Coffee Cups. Views and Analysis by Seth Ward.

Thoughts on the parasha: Noah as a Tzaddik

A popular theme for Divrei Torah on Parashat Noach is the question of interpreting the reference to Noah as “righteous in his generations.” Most often, this topic turns on comparisons of Abraham and Noah on items such as hospitality, or teaching; occasionally on the evils of their generation, or on close reading of various textual items.

My first question is just what is meant by dorotav “his generations” with Noah, Abraham’s generation, and the question of whether this is at all relevant—or why.  Although I will endeavor to present one. I am not sure that the comparison of the surrounding populace will be productive. As for the comparison of various tzadikkim: the discussion in classic commentators and modern derashot (viewed on the web) yields much rich guidance, but I am not sure that is what the language of Torah suggests. While parshanut makes it clear that there is much value is considering whether Noah would have been “the righteous man of his generation” had he lived in Abraham’s time, or in contrasting Noah and Abraham, analysis of the use of tzadik and tamim suggests a different direction.

“Generations of Noah and Abraham”

Scripture reports that Noah lived 950 years; he was born after the deaths of Adam and Seth—the first of his line who could not to have met these men, according to what is recounted in Genesis. His death came 350 years after the flood, a decade after the date of the Dispersion following the Tower of Babel, according to the usual Jewish reconstruction of these dates (ArtScroll has a handy chart by the way, towards the end of Parashat Noah).

Abraham’s generation perhaps was a lot better defined:  His life-span as given in the Torah was much shorter; traditional Jewish chronology has him born just about fifty years before the Dispersion. His “generations” included the leaders who built the Tower of Babel, and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who were destroyed.  There is something unfair in the comparison with the generation of Abraham’s youth: If indeed all the world was united in Babylonia, according to the Torah’s narrative this option was no longer open, as God had promised never to destroy all of humanity again. So Sodom could be destroyed, but not Babylon. 

Abraham was asked by God to leave his homeland—but Scripture depicts him has having already begun the process, leaving Ur with his father, possibly in the dispersion after the fall of the Tower of Babel, participating in this process you might say. Also, Abraham is depicted as working with the King of Sodom and the other towns, although he rejects their proposal that he take a large share of the booty, depriving his allies and the people of Sodom of their share. Thus he is depicted as engaging with them; in contrast, Scripture does not depict Noah as engaging with his neighbors at all.

The Midrash kicks in with Abraham as a teacher (ve-et hanefesh asher asah be-Haran is said to refer to the students and followers attracted to his teaching) and a host. Noah in contrast is depicted as responding to taunts regarding the huge boat he was building, and not having any success whatsoever.

Usage of tzadik and tamim in the Noah and Abraham narratives.

Let’s look at the way these terms are used in Genesis.

a.       Tzadik and salvation.

ט  אֵלֶּה, תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ--נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, בְּדֹרֹתָיו:  אֶת-הָאֱ-לֹהִים, הִתְהַלֶּךְ-נֹחַ.

א  וַיֹּאמֶר ה' לְנֹחַ,  .  .  .  כִּי-אֹתְךָ רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק לְפָנַי, בַּדּוֹר הַזֶּה.

Note the parallelism here.  Both forms of the Divine name; both texts have tzaddik and a reference to dor “generation.”

Noah is seen—by God—as a tzaddik, indeed the tzaddik of the generation. And so, God saves him from destruction. The term is used again in Genesis in a similar way. In Ch. 18, in two verses, Abraham puts it this way: can the fate of the tzaddik and the rasha “evil” be the same? Are they to be destroyed as one?

כג  וַיִּגַּשׁ אַבְרָהָם, וַיֹּאמַר:  הַאַף תִּסְפֶּה, צַדִּיק עִם-רָשָׁע.

כה  חָלִלָה לְּךָ מֵעֲשֹׂת כַּדָּבָר הַזֶּה, לְהָמִית צַדִּיק עִם-רָשָׁע, וְהָיָה כַצַּדִּיק, כָּרָשָׁע

Here, the argument against destroying the city is that there are tzaddikim there.  IN case you did not get the point—the tzaddik cannot be destroyed together with the rasha, consider Abimelekh’s response when he is confronted with the possibility of his entire house being destroyed:

אֲדֹ-נָי, הֲגוֹי גַּם-צַדִּיק תַּהֲרֹג.

b.      Noah is a tazdik (and Tamim, and someone who walks with God) but Abraham has to become one.

Noah is described as Tzaddik Tamim. But Abraham has to act—to earn, as it were, his righteousness—

וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ לּוֹ צְדָקָה.

and for that matter, God has to tell him to be tamim, and to walk with him, unlike Noah, who was already tamim and walking with God when we first met him!  But Noah has already pioneered the notion of a covenant between Man and God, so Abraham is offered a covenant together with the request to be wholehearted and walk before God; Noah had to build the Arak and survive the flood.

