The Jewish Way is Not Noach’s Way

Behind Every Great World Leader …

The midrash (Bereishit Rabba 30:9) says on “in his generations” (Bereishit 6:9) that according to Rabbi Yehuda, if Noach would have been in the generation of Moshe or of Shmuel, he would not have been considered a tzaddik. According to Rabbi Nechemia, in those generations it would have been even clearer that he would have been a tzaddik. Let us explain the matter by looking more closely at the comparison to Moshe and Shmuel. The approach of these two great men was very different from that of Noach. Noach’s whole generation was corrupt, and he and his whole family remained on a high spiritual level, as we see that all of them received a prophetic message (see Bereishit 9:8). In contrast, Moshe and Shmuel sacrificed themselves for their nation, but Shmuel’s sons did not follow his path (Shmuel 8:3) and Moshe’s sons did not come close to his level. The midrash [editor- we did not find the exact source] attributes the failure of Shmuel’s sons to the fact that Shmuel was so occupied with the needs of the public, and it is likely that the same is true of Moshe’s sons. Thus, we are talking about a sacrifice of leaving one’s children largely “unattended” in order to save the generation. In the case of Noach, while