17 Oct PARASHAT NOAH: TEACHING WITH PASSION AND CONVICTION

The opening verse of
Parashat Noah tells
us, “Et Ha’Elokim
Hit’halech Noah”
– that Noah “walked
with G-d.” The Seforno (Rav Ovadia
Seforno, Italy,1474-1550) explains this
to mean that Noah dealt kindly with
other people, and sought to help them,
just as G-d dispenses kindness and helps
people. Specifically, the Seforno writes,
Noah reprimanded his contemporaries,
in an attempt to convince them to cease
their evildoing and conduct themselves
properly. Whereas many assume that
Noah did not try to lead the people of
his time to repent, the Seforno claims
that Noah indeed expended great efforts
seeking to uplift and inspire the sinners
of his generation. He followed G-d’s
example of kindness by working to help
the people of his time improve their
behavior.
In fact, the Seforno writes later (6:10)
that it was only once Noah began
reprimanding the people of his time that
he was blessed with children. The Torah
tells that Noah begot children at the age

of 500 – at a much more advanced age
than others – and the Seforno maintains
that this was because he was granted the
blessing of children only after he started
making efforts to lead his contemporaries
to repent.
Of course, as we know, Noah’s efforts
were unsuccessful. His teachings had no
effect upon the people, and they persisted
in their evildoing, until eventually G-d
decided to annihilate all of mankind.
We might ask, why were his efforts
unsuccessful? How is it possible that he
was unable to impact anybody?
The answer might be that Noah did not
truly believe that the sinful people of his
time were capable of repenting.
In order for a teacher or rabbi to succeed in
inspiring those under his charge, he needs
to approach his work with conviction,
with passion. He needs to believe
wholeheartedly everything he says. If he
is trying to convince people to change,
he needs to believe in his heart that they
can change. Noah, it seems, lacked this
conviction. He spoke dispassionately,
because he doubted whether he could

have any impact. He assumed
that the people had fallen too
low, that they had drifted too
far from proper conduct, to
ever improve.
Noah failed to realize that
very often, it is specifically
when people hit “rock
bottom” that they are open
and receptive to calls for
change. Many Ba’aleh
Teshuba became influenced to
embrace religious observance
after having fallen to the
lowest depths, when their
lives became empty and devoid of
meaning and substance. When a person
reaches this point, he is looking to change
– and it is precisely then when one has
the greatest chance of influencing that
individual and inspiring him to change.
The people in Noah’s time were capable
of change specifically because they had
sunken to such depths, because they had
become so evil and debased. But Noah
doubted their capacity to change, and
so his efforts were tepid and ultimately
unsuccessful.

We should never doubt a person’s ability
to change. No matter where a person is, no
matter how distant he might be from G-d,
from Torah, and from a Torah lifestyle,
he is capable of changing and returning
to observance. Once we recognize this
truth, and acknowledge the great potential
within each and every person, regardless
of his current state, we will speak with
greater passion and conviction, and will
then be able, with G-d’s help, to inspire
our fellow Jews to draw closer to Torah
observance, one step at a time.