Noach. Believing in ourselves first

Commentators tend to be harsh with Noah.

For some, he was weak after the flood.

For others, he was selfish — he did not plead for the rest of humanity when the Source of Life told him that a flood would come upon the earth and that only he and his family would be saved.

And for yet others, he was too passive.

The Hasidic master Yitzhak Levi of Berdichev, to whom the Israeli singer Akiva dedicates this beautiful hitbodedut (personal prayer/meditation) to the melody of a well-known nigun (spiritual tune), offers another explanation.He bases himself on Rashi, who calls Noah one of the “ketanei emunah” —

מקטני אמנה

– “small in faith.”

But according to him, Noah’s problem was not a lack of faith in the Source of Life —it was a lack of faith in himself:

וחושב בלבו מי אני שאתפלל לבטל הגזירה לכן אינו מתפלל לבטל

.And he thinks to himself: “Who am I to pray for the annulment of a divine decree?” — and that is why he does not pray for it to be annulled.

We have just begun a new beginning.

And just as a child learns by falling, we learn from our mistakes, and from those of the figures whose stories the Torah tells us. The story of Noah teaches us both the importance of humility — of placing ourselves in service to Life — and the greatness of believing that each of us has the power to overturn decrees (gzerot).

The Kedushat Levi, famous for his compassion toward everyone, highlights — without judgment — the human weakness that explains why we do not identify ourselves as the descendants of Noah.If Noah was a tzaddik — a “righteous man” — it is from Abraham that the Jewish people descend.Our first patriarch was indeed the first Hasid: the one who knew how to go beyond what was asked of him, both in heart and in courage — the one who dared to challenge divine decrees.

This is exactly what Rachel Goldberg Polin, the mother of Hirsch, one of the hostages killed in the Hamas tunnels last August, shared in a recent interview:

According to her, it was precisely the strength of individuals united — all over the world — in prayer and in protest, toward heaven as toward earth, to reverse the fate of the hostages; the strength of individuals who had the courage to believe that “it was not for nothing,” and that yes, it is possible to change things — this is what enabled the liberation of the last survivors ten days ago.

This too is the strength of Judaism: Even if everything seems written, the power to act — reshut, agency, empowerment — is always given.

This is an invitation to look at the situations that still need to change, in our lives and in the world, and to believe that change is possible.

We have just begun a new beginning.

Now is when the real work begins.

Shabbat shalom.