Torah: Lack of imagination limited Noah’s valorby rabbi yoel
kahn |Follow j. on||and| Noah is one of the Torah’s anti-heroes.
While he is justly famous as the builder of the ark and the
world’s first (literal) conservationist, the Jewish tradition is
ambivalent and even hostile to Noah. This is partly rooted in
his self-destructive behavior in the years after the flood, but
our rabbis also are critical of how Noah responds to the
announcement of the pending flood — in particular, his silence.
The Torah’s description starts out on an apparently positive
note: “Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age;
Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). Older translations read:
“Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted
…” (Jewish Publication Society 1917). The commentators dispute
as to whether the statement that Noah was praiseworthy “in his
generation” is positive or negative. Do we approve of Noah
because he did the best he could in the difficult circumstances
of his generation? Or do we h