What Changes When You Love Someone? | Parshas Noach

In the para of Noyak, we learn a lot about human behavior. We learn about relationships. We learn about interpersonal dynamics. We learn a lot of theology from the par. And in many ways, [sighs] we're left with more questions than answers. Sometimes if you look at the larger story from like a bird's eye view short of it is there was a bunch of bad people and God said I want to destroy them. He brings a flood and he decides to save Noah. He tells Noah build that flood build that ark. He tells Noah that it should take 120 years to build that ark because if it takes 120 years people will have the opportunity to see what Noah's doing. They'll be able to repent. And nobody ended up repenting. Nobody ended up doing tshoua. So God said, "Okay, let's let's reboot. We'll just save you and your family, Noah, and some of those animals, and we'll we'll just start from scratch. We'll start over." After the flood, post flood, um, I want you to like picture what this is like for Noah. He's stuck on this boat for quite a long time. It's more than 40 days, 40 nights, guys. It's much more than that. It's It was like an entire year. It was 40 days and 40 nights of active rain, but the flood remained for much longer. And he was cooped up on that ship for quite a long time to the point that one of the first things he did was he had to get a drink. He planted the vineyard, right? Imagine what it's like being isolated with the same people for that long. I mean, either you're just at least grateful to be alive, but you could go a little It could be difficult realizing that the start of humanity is from you. That's a huge responsibility. It's like, well, they messed up. It's like, well, that's that's a lot of pressure. But God makes a deal with Noah. He makes a covenant with Noah. And he says, I'm not going to curse the world like this ever again. I will never destroy the entire world. Maybe individuals, maybe communities, maybe certain people, but certainly not the world. I'm not going to do that again. And he makes a deal, a covenant with Noah. And the symbolism of that is the rainbow. Why did God make a covenant with Noah that he's not going to ever destroy the world again? Did God regret doing it? Was it like a a bad thing? Like, that was a little that was a overreaction. Next time I'll tone it down. Is that what God was saying? If you looked in the Torah, in the text of the Torah, just let's look at the words. God says, I'm going to read it in Hebrew and I'll translate. I will not continue to curse the earth for the sake of man. I will not hold people to such a high standard to the extent that I have to destroy the whole world and curse everything. Here's the reason. Urav the inclination in the heart of a man is bad from his youth. I will not continue to curse the world like this ever again because people are bad from their youth. Which I'm curious how you take this. To me it sounds that God is being empathetic toward the negativity that we all possess within. I get that you guys are imperfect. I get that you're human beings. cuz I get that you have a yer har that you have that at times you are compelled to do the wrong thing. Next time I won't overdo it. I won't destroy the whole world. Or maybe it's despite being evil in the heart, man being evil in the heart. Here's the important point, guys. What compelled God to want to destroy the world in the first place? What were people doing that was so wrong? What compelled God to say we need to reboot? Rashi tells us that people were stealing. People didn't respect each other. In contrast to the next generation as we read in this para, the tower of Bavl, the Babylonian tower where God didn't destroy them, he just dispersed them because they were anti- good. But at least they weren't against each other. But in the days pre- noak, pre flood, they were against each other. They were fighting each other. They were disrespecting each other and that's because of indulgence. I mean we could thank Adam and Eve previous generation from eating from the tree of knowledge which had created an acute selfawareness and this drive to and craving for indulgence. 10 generations later, God said, "This is just out of control. We need to start over." But here's what the Torah says. If you rewind to the beginning of the story of Noah, it says that God saw that man is really bad on the earth. And I'm going to read it. All the creations, the thoughts of his heart are bad. So God is deciding that he needs to start over. He needs to start over with creation and need to destroy the world and just spare Noah and his family and the animals. And the reason is because well the reason is because they're stealing and not treating each other with respect. But the reason why they're doing that is because they have evil in their heart. So when it comes to wanting to destroy the world, God says, "I have to. They're evil in their heart." When it comes to making a covenant with Noah to never destroy the world, I can't destroy the world. They have evil in their heart. It's the same reason. The same re the reason that God wants to destroy the world is just textually in the text of the Torah is the same reason why he should not destroy the world. How do we square this? God makes a covenant with Noah. I'm not going to destroy the world ever again because the heart of man is evil from his youth. That's what compelled him to want to destroy it in the first place. The reason why this is important guys is because from pre flood to post flood there was an important shift that took place in humanity and the shift is subtle