October 20, 2012

Noach, Genesis 6:9–11:32 

The Challenge of Righteousness 
Barbara Binder Kadden

“This is Noah’s chronicle. Noah was a righteous man; in his generation, he was above reproach; Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). The Rabbis have long debated this verse questioning the quality of Noah’s righteousness.  

The wording of the verse gives rise to this debate. The text states that “Noah was a righteous man,” but immediately follows with the phrase “in his generation, he was above reproach...” All of us, including the ancient Rabbis, are left to wonder if Noah is exceptional or not, if his righteousness would be universally righteous or simply righteous in his time.

Why is there a debate over Noah’s level of righteousness? Did he not obey God? Did he not build an ark? Did he not save the animals? Did he not save humanity to repopulate the earth? Noah did all these things, but the Rabbis raised a concern. In Noah’s time the earth was corrupt and filled with violence. In his generation Noah was righteous; it is quite likely that anyone doing any act of righteousness in that era would be considered so. Thus the rabbinic debate hinges on whether or not Noah did enough.

It is true that Noah did not attempt to save any other human beings aside from his own family. He did not argue with God to try to save human life as we shall see Abraham do in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20–33). But as a midrash relates, for over one hundred and twenty years (Alshekh), God wanted people of the Flood generation to repent but they would not, so God instructed Noah to build an ark. Mocked and ridiculed as he went about this task, Noah’s tzedek, “righteous behavior,” had no impact.

This debate of the quality of one’s righteousness took on an added resonance for me in the winter and spring of 2012, when my husband, Rabbi Bruce Kadden, and I spent two months on sabbatical in Warsaw, Poland. We worked at Beit Warszawa the progressive Jewish community. We also spent time visiting a variety of museums, traveling in Poland, and reading about the wartime history of Poland and the Jewish community. Among the places we visited were the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Maidanek. We also went to Prague in the Czech Republic and visited Terezin. 

  

Much to my surprise, on the Web site of Yad Vashem, the Israeli museum and memorial to the Holocaust, I learned that the largest number of those honored as Righteous Among the Nations come from Poland. This fact alone astonished me. Before we went to Poland I believed the following:

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