I would like you to consider the following two real people, one who is familiar to you and one who probably is not, and whose education and accomplishments are totally different from one another but who share something in common.
William Shockley
The first comes from the world of electronics. William Shockley was a Nobel laureate and the co-inventor of the transistor, that little device which revolutionized the world and the effects of which are with us every single moment of every single day in the form of computers, phones, video games and the very watches you wear on your wrist. There are few earth-shaking inventions that we can readily name but certainly the transistor qualifies. Anyone who studies electronics utters Shockley’s name with reverence.
But there was something else about William Shockley that you may not know. He was an adamant racist whose belief in the intellectual inferiority of black people was never, ever shaken. We admit that he held hate in great esteem in his heart yet, we do not delete his name from the rolls of the Nobel Prize recipients merely because of what we would consider a character flaw. We distinguish Shockley the political man from Shockley the scientific genius.1
Louis Farrakhan
Now let’s take someone who you are probably more familiar with. Louis Farrakhan is no genius; at least in the scientific realm. As Jews, I think it’s a given to say that we have no problem saying that everything that Farrakhan says is utter rubbish and his hateful messages and those of his disciples belong in the dungheap of historical anti-Semitism and racism.
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Yet these two men pose a problem. What are we to do with the admiration we have for Shockley and our disgust with Farrakhan? If we do not split Farrakhan up into his component parts and evaluate them on their own merit, then we are saying what author Steven Carter has suggested, that if someone is going to be truly evaluated, then there has to be some sort of a ‘genius license.2 Shockley is given a remarkable dose of forgiveness by his biographers because he invented something useful. Farrakhan seems to thrive on hate and since he has not really created something wonderful, he becomes the object of our disgust. It seems that if you are smart enough and accomplished enough, your fellow intellectuals will forgive you any transgression, as, in the words of Steven Carter once again, ‘as though brilliance in one field must translate automatically into moral uprightness.”3
By the way, I am not suggesting that we should tolerate the hate of Farrakhan. What I do say, is that Farrakhan who has produced nothing of value and Shockley who has may, indeed and in fact, have something to say about something and that something to say may actually make sense. Their lack of civility in how they speak about other races does not necessarily preclude us from civil listening.4 We still have a duty to listen carefully and decide for ourselves.Authorities, bad press or good press, gossip and other forms of slander should have no bearing on what we feel about another person until we have judged that person for ourselves and listen for truths, even if that person has a prejudice to us or us to him.
Now, I mention this little diatribe on giving the benefit of the doubt because I have been bothered for some time both with myself and with some of our Sages, especially when it comes to this parasha . This portion is about Noah who, the text tells us, was “a righteous man in his generation.” The rabbis of our tradition, the authorities themselves (and who am I to argue with them?) say explain this phrase in a most well-known midrash. It is so well-known that, I guarantee it, is amidrash that is being told in pulpits all over the country this weekend to support the point of what we Jews should be thinking about Noah. And what is this well-known midrash?
Commenting on the phrase, “In his generation,” R. Judah said: Only in his generations was he a righteous man [by comparison]; had he flourished in the generation of Moses or Samuel, he would not have been called righteous: in the street of the totally blind, the one-eyed man is called clear-sighted, and the infant is called a scholar. It is as if a man who had a wine vault opened one barrel and found it vinegar; another and found it vinegar; the third, however, he found turning sour. ‘It is turning,’ people said to him. ‘ Is there any better here?’ he retorted.5
What is going on here? How can Noah, the man who save humanity and from whom the mythology tells us we are descended be thought of so poorly? Why have we degraded him so much? And lest you think I have been immune to this, in the past 15 years as a rabbi and a student rabbi I have quoted this midrash many, many times seeking to prove the rabbis right. Noah was a righteous man in his generation but not in any other.
