21 Oct NOACH: FREE TIME

The name Noach was
introduced and
explained in last
week’s parsha
[Bereishis 5:28-29].
“And (Lemech) called
the name (of his son)
Noach saying: This
one will comfort us from our toil and from the
anguish of our hands, from the soil that G-d
has cursed.” Adam had received the curse that
the ground would itself be cursed because of
him, and that Adam would only eat bread by
the sweat of his brow. Lemech’s prayer was
that the birth of this son Noach should
somehow be a consolation and should in some
way lighten the burden of this curse.
The Medrash Tanchuma elaborates on this
pasuk: When his son Noach was born, how did
Lemech know that Noach would be a great
consolation that would revolutionize society
and would lighten the burden of the curse?
The Medrash explains that when Adam was
given the curse following his sin in Gan Eden,
he asked G-d until when the curse would
remain in effect. G-d answered that the curse
would last until a person was born already
circumcised. Noach was born already
circumcised, alerting Lemech to the impending

lightening of this 10-generation-old curse.
Lemech could therefore immediately proclaim
“this is the baby that we have been waiting
for.” Now history will change.
The Medrash explains further that until Noach
was born, when people planted wheat they
harvested thorns. However, with the birth of
Noach, nature returned to its intended pattern.
When they planted wheat, they harvested
wheat; when they planted barley they
harvested barley. Nature worked the way it
was supposed to work. Furthermore, the
Medrash states, Noach invented the plow and
the hoe and all types of farming tools. Until his
time, people did agricultural work with their
hands. Imagine plowing a field with one’s
fingernails! It was Noach’s brilliant idea that
revolutionized the history of the world, and
indeed saved his fellow man from “our toil
and from the anguish of our hands.”
Rav Avrohom Pam zt”l (1913-2001) observed
that although this Medrash states that Noach
made life much easier and made society far
more economically productive, it was
precisely in Noach’s time that society became
corrupt and debased. Apparently, there is a
correlation between hard work and the moral
status of the world, between having it easy and
moral deterioration.

Rav Pam remembered the “sweatshops” on
the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He certainly
remembered pre-war Lithuania. People
worked 12 hours a day, six or seven days a
week! However, 50, 60, and 70 years ago in
New York City, it was possible to walk outside
at night. Now, with four days a week, flextime,
shorter hours, and paid vacations — all of a
sudden — we cannot walk the streets safely
anymore. It is sometimes not even safe to
drive one’s car down the street, much less
walk!
We are so advanced, we have all these
conveniences, and look what is happening to
the world! Apparently, there is something
corrupting about having so much free time on
one’s hands that one does not know what to do
with it. When that happens, the world
deteriorates. This is what happened during the
years prior to the Flood.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888)
commented similarly. There was a striking
change in the world after the Flood: “As long
as the earth lasts, seedtime and harvest, cold
and heat, summer and winter, and day and
night, shall never again cease to exist.”
[Bereishis 8:22]

This was a revolutionary change. Before the
Flood, there was no such thing as a season. It
was summer all year round.
Why are seasons necessary? Rav Hirsch
explained that year-round summer is not good
for society. When life is too easy and people
have too much time on their hands, society
deteriorates.
Life became easier during Noach’s lifetime.
Suddenly, people had too much free time on
their hands. The world deteriorated. This is a
great ethical lesson for all of us regarding the
challenge and responsibility that free time
presents to us.