but somehow the and the commentaries uh discuss what this shift was but somehow We went from people are bad, I must destroy the world to people are bad, I must be compassionate and patient and never destroy the world. Somehow this shift made a change in as it were in God's perspective. And if we could figure out what this shift is, guys, we can apply that to our interpersonal relationships with other people. Make sense? I'm going to share with you two commentaries, two perspectives on what this shift was that repositioned man from God seeing them as bad and therefore I must destroy them to God seeing them as bad and therefore must be compassionate toward them. Perspective number one, there's multiple perspectives among many commentaries, but I'm sharing with you that I found particularly meaningful. Perspective number one is from the Abbanel, one of the great sages of Spanish jewelry. Um, we just had Columbus Day yesterday. [gasps] He was um Rabbi the Abarbanel was actually the accountant for King Ferdin Ferd Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel of Spain were quite anti-semitic. Did not like Jews. In fact, the the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jewish people happened uh thanks to them. But they offered the Abarbanel to remain in Spain. If he agrees to be their accountant and he says, "No, you're kicking out my people. I have to go with them." And he decided to leave Spain. He made it to Italy. Um unfortunately, he lost a lot of his writings, which is crazy to think about because he has so many writings. If you open up the Abarbanel's teachings, uh, yeah, it does sound like Spain now, unfortunately. He he, um, if you open up the Abrael's teachings, they're lengthy. They're long. It's It's hard to believe that he has more. And he already wrote on the entire Bible, so it's I I don't know what we're missing from him, but apparently we're missing a lot of manuscripts from him. The barbaranel explains that we have to understand what exactly the text is referencing. Let's look back at the text. God says, "I will not curse the earth anymore because of man because the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth." From whose youth? From his youth? Well, who is youth? What does that mean? Means that we're born with evil in our heart from the get-go. We have to work on ourselves. We have to mature. But the Barbanel says it's from the youth of the world. God says, "I'm not going to destroy them anymore. They were young. The world is now maturing and the flood created a process of maturity and there's two reasons why there is maturity and unfort unfortunately just the reality is you could only benefit from this maturity if you learn history and take it seriously. Number one, we look back and we see what happened, which means we see that our actions are consequential. Imagine the people stealing from each other. Imagine the people disrespecting family boundaries and marital boundaries pre flood, the corruption that had taken place. Imagine they were able to see past their own pleasure and their own interests and realize that there's an impact on what they do. What they do actually matters to other people and impacts other people, impacts the world and can literally bring the world to this space where God says the world can't handle them anymore. Imagine they realized how consequential they are. They didn't have that maturity. They were young. They may not have been actually young in terms of age, but the world is fresh. From Noah until Adam, it's literally just 10. I mean, it's many years chronologically speaking, but it's only 10 generations. How many people exist at this point? Starting from Adam and Eve, which is just two people. How many people could exist? Like if you were to do the math, I don't know how people procreated and how many children they would have, but certainly I I don't think there's a billion people in the world. Um I don't know if there's a million people in the world. I don't know what the numbers are. I don't even know if we know the numbers, but I'm just there's not that many people. The world is fresh. We now know through this flood experience that our actions matter and we could potentially bring this world to this place where it needs to reboot. And if we look backward, we can be mature. So God says, "You guys were bad, but from your youth, you're now going to be able to mature from this process. I mean, you see this is uh in relationships, in interpersonal relationships, people learn early on that when you upset somebody, it's because you matter. It's probably scarier to not be able to upset somebody as if what you've done is expected. I once had a friend who was having trouble finding uh a shul. This was back when I lived in Crown Heights years ago, like 10 years ago before before we lived in California. Um he had a hard time finding a shul where he felt comfortable, where he felt like, you know, especially Ground Heights is a it's a large Jewish community. There's a lot of micro communities and it it's easy to get lost and fall between the cracks. So, I invited him to Schul. Great guy. Uh probably was not the right schol for him. It was probably not the best move to invite him there just because it they had like a they were pretty uptight about their no talking policy and he didn't know that. and the rabbi uh politely encouraged him to exercise the no talking policy and okay this is a bit of an awkward story but got a little so to speak trigger happy and overdid it reprimanded this person needless to say it was very uncomfortable I I say this without judgment I'm just observing from the