17:1 וַיֵּרָא ה' אֶל-אַבְרָם, וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי-אֵ־ל שַׁדַּי--הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי וֶהְיֵה תָמִים.

ב  וְאֶתְּנָה בְרִיתִי, בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶךָ; וְאַרְבֶּה אוֹתְךָ, בִּמְאֹד מְאֹד.

Noah as a model and foreshadowing

Clearly Abraham is to be considered in contrast with Noah in various ways, regarding righteousness, wholeheartedness, walking with God—and being taken out of evil situations. Noah is also something of a model for Moses; God gives Noah and his descendants laws after he leaves the Ark, being saved from the violence, perversity and evil of his generation—and gives Moses and Israel laws after they were saved from the violence and servitude of Egypt. We may also want to consider Noah a model to be contrasted with Lot, who is saved from Sodom and its violence. Abraham argues with God about whether any tzaddikim are in the town—although Lot is not called a tzaddik. Moreover, unlike Noah, who succeeds in bringing along his wife and his sons’ wives, Only Lot and his daughters escape. Afterwards, Noah plants a vineyard and his son “sees his nakedness ”—and Lot is made to drink wine and his daughters also may be said to uncover his nakedness—in the Torah’s usual words for incest.

So how are we to understand this?

1.       Noah was the most righteous man of his generation.  Only he and his family are saved; unlike the righteous in Sodom who, had they existed, might have saved even the evil, and like Avimelekh and his entire household. Although the covenant concluded afterwards says the entire world will never be destroyed again, Noah’s story is an argument for avoiding violence, anarchy, and perversion—and a promise that in the end, righteousness will win out.

2.       The righteousness, or the generations, can be compared, but it seems to me that Noah’s righteousness should not be contrasted with Abraham’s just on the basis of quantity or overall greatness. Instead, the issues of Noah’s righteousness and wholeheartedness, his covenant and his Law lay out key themes in the Torah.

3.       Noah’s story shows that the themes of being a tzaddik and being tamim apply to the whole world. Noah is saved from anarchy and violence; I’m not sure how to understand the story of Noah’s vineyard, but let’s say it is to indicate that ultimately, he is not completely saved from the sexual perversion of his age. Abraham is saved from idolatry and highly centralized government. Yoram Hazony’s new book, the Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture , makes much of the difference between Noah as farmer and Abraham as shepherd—but it also makes much of the differing responses to the evils of anarchy, and the tyranny of government, and this too plays a role in contrasting the narratives.

Noah’s legacy does not exactly lead to Abraham: Abraham chosen to receive blessings of property and progeny—and to be a model for the entire world (“all the people of the world will be blessed through you”).  Abraham insists on righteousness in his dealing with Sodom (booty in the four kings and five kings story), even when arguing with God. Abraham has to absorb the best of Noah’s qualities. 

Shabbat shalom.

Very Brief Review of The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, by Yoram Hazony.

Earlier I posted a review of Hazony’s treatment of the political philosophy of the Bible. Here is a very brief overview of the book, based on a review I recently submitted for publication.

Yoram Hazony argues that Western academic tradition misguidedly sees Hebrew Bible as “revelation of secrets” or, following Christian notions of Scripture, as “witness (testamentum),” rather than studying it as ultimately a carefully argued work of “reason”—that is, of Philosophy. For Hazony, Scripture is a complex philosophical system, that, like much Greek philosophy, is in literary form and has religious references. As organized in Jewish tradition, the centerpiece is The History of Israel (Genesis through Kings), presenting basic discussions of ethics, political philosophy, epistemology and metaphysics, with conclusions sometimes more advanced than the Greeks regarding such topics as limited government reflecting the people’s desires and what is eternally true.  Parallel collections of Prophetic orations and Writings follow with additional perspectives on these issues. Mosaic Law is has to be discussed (as Hazony notes, he is an orthodox Jew) and it is: Hazony makes it clear that Scripture enjoins observance. But—in contrast to Christian teachings about the necessity of Faith—at the same time Scripture “criticize[s]…perfect trust in God” (24-25), and shows how we must demand what is right and true from leaders and even from God. Hazony argues Hebrew Bible is a complex, multi-authored work of Reason about the purpose of the world and its history, and how Israel should live in the light of that history. Moreover, Scripture asserts that ultimately, the Philosophy it sets forth is necessary to understand the history and task of all mankind.

Hazony has made it clear that he views this as promoting an ongoing discussion about how to view the Bible and its role as a work of Philosophy. Certainly, many departments of Philosophy are dismissive of this literature as having any claim to explain the world as it really is. The work, like Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed,  may be most accessible to those who are both Orthodox Jews and Philosophers, but will have the impact its author hoped for if Hebrew Bible is understood more widely by academics as a fundamental work of the Philosophical tradition.

Seth Ward

This essay started as a Dvar Torah for October 3, 2012—the night of the first Presidential Debate between Mitt Romney and Barak Obama, and has only been lightly edited.