On the other hand, the second part of the midrash is not given equal time. It is as if we do not want to give Noah too much kavod. After all, he wasn’t an Abraham (who can do no wrong according to the rabbis) nor a Moses (who was superior even over Abraham), nor was he a Jew. And besides, after the flood was over he grew a vine, made some wine, got drunk and made a fool of himself before his sons. He was, in the [words] of Rabbi Judah, a goy with a redeeming quality or two but to whom little respect is due.
Now Rabbi Nehemiah, whose comments make up the second half of the midrash and who is not quoted all that often, has another take on the matter. Instead of looking at the words “in his generation” as in “Noah was a righteous man in his generation,” Rabbi Nehemiah looks at the word ’righteous man’ as in “Noah was a righteous man in his generation.” Same words but a totally different emphasis on Noah’s character. Listen to Rabbi Nehemiah own words. He says, “If he was righteous even in his generation, how much more so, had he lived in the age of Moses. He might be compared to a tightly closed phial of perfume lying in a graveyard, which nevertheless gave forth a fragrant odor; how much more then if it were outside the graveyard! 6
Rabbi Nehemiah’s graphic description is wonderful. If Noah, who lived among sinners—equated to the graveyard in Nehemiah’s analogy—was so good and whose goodness was sensed even though he was like a vial of perfume with the lid securely fastened, how much the more fragrant, as it were, would be in the generation of the most righteous one of all, namely Moses had the chance to express his righteousness without fear? The midrash is implying, he would have been almost Moses’ equal.
By some, Noah is given the benefit of the doubt and by others he is given only a passing “perhaps.” The rabbi’s ambivalence as reflected in the midrash is pretty typical of people like Noah. The interesting thing is that the rabbi’s ambivalence only predates our own. Many of us share the same kind of ambivalence toward someone who did something good while we have no problem speaking badly about a person who did something bad and to whom we can give no praise whatsoever. It is almost as if looking for someone’s good points, whether or not they have done good or not done good is something even our Sages struggled with. Even though we know only a little bit about Noah, perhaps the time is come to give him more credit than most of Jewish tradition gives him credit for and, conversely, when evil seems to be rampant, maybe there are good people who do good things even though their morality seems always in question. Such is a powerful lesson out of this week’s parasha.
In our lives, we have done what the rabbis have done to Noah. We have too often diminished the other with impunity based on perception, based on gossip, and sometimes based solely on tradition. Is it not true that when a new family comes to the temple there are those who may have a connection to them and who are first in line to tell others all the little secrets? I suppose that that is like something that my sister and I say to one another every so often when we see someone the other knows: “Do we like them?” It is, without doubt, in the realm of sin.
It is not confined to the present, either. We believe the traditions our families have passed down to us unquestioningly and with full fervor. Jews too often believe what the rabbis says, Christians too often believe what the minister says, and so on. And what we believe becomes part of who we are.
When I was teaching Talmud in Las Cruces, we came across a passage that I have got to share with you. It is told of Rabbi Yose of Yukrat, the head of a small academy in the upper Galilee who had a problem with one of his students. When his student was asked by another rabbi in a town some distance away why he had left the academy of Rabbi Yose of Yukrat, he told this story:
“Yose of Yukrat has no mercy and can not be a good teacher. For instance, he had a beautiful daughter. One day he noticed someone was making a hole in the shrubs next to the house so that he could get a good look at his daughter. When Rabbi Yose confronted the man, the man said to Yose, “Master, since I have not been privileged to take her hand in marriage, shall I not be privileged to see her?” He said to his daughter, “You are causing people such distress. This is not acceptable. Don’t do it any more.” And with that, she died! 7
The story in Talmud class caused us to wonder how Yose of Yukrat ever ran an academy and how he every gave critique in class! For years we would make fun of him, would laugh at him, and would thank God that we never had teachers like Yose of Yukrat. My God, even the name of the city was something to be made fun of.