outside it was uncomfortable for the to see the rabbi doing that. It's uncomfortable to see my friend experiencing that. The assumption was, okay, we now through process of elimination know what sh you're not going to. [laughter] And to our surprise, he came back the next week. The rabbi came to him and apologized, said, "I overdid it. I'm sorry." He says, "It's okay." The rabbi says, 'Why did you I'm back and didn't expect to see you here again. He says,"I realized that my talking, although it's not wanted, it matters. It makes a difference. It has an impact. I know I could have a good impact because I saw that I've had a negative impact, but I know that I could have an impact. I know that I matter. The Abarbanel is telling us that the heart of man is evil. From his youth, meaning from the youth of the world, we have this maturity process. We have the ability to look back and realize that our negative actions are consequential and could lead to a flood. And God says that won't be necessary again. You guys are capable of learning this lesson. Another perspective the Abarbanel shares as part of the maturity process maturing process is that Noah had three children which means the future you know we're called ben no humankind Jewish people are called ben Israel the children of Israel were from Jacob from Jacob the nations of the world the nonjw Jews are called Goyam. No, I'm kidding. Are just means nations are called Ben Noah, the children of Noah because all of mankind stem from Noah. But the truth is Noah didn't have any more children after the flood. Every single one of us come from one of Noah's three children. Each one representing different nations and different parts of the world, which means there's going to be diversity. And because there's going to be diversity, diversity could be a dangerous thing, but it also uh I mean it's it's a risk and it could be a very good thing. Diversity could be a very good thing because you're going to have you may have corrupt opinions, but you're going to have opposition towards that corruption because people are going to be in different parts of the world have different opinions. And even though you may have crazy oppressionists, I don't even know if that's the word. people that want things their way at the expense of mankind because they think they're being self-righteous. I'll say this without naming any particular political parties and everybody could use their imagination. [snorts] You're going to have opposition to that. You're going to have people that believe in the righteousness and justice of humanity and the fairness of humanity and that believe in God. And ultimately through balance, the world is never going to get completely out of hand. It would have in its immature state. It won't anymore. This is what the Abarban now says. Let me share with you one more perspective. from the author of the Tanya the Alb the Balany again our question is God says I will never destroy the world because the inclination of the heart of man is evil that's the reason why he destroyed it in the first place that's literally what the Torah said I'm going to destroy the world because man's heart is evil so there was a shift there was shift that had taken place. What was the shift? So this is an incredible insight into how biasness works. You can have two people, one you like, one you dislike. They both demonstrate the same behavior that might and to one person it's annoying and to one it's humoring, right? Uh I'll give you an I'll give you another example. Think of a [laughter] think of this is the stage of life I'm at, but think of a baby's diaper. I would never change another baby's okay. I mean, I wouldn't change another baby's diaper. It's disgusting and inappropriate and just everything like, no, not happening. But without question or hesitation, I would change my baby's diaper. It's not that my baby's diaper is of higher quality or any more pleasant. It's that I'm biased. I care more about my baby than I do someone else's baby, which makes the diaper more tolerable, maybe even part of the relationship. Right? So you could have two people demonstrating the same behavior and from one person it's perceived as an insult or negatively and to the other it's perceived as it's overlooked. When you like someone the faults whether it be the diaper or a more mature fault as they get older the faults don't matter as much. They aren't destructive. The Talmud interacted chabas quotes the famous sage Rabba. Rabba was a D and Raba was a judge. And Rabba said that as a judge I am I am it's forbidden for me to judge my students. I'm an in I'm not a valid judge for them. I love them too much. I care about them too much. Because I care about them so much, I cannot see any faults in them. And the job of a judge is to look for faults, right? That's literally the job of a judge is to judge. So Rabba says, "I can't judge. I'm too biased. I care about them. I only see good things. or I'll dismiss the bad things or I'll make up excuses of why those things are good. We can't judge can't be our own judge, right? And King Solomon writes in the book of Proverbs, I'll quote on any personal negligence love totally covers. Right? We we're great at making excuses for ourselves. And we could apply those same excuses to people that we care about even when there's issues. And we don't have to neglect issues. We don't we could say yeah they're imperfect. But so I'll give you an example. I'll share with you a story. This is my one of my favorite stories. There was one of the oldestimad in the United States. His name was Rabbi Pner. I think his name was Rabbi