“Noah was a righteous person, perfect in his generations.” An ages-old debate asks: does “in his generations” add to the praise of Noah’s righteousness, or diminish it? Was he righteous only in comparison to the rest of the world, which God deemed worthy of destruction? Or was he able to be righteous despite being surrounded by a generation of destruction?
Since I started reading the Torah with the perspective of a parent and a teacher, the destruction of Parshat Noah has felt increasingly difficult to understand. Noah and his family, deemed the only humans worthy of preservation are asked to construct an enormous ark, big enough to preserve specimens of each form of life on the earth, thus preserving the essence of creation, while also finding a way to accept the loss of everyone and everything that does not fit on the ark.
Those who argue that Noah was righteous only for his generation point out that Abraham, as we read in the parsha two weeks from now, argues for the wicked city of Sodom, valuing human life so greatly as to debate God’s justice, while Noah simply followed instructions. Can a person who can come to terms with such destruction be called objectively righteous?
The metaphor of God as parent appears regularly in Jewish text, and seems particularly apt in the book of Genesis, where people and God are on such close terms of communication. When we look at the accounts of the creation of the world and its development in these first few parshiyot, we can see the progress of humanity through the lens of the development of a child. Adam and Eve start out naked and unashamed, test the boundaries by eating of the tree of knowledge, learn, and change. Cain, in his murder of Able, seems somewhat unaware of his own strength and power, perhaps not foreseeing the result of his physical aggression against his brother.
We rarely look at God through this same lense, as a parent, learning by trial and error how to guide children on their path of growth and development. As we learn as new parents, there is no instruction manual. And reading the early chapters of Genesis, God seems to be parenting using a bit of the trial and error method. God gives Adam and Eve a few simple instructions; be fruitful and multiply, take care of the world, and eat fruits and vegetables, but not this one. When Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, God responds as if surprised, and sends them out of the area of temptation. Ten generations later, in Noah’s time, there are many more people, disregarding God’s plans for them in new and creative ways. This creation is not working out. The creatures do not understand or follow through on what God asked of them. Noah, says the Torah, “walks with God”. So God finds the one who is listening, that one child who, through the chaos of all the others, can hear the instructions and tells him to build a life-boat.
Seeing God in this light is scary, but we must remember, even considering the perfection we attribute to God, this creation thing is entirely new. There is no parenting guru, no blogs, no community of parents. God is doing this alone, and in this moment God loses it. The consequences are greater than when we, as parents, discipline our children in ways that we look back on with regret, yelling at them, shaming them, imposing consequences that do more to dishearten than to teach. In losing it, God has the presence to make sure there is a way back, that creation will be saved, that the second try has a better chance of success.
When Noah and his family leave the ark, God promises never to destroy the world again. And God gives clearer instructions; be fruitful and multiply, you may eat meat, but respect the sanctity of blood, do not spill human blood because humans are in the image of God. Later Jewish texts read into the Torah seven laws that are given to “the children of Noah”, that is all of humanity, not to murder, steal, worship idols, engage in sexual immorality, eat limbs from live animals, or curse God, and to establish a legal system. God, the parent, at the end of the parsha sets clearer expectations, and has a standard of compassion for humanity.
This month, our school’s focus Midah of the Month, the personal quality we are focussed on developing is kevod ha’adam, human dignity. At the end of parshat Noah, God sets the example of parenting with kevod ha’adam by respecting humanity’s need for clearer guidance, and committing to enduring support and compassion when we undoubtedly fail to meet all of the expectations all of the time.
Noah is called a righteous person, perfect in his generations. Perhaps in understanding Noah this way, God is acknowledging Noah’s human dignity. Noah, in the developmental stage of his generations of humanity is a tzadik, a righteous person. He is walking with God, growing together toward the ideal of perfection that God envisions for humanity’s future. He is doing all that can be expected at his moment. May we, as parents, have this same respect for our children, walking with each of them toward the mentschlekhkeit, the integrity we envision them growing to attain. And may we work together to bring our generation of humanity, and guide our children’s’ generation, to the highest developmental stage of righteousness that we can attain.