Without knowing him, by fantasizing about his deeds, and by taking his deeds as humorous, I have belittled him. Now, it’s not such a big deal when we are talking about the one and only mention of this character in the Talmud. But what happens when we do that with the people in our office, in our temple, on our board, in this sanctuary, and so forth? Then it becomes more personal and then it can become hurtful. People become pigeon-holed and it seems that what they do or say can never have any validity.
It probably happens at every staff meeting in every office in the world. I know it happens at temple and church boards. After all, are we not prone to consistently shut off all those people who, up to that time may have not uttered one word with which we agree? When these people talk, is there not a subdued but clearly audible “Oooooh God; not again!” even before a word leaves their mouth. I suppose that, for most of us, nothing is more disheartening than knowing that we will be forever pasted with a label that gives us neither the chance to prove it otherwise nor the opportunity to prove that anything we say has validity. Sometimes you can never win even though you’re sure trying your best to do just that.
Aron Nimzovich was a great chess player in 1927. In New York he had a match with Milan Vidmar who lit up a cigar. An irritated Nimzovich immediately complained to the tournament director that the fumes were distracting him. The director had a chat with Vidmar who gladly put the cigar out.
A few minutes later, an agitated Nimzovich was once more standing beside the director. Puzzled, the director peered out over at the table and said, “But Master Nimzovich, your opponent isn’t smoking.”
Nimzovich is said to have replied, “I know, I know, but he looks as if he wants to! 8
We laugh at this story probably for a few reasons. Maybe we laugh because we are too often too impatient to listen civilly and are too assured of two things: that everything that comes out of our mouths is golden and that everything that comes our of people whom we do not like is unworthy of our attention, putting it mildly.
But Jewish tradition, on Noah, is the exception, not the rule, in the way that the rabbis treat him. In fact their very ambivalence as reflected by the praiseworthy comments about him should make us wonder how much they really believed how literally they were to be taken. Perhaps the fact that there were so many different opinions of him included in the literature should tell us that, on some level, the rabbis themselves were not comfortable with some of their colleagues assessment of who is clearly a great biblical character.
Our tradition teaches that everyone deserves to be heard. No one is permitted to exclude anyone from the argument. In the words of the Talmud, “where there is truth, even from a source that is usually wrong, truth is still truth.” This is reflected in the very famous story between the academy of Shammai and the academy of Hillel. Sharnmai said ‘This is the law” and Hillel said “No, this is the law.” The argument went on for three years. One day, God himself got impatient with the wrangling and said, “The law is in accordance with Hillel but—these ones as well as those ones are the words of the living God.”
You are probably asking yourself the same question that Shammai asked, “If both are the words of the living God why did Hillel win almost all the arguments?”
The rabbis tell us that it was so because, “Because they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of Beth Shammai, and were even so [humble] as to mention the actions of Beth Shammai before theirs…9
This is a remarkable passage but it what the Noah story should be teaching us. Even those with whom we have disputes are not necessarily evil. Rather they are merely of a different mind and even though they may be wrong, they are certainly worthy of civil listening.
There is a wonderful expression that occurs several times in the rabbinic literature. You probably know it from the Passover Hagaddah. It is usually used to describe the actions of someone who wants to do a little more than the required. Someone who wants to tell the Passover story all night long— this is a good thing.
What I am suggesting is to take that phrase and apply it not only to things, but to people as well. Say to yourself, “I may not like that person, I may find myself disagreeing with that person but indeed,— that person has some good qualities and says good things and is not worthy solely of my opprobrium and dishonor for all time.”
In a Boston cemetery there is a grave of one Kingman Brewster the former president of Yale University many years ago. The inscription on his gravestone is wonderful for it so beautifully conveys what we should be learning from the Noah story. It says, and I quote, “The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.”
To that, I can only add one thing, —behold, to treat one another and all creation in such a way is praiseworthy. May we be so strengthened to do it at all times.
From <https://americanrabbi.com/behold-this-one-is-good-by-cy-stanway/>