Ysef Pner. He wrote a book called Think Jewish. One of the earlier English writing authors. He was a Kabad rabbi in Nashville, Tennessee. And the idea of being a Kabad representative Jew outside of community was relatively a novel concept. Like there's there's not a lot ofic infrastructure. You know, he had a shul and he had a minion, but but that was a like what do you have in Nashville, Tennessee? It ain't Brooklyn, right? I have a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore. So his children grew up very differently uh than compared to somebody growing up in aidic community just way they were a little bit more little less sheltered to an extent not as not as exposed to the locals of the community perhaps but compared to a kidic boy in and a little bit less sheltered culturally speaking. So his son has this nice southern accent. He has diverse friends. That's what I mean cultured, right? He's hangs out with people that are not like him. He knows other ways of living. He he he he has a bit of a a for better and for worse a broader perspective on life from a very young age. and he goes to yeshiva at the age of 14 or 15 in Montreal and Montreal is a bubble man still a bubble but back then it was a real bubble umic community the kabad community was a bubble and to him it was a bit of a culture shock because he's used to having diverse friends with diverse interests And everybody here looks the same and acts the same and talks the same. And obviously nobody's the same, but at least from a 13-year-old's mind, they all look the same. He had some sort of medical emergency. He ended up in the hospital in Montreal. One of the worst things that could happen to you, man. We'll save that for another podcast. I don't know. He ends up in Montreal uh in in the hospital and he's he's um having some sort of impatient procedure and in comes Rabbi Greenglass who was one of the teachers of in the Montreal yeshiva. He had passed away a couple years ago. Guys, to give you a little bit of context on who Rabbi Greenlass was, this is rare in Kabad circles, but he was a cabalist. You have teachers ofidic wisdom. You don't have like a cabalist in it's unusual. He was a cabalist who's a very spiritual person who's a very holy person. And the perspective he had on life was from the inner dimension of Torah. That was like his life and it affected the way he lived. He was a spiritual person. The story they say about him is that he was once at Kabad Rabbi Greenlass. I'm putting this in brackets just to give you context to the story. He was once in 770 Eastern Parkway by the court and they were doing koshana saying the prayer on the the new moon. It was cloudy. So what do you do when it's cloudy? You don't have we don't have this in California too often but in the east coast it happens often where you you can't do kabano. You have to wait. It's usually done right after Shabas. He pulls out his handkerchief. He gives a little wave and the cloud starts to move. They'd say Lavana and the Rebbit turn says don't do that. Just just follow the regular program. But this was a very spiritual person. [snorts] But Green Glass comes to visit Rab PNer's son. I think his name is Man Pner. And Robert Pner is sitting in bed watching TV which to him wasn't necessarily crossing such a red line but in the world he is now a part of in yeshiva he was crossing a a a line. He was doing something that he knew that it was it was expected that he should not be doing that that he shouldn't have been watching today. He should not be opening himself to whatever the exposures are. Mind you, this is back in the what 60s or 70s. Exposure is all relative. It's not probably it's not like what it is like today. But Rabbi Greenlass walks in to visit him and he's expecting some level of disappointment. He's expecting if not a reprimand because it's not the time and place he's in a hospital at least a look uh something you know. Rabbi Greenlass walks in and he says it's as if he didn't even notice. I think Rabbi Pner believed that Rabbi Greenlass literally didn't notice. It wasn't like he was ignoring something that he should have been that he would have been focused on. totally just he says he saw me, he came to visit me, he loved me and cared about me as a student. Anything else didn't matter, wasn't relevant. When there's a relationship, when there's care, the problems don't matter. or at worst they don't matter as much because you have a reason to overlook them. So now God says I can't destroy the world because the heart of man is evil from his youth even though that's what compelled him to destroy the world in the first place. What changed? The relationship changed. What's the first thing Noah did when he got off the ark? Even before planting the vineyard, he offered sacrifices corbon to Hashem. He gave a pleasant smell. It says a pleasant smell from the word comes from the word like Sammy Davis Jr. baby says baby, right? >> [laughter] >> Um he gave nas to Hashem. He gave pleasure to Hashem by bringing a corban. A corban comes with the word karo of closeness. He bring he develops a certain closeness with Hashem. So now Hashem says yes people are bad but I like them. [snorts] I could deal with the bad if I like the person. I I I can't tell you how many times I've seen this in relationships when working with couples where they're trying to solve issues. It's like, bro, stop turning your marriage into an issue. Focus on what you like so you could then approach the issue differently. And this is exactly what Hashem is teaching us to do in this week's para. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.