The world can feel like a pretty confusing place sometimes.
We see things happening around us, hear what people are saying, scroll through the news, and sometimes find ourselves wondering: How can so many people see the same situation so differently? How can something that seems so clearly wrong to us be accepted, defended, or even celebrated by others?
This week’s parshah, Noah, shares a story that speaks directly to that question.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Noah’s Ark. The world had become so corrupt that G-d decided to bring a great flood. Noah, a righteous man, was instructed to build an ark that would carry his family and the animals through the Flood, preserving life so that they could eventually emerge and begin the world anew.
The rain fell for forty days and nights, the world was destroyed by the Flood, and Noah and his family emerged to begin again. G-d then established a covenant, symbolized by the rainbow, promising never again to destroy the world through a flood.
But the Torah isn’t simply telling us a story about something that happened thousands of years ago. It’s teaching us something about human nature, morality, and the world we live in today.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, in his commentary on Parshas Noah, describes the generation of the Flood as a society suffering from widespread moral failure. The Torah tells us:
“וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹקִים וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס”
“The earth became corrupt before G-d, and the earth was filled with violence.” (Bereishis/Genesis 6:11)
This wasn’t a world where a few individuals were doing terrible things. Corruption and violence had become part of society itself. The world had lost its moral direction.
And then there was Noah. The Torah introduces him as a tzaddik, a righteous person. But imagine what it must have been like to be Noah.
You’re living in a world where practically everyone around you has accepted a certain way of life. Everyone seems to agree about what’s normal, what’s acceptable, and what’s right.
And you disagree.
Not just a little. You believe that the entire society around you has gotten something fundamentally wrong.
Rabbi Daniel Rowe of Aish HaTorah shares a powerful perspective on Noah’s courage.
The Talmud (Sanhedrin 108b, a section of the ancient collection of rabbinic discussions) describes how the people of Noah’s generation treated him with contempt. As he built the ark, they mocked him, asking why he was building such a thing.
Think about that for a moment. Noah wasn’t just building an ark. He was standing up against the values of an entire civilization. And he was willing to be ridiculed for it.
Rabbi Rowe highlights something remarkable about this. Noah understood that just because everyone believes something doesn’t make it right. The majority doesn’t determine truth. Popularity doesn’t determine morality. And sometimes doing the right thing means being willing to stand alone. That takes an incredible amount of courage. Because let’s be real. None of us particularly enjoys being the odd one out. We want to belong. We want to be accepted. We want people to understand us. It’s uncomfortable when people disagree with us. It’s even harder when they mock us or make us feel that our beliefs and values are somehow wrong. But Noah teaches us that our moral compass cannot simply be whatever the world around us happens to believe. And I think this message feels especially relevant right now.
We recently commemorated October 7th, a day that forever changed so many Jewish lives. Over the past three years, we’ve watched the world respond to Israel and the Jewish people in ways that have often been painful, confusing, and deeply troubling. We’ve seen antisemitism rise, Jewish communities targeted, and at times an intense focus on finding fault with Israel while the suffering and fears of Jewish people are dismissed or minimized.
It can feel overwhelming. And in moments like these, I think there’s something incredibly important about remembering who we are.
As Jewish people, we come from a tradition that places tremendous value on human life. A tradition that teaches us to pursue justice, practice kindness, care for others, and work toward peace. These aren’t simply nice ideas. They’re values that have shaped our people for thousands of years. And they’re values worth holding on to, even when doing so isn’t popular.
That doesn’t mean we have all the answers, or that every action taken in our name is automatically right. It means we have a moral foundation that should guide us, even when the world around us feels confusing.
We don’t need the approval of the entire world to know that human life matters, that cruelty is wrong, and that kindness and justice are worth standing up for.
There’s another beautiful part of Noah’s story that I don’t want us to miss.
Even when the world had become so corrupt, G-d didn’t give up on humanity. He saw the goodness that remained in Noah. He preserved life through the ark, and from that small beginning, the world was given another chance. The rainbow became a symbol of G-d’s promise that the world would not again be destroyed by a flood.
I find that incredibly meaningful. Because the story of Noah isn’t only about standing strong when the world has lost its way. It’s also about believing that goodness is still worth protecting, that humanity is worth saving, and that even in the darkest moments, there is hope for a better future.
We may not be able to control what the world says about us. We may not be able to change everyone’s minds. But we can control what we stand for. We can choose to be proud of our Jewish identity. We can choose to live by our values. We can choose to bring more kindness, compassion, and goodness into the world around us. And maybe that’s one of the greatest lessons Noah leaves us with.
We don’t have to follow the crowd simply because it’s the crowd. We have to know who we are, what we believe in, and what kind of world we want to help build.
May we all have the courage to stand strong in our values, the wisdom to recognize what is right, and the strength to bring more goodness and light into the world, even when doing so isn’t popular.
Shabbat Shalom!