|
Noach October 16, 2026
Dear CAS Friends, The iconic story of the Flood takes place in this week’s Torah portion. Noah, the chosen one to carry forward the human and animal species, a person of great sacrifice, is described as an ish tzaddik tamim hayah bedorotav, a righteous, wholehearted person in his generation. This phrase raises eyebrows. Some commentators read this as limited praise: if Noah had lived in another time, he might not have seemed so remarkable. Rashi, the greatest of all Torah commentators, offers another reading: Noah’s goodness was like a vial of perfume whose scent rises even above heaps of foul-smelling garbage. In a corrupt and violent world, his integrity was all the more striking. We can debate which is a more accurate reading, but I am more interested in the fact that we are rating his goodness at all. There is virtue in discussing what we see as a valuable contribution, but there is also something here about how we see ourselves and others when they do good. Giving is rarely only about the good being done. There are many reasons people say “yes” to one more committee, one more volunteer role, or one more task. Sometimes, beneath those layers of commitment lies a quiet desire to feel worthy, to prove our value through what we do. But if our giving is driven by the need to earn our own sense of worth, it may be time to gently separate those two things. Your worth is not something you achieve through doing for others. It is an inherent part of being alive. When you can hold both generosity and self-regard, you’ll find a balance that sustains rather than depletes you. And perhaps there is another clue in Noah’s story itself. At the beginning, Noah is described as an ish tzaddik tamim, a righteous and wholehearted person. But Noah also witnessed the destruction of the world he knew. The people, the communities, the life that had surrounded him were gone. He had survived, but survival is not the same as emerging unscathed. At the end of the story, Noah plants a vineyard, drinks its wine, and becomes drunk. The Torah doesn't tell us why. We cannot know what Noah was feeling, but the contrast is striking. The person who carried the responsibility of preserving life had also endured an unimaginable loss. Perhaps even Noah, the great tzaddik, struggled with the weight of what he had witnessed and survived. How often do we overlook the cost of being the person who shows up for everyone else? We give, volunteer, lead, and take responsibility, sometimes while carrying grief or exhaustion of our own. And sometimes, rather than recognizing how much we are carrying, we look for ways to numb ourselves to it. What if we treated our exhaustion not as a failure of righteousness, but as a signal that we, too, need care? Jewish tradition teaches that, when it comes to money, a person should give no more than 20% of their income, so as not to impoverish themselves and become dependent on others. What might be the equivalent when it comes to time? How many of us have impoverished ourselves through overcommitting, giving away so much of our energy that we have little left for our families or ourselves? Perhaps Noah’s story reminds us that even the person who saves the world cannot carry everything without cost. Righteousness does not make us invulnerable, and generosity does not require us to disappear into the needs of others. Wishing us all the awareness to recognize when our quest to be a tzaddik, a righteous person, has left us spiritually exhausted, and the wisdom to remember that caring for ourselves is not a betrayal of our responsibility to others. It is part of that responsibility. Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Dahlia Bernstein
|