My talk this evening has little to do with the Torah readings for Sukkot or for that matter, with the Parashat Hashavuah. Those were my first thoughts for a subject to be sure, but I recently received a review copy of The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, by Yoram Hazony, a political philosopher whose volume The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel’s Soul created quite a stir with its analysis and critique of (inter alia) the orientation of the academic world in Israel. Hazony argues that the Tanakh must be part of the discourse of philosophy in the academic world, a “work of reason”—of philosophy--as much as those based on Greek philosophers. Given tonight’s Presidential debates, I turned to Hazony’s chapter with a subtitle “A Political Philosophy.”

Commenting on a verse from I Samuel, Hazony concludes that “the Hebrew Bible can be seen as going farther in the direction of endorsing democratic rule than any of the classic texts of Greek philosophy.” Perhaps American democratic ideals reflect 18^th century European thought more than the ancient Greeks, but that is not particularly important for us: his comments are based on his reasoning from Hebrew Bible and are relevant to our own democratic process.

The verse records words God is said to have spoken to Samuel (I Sam 8:7)
 שְׁמַע בְּקוֹל הָעָם, לְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-יֹאמְרוּ אֵלֶיךָ  “Accept the voice of the people in everything they say to you.”
But this is only part of the story: He sees this as Divine acquiescence in what is practical and indeed necessary—and contrary to the prophet’s judgment—yet still problematic: in this verse, Samuel is told that they are rejecting God himself: Ki Oti maasu—“they have rejected Me.” In a note, Hazony compares this to God telling Abraham to listen to Sarah to do what is practical and necessary, although against his better judgment, and expel Hagar and Ishmael.

Yet Hazony adduces a second source of political legitimacy from Samuel’s speech when the people suggest that maybe they had sinned when they asked for a king. (1 Sam chap. 12), noting that “The legitimacy of the state cannot derive from the consent of the people alone.” (151) as Samuel says he will instruct them

 בְּדֶרֶךְ הַטּוֹבָה וְהַיְשָׁרָה. “in the good and the right path.”

Thus the Hebrew Bible argues for a political system of dual legitimacy: the interests of the people, and the demand for the Good and Right. In Hazony’s words: “the people and their representatives… [make] demands on the king in defense of their own interests,” while the government is also urged towards the good and right by the Prophets. 

Thus, according to Hazony, we have a reasoned argument for a doctrine of limited government, differing from the imperialism of Egypt which enslaved the Israelites and the expansionism of Assyria and Babylonia, but also differing from the anarchy of the period of Judges which caused civil war and disunity. The Laws of Kings from Deuteronomy call for the King to refrain from amassing horses, wives and gold.  These rules are designed to preclude the king from waging constant warfare, from complicated international alliances, (cemented by marriage), and excessive taxation and plunder. The ideal political system is a limited state governed by law, not by arbitrary whimsy of the government and by self- aggrandizement. This is why the King is to write a copy of the Torah and keep it with him.

Solomon shows the difficulty of maintaining this balance. Solomon impresses all with his wisdom achieves peace and builds the Temple. But he exacts heavy taxes, has entangling alliances through his wives, and gathered many chariots and horses. (1 K 10:14-11:4). The law of the King, says Hazony, is not only to keep the King oriented towards God, but loyal to his people and sympathetic to them “so that his thoughts be not lifted above his brothers” (Deut. 17:20). Could Solomon possibly have met this criterion if he only drank from silver vessels, and taxed the people to build himself a palace larger than the Temple itself, and sumptuous palaces for foreign wives? Doesn’t the forced labor imposed on Israel remind us of the forced labor endured in Egypt?

Hazony argues that the Bible wrestles with two types of government options: an imperial state, leading to bondage, and anarchy, leading to dissolution and civil war, and argues that the State must steer a clear course between the two extremes, seeking “the good and the right.” Government must understand that virtue comes from limitations – on borders, on armies, on foreign entanglements, on income, on the raising of the government above the people. The Political mission of man is to steer clear of both extremes, of the twin threats, “thereby assuring the sympathies of both man and God and the political longevity of the kingdom.” (160).

I do not know how exactly Hazony would apply these principles to modern Israel or modern America. For readers of his book who, like him, come from a modern Orthodox or similar background, the content of his reconstruction will not be all that surprising. But the book is more exactly an argument aimed at academic scholars and departments, arguing that the Hebrew Bible is a crucial component in the development of Western thinking and those who ignore it or relegate it to “revelation” rather than reason are misguided. In other words, he is not necessarily arguing that readers should accept the political philosophy as correct, just as a philosopher explaining Plato or Aristotle might emphasize interpreting their ideas and understanding their significance.

I will leave it to you to interpret the ideas about good government Hazony asserts derive from a study of the Bible as a work of reasoned argument and their significance, including their application to large states, such as the USA, or to the contemporary State of Israel, and how these ideas about legitimacy, power, and ”the good and the Right”  relate not only to an actual or ideal Israelite sovereign, but to general goals of government, and the pitfalls that befall politicians.

Seth Ward