Who’s good enough?
Who here is a tzaddik? (You don’t have to answer that!) The opening of the story of Noach describes a global crisis: the earth is filled with lawlessness, and people’s ways are corrupt. One man is singled out as at least more of a tzaddik, of better character, than those around him. As the Zohar points out, Noach backwards spells chen, meaning ‘favour’.[1] God decides to favour Noach and his extended family – but to destroy everyone else. The way the story is told, I suspect that most of us instinctively feel like we’re in the ark with the family. Obviously. Surely God wouldn’t have judged us so harshly as to think that we shouldn’t belong safely inside with Noach? When pushed, it’s a common human trait to judge ourselves more favourably than others, and to find others who we (at least secretly) think might not be as worth saving as ourselves. Noach himself didn’t plead the cause for anyone else beyond his family – but, as Anthony in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ might say, “Noach was an honourable man”. Is there anybody here who thinks they personally wouldn’t have deserved a place on the ark?
Who’s good, who’s bad? The neo-Hasidic rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (z”l) taught that we can all be a tzaddik sometimes: we can have moments when we act righteously. But equally, there are times when our behaviour is awful, when we are, just for that moment a rasha, an evil person. Most of the time, if we work hard, we’re beinoni, in-betweeners, and neither one thing nor the other. As Reb Zalman said, “we are all recovering Rashas … it is still a one-day-at-a-time affair.”[2] Elul and High Holy Days teach us that every one of us falls, and also has the potential to make t’shuvah and do better. In Pirkei Avot, Joshua ben Perachyah, said: “Judge everyone by bending the scale to the side of merit, i.e. judge every person favourably.”[3] It seems to me either none of us should get a place on the ark, or all of us should – so that we all get a second chance.
Who belongs or shouldn’t belong?
Exactly who and what won a precious place on the ark? Perhaps unusually for Torah when describing groups, it doesn’t just mention Noach and his sons, but his wife and their wives as well – the whole archetypal family. And creatures ‘of every kind’ entered the ark. What might that mean? Both wild animals (chayah) and domesticated animals (b’heimah) climbed aboard; winged creatures that fly, creatures that creep on the earth, and in-betweener creatures that have wings for the air, but hop about on the earth; both pure and impure animals – Talmudic debates wrestle with how to classify the mythical koi, that is both ritually pure and impure depending on the circumstances. It doesn’t take much for boundaries and neat definitions to blur. The binary comparisons—including ‘male and female’—seem to me more an attempt to explain that the categories are not binary at all. I read them as merisms – two opposites to imply the inclusion of everything else in between. After all, there are many Talmudic legal discussions on how to respond respectfully and compassionately to the rabbinic acceptance that there are at least seven genders in just the human world. Modern science has shown us clownfish that change from male to female, parrot fish that do the opposite, simultaneous hermaphrodites that fertilise themselves, bi-directional sex changers. My take is that God took an inclusive approach, and shut all of these together into the ark, which became a sanctuary for—as the text says—‘all kinds’ of creatures and people.
Who’s right and who’s wrong?
I wonder how everyone got on together all that time in that cramped, damp, smelly space? Not easily I suspect. There were probably arguments; I’m sure relationships suffered, cliques formed, tempers frayed. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a rash, irritable moment, someone in Noach’s family blurted out to someone (or at least had the thought), “You don’t even deserve to be on the ark!” In his book ‘Beyond Dispute: rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement’ (out just this year), Daniel Taub, diplomat and international mediator in conflict resolution, describes another pressure point in our history. At the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, the Jewish people faced a spiritual, theological, and social crisis, becoming dangerously fragmented, such that their very survival was under threat. Taub writes about the genius of the emerging movement of rabbis at that time:
“… perhaps the most radical innovation was a daring attempt to address the dangers of sectarianism and prevent total fragmentation. The stroke of genius was to present difference, even fundamental divides, as a positive value – in today’s terminology, not a bug but a feature. Argument, which had always been considered a danger and threat to social cohesion, would come to be seen as something to be cherished, and dissent not as treachery but an asset to be welcomed. The rabbis would develop a new conception of truth, as something that could not be known authoritative by any single individual or sect, but as something to be divined through collaborative effort.”[4]
Conflict, dissent, and disagreement were recognised as being inherent in God’s creation. Impossible to avoid, instead they were embraced, sacralised—and thus contained. Neither extreme polarisation of views and factions, nor the push for unanimous certainty, but “raucous conversation” was seen as the engine of “cohesiveness and continuity of the community”. And so the Jewish people were saved from destroying themselves. We need to relearn that lesson in each generation. In a rightly famous passage in the Qu’ran, Allah says, “We … made you into peoples and tribes so that you may get to know one another.”[5]
Widening our vision
This drash has been about criteria for inclusion or exclusion. Who measures up morally (and who gets to decide), whose identity is acceptable (and who gets to define identity), who do we agree with or disagree with? Who’s in, and who’s out? Actually, if we go back to the story of Noach and the flood, we get a clue from God on how to answer that. Sending a flood, destroying the many, and saving only a select few was definitely not God’s finest moment. Perhaps regretting the mistake, after the flood, God promises never again to send such destruction on Noach or, more importantly, his descendants, i.e us. Everyone, without exception, will be given second chances, perhaps many more than just two. Valuing the life and needs of every human being, regardless of the state of their soul or actions, who they are, or whether we see eye to eye with them is a huge intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual challenge – one that Noach failed. Binary thinking can’t help us – life isn’t black and white. We’re supposed to see it in technicolour – maybe that’s why God chose to remind us with a rainbow.
[1] Zohar, Bereishit 102:435
[2] Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (edited by Nataniel M. Miles-Yepez) (2003) Wrapped in a Holy Flame: teachings and tales of the Hasidic masters, p.111
[3] Pirkei Avot 1:6 – Dan et kol adam l’chaf z’chut.
[4] Daniel Taub (2025) Beyond Dispute: rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement, p.23
[5] Qu’ran 49:13 – my emphasis