah - a righteous man, he was blameless. Who cares when he was righteous and when he was blameless - what matters is that he was, at some point in time and in his life, a righteous man. Our sages said: In a place where there is no man, try to be a man. I learned this text a few years ago, and it has really stuck with me ever since. What it was really saying was: be a mensch. If you think you can, strive to be Mr. Right. Do whatever you can to leave the entire world a better place than you found it. These are the big dreams, the lifetime goals. This is curing cancer, solving the crisis in the Middle East, eradicating the problem of homelessness. But whenever you have the opportunity, be Mr. Right Now. Mr. Right Now moments can come at any time. Accompany a friend to a doctor's appointment, send a letter to Bat Yam's adopted family in Israel, give your dinner leftovers to someone sleeping on the street. All of us spend our lives, in some way or another, looking for Mr. or Ms. Right. It does not have to be romantically, it can be professionally, or in friendship. We are looking always for the perfect solution, for all time. We set our sights high, we want to change the world. And we should. G-d did not stop with Noach. Abraham did come along, and he was G-d's Mr. Right. Nonetheless, G-d saw Mr. Right Now, and knew that Noach could, by building the ark, play an important role. Being a mensch, being Mr. Right Now, does not have to be as dramatic as even that. You don't need to build an ark to save the world, but what about rebuilding trails and nature areas destroyed by the fires? You may have a chance to be Mr. Right, but you may not. But I can guarantee that almost daily, you have a chance to be Mr. Right Now. Be an ish tzdadik, tamim. Be righteous - even if only in your generation. |