The Courage to Stand Apart

As we learn this week about Noach and the Mabul, we encounter a description of the world that is devastating and unsettling. The pesukim (Bereishis 6:11-12) tell us, “Vatishocheis ha’aretz lifnei ha’Elokim vatimolei ha’aretz chomos — The world had become corrupt before Hashem, and the earth was filled with thievery.” The Torah continues, “Vayar Hashem es ha’aretz vehinei nishchosah — Hashem saw the earth, and behold, it had become corrupt.”

Acharonim note a striking feature of these pesukim. The Torah describes a world consumed by corruption, a society steeped in theft, violence, immorality, and the abandonment of basic decency. Yet, when the Torah speaks of seeing the corruption, it singles out that Hashem is the One who observed what was happening: “Vayar Hashem.” Hashem saw what had become of His world. The implication is that the people inhabiting that world did not see what was unfolding around them. Either they were so deeply implicated in the wrongdoing that they could no longer see it clearly or they had become so accustomed to their surroundings that nothing about the prevailing behavior seemed unusual.

How could an entire civilization descend to such a level without recognizing what was happening? How could people live amid rampant theft and violence, surrounded by moral decay, and carry on as though everything were perfectly normal?

Perhaps the answer is that corruption rarely announces itself as corruption. It advances gradually, one compromise at a time, until yesterday’s outrage becomes today’s accepted practice. What once would have shocked the conscience becomes commonplace. What once demanded protest becomes a subject of indifference. Eventually, people no longer ask whether their behavior is right or wrong. They ask only whether it is customary, whether others are doing it, and whether they can get away with it.

Not only were the people of Noach’s generation committing terrible sins, but their society had lost the ability to recognize those sins for what they were. The corruption had become so pervasive that the distinction between right and wrong had blurred, until the abnormal had become normal and the indefensible had become accepted.

When an individual sins, there may still be a conscience that troubles him, a voice that reminds him that he has crossed a line. But when an entire society embraces the wrongdoing, that voice becomes easier to silence. People reassure one another that there is nothing wrong with what they are doing. They point to their neighbors, their friends, and the accepted practices of their time. The oldest excuse in the book is that “everyone is doing it,” and if everyone is doing it, then it can’t possibly be wrong.

Yet, the fact that an entire world accepts something does not make it right. A society can reach a consensus and still be profoundly mistaken. An entire generation can lose its moral bearings while remaining convinced that it is right.

We see this in the way nations condemn Israel and promote the modern-day blood libel that the Jewish state is guilty of genocide. We see it in the world’s most prestigious award being given to a Jew-hater who promotes the genocide charge. We see it in the antisemitic marches in European capitals, in the legislation Western nations enact against Israel, and in the growing hostility toward Israel and the Jewish people within the American Democratic Party.

And this lesson must give us pause closer to home as well. At a time when more Jews are devoting their lives to Torah, and when chesed and tzedokah are being performed on a scale that may be unprecedented in our long history, we must also confront the troubling reality that certain forms of contemptible conduct within our own community are becoming increasingly accepted. The extraordinary growth of Torah and chesed does not absolve us of the responsibility to recognize what is wrong among us.

The Torah’s description of the Mabul teaches us that this is not merely a historical curiosity. It is one of the great dangers facing human society in every age. When the standards of right and wrong are determined by what people do rather than by what they should do, the very idea of a moral standard begins to disappear. Instead of asking whether our behavior meets the demands of truth and justice, we judge truth and justice by whether they accommodate our behavior.

The tragedy of Noach’s generation was that its people apparently no longer saw the tragedy.

There is a remarkable lesson in the Torah’s identification of the particular sin that filled the earth, namely chomos, thievery. Chazal teach that the people of that generation had become so accustomed to stealing that they devised ways of taking from one another in amounts so small that the victims could not obtain legal redress. Each individual act might have appeared insignificant, but when everyone participated, the cumulative result was the destruction of society.

This is what happens when people stop respecting the rights of others. The first theft may be accompanied by discomfort, the second by a little less hesitation, and eventually a person can reach a point where he no longer finds anything wrong with taking what belongs to someone else. He finds excuses, identifies loopholes, and persuades himself that what he is doing is acceptable. Others do the same, and soon the entire society operates by standards that would once have been unthinkable.

The members of the generation of the Mabul did not necessarily need to become spectacular villains, each committing some extraordinary act of wickedness. They needed only to create a world in which everyone felt entitled to take a little, excuse a little, and disregard the other person a little. When those small acts became the accepted way of life, the society became corrupt.

The lesson reaches far beyond theft. Whenever people become accustomed to dishonesty, cruelty, exploitation, or the humiliation of others, they gradually lose their sensitivity to the damage they cause. The question is no longer whether another person has been wronged, but whether the wrongdoing is common enough to be excused. The more widespread a practice becomes, the less likely people are to challenge it, and the less likely they are to recognize the harm it inflicts.

This is how a society can deteriorate without experiencing a moment of collective alarm. There is no single morning when everyone awakens and announces that right and wrong no longer matter. Instead, the standards erode little by little, until people look around and see nothing unusual in what has become of them.

And that is the lesson of Noach.

The Torah tells us, “Noach ish tzaddik tomim hayah bedorosav es ha’Elokim hishalech Noach — Noach was a righteous and wholehearted man in his generations; Noach walked with Hashem.”

Noach lived in the same world as everyone else. He breathed the same air, encountered the same people, and witnessed the same conduct that had become ordinary in his surroundings. He was spared the influence of his society because, while the others accepted the standards of their generation, Noach measured his conduct by the will of Hashem. If Noach knew that Hashem considered that conduct wrong, Noach’s guide was Hashem, not public opinion, not what everyone did, what everyone bought, or where everyone went. He kept himself accountable to a higher standard.

Noach measured the world against the will of Hashem rather than measuring the will of Hashem against the world.

That distinction is fundamental.

It is relatively easy to recognize wrongdoing when everyone around us condemns it. When a society agrees that an act is shameful, a person can maintain his integrity without having to question the assumptions of his friends or challenge the practices of his community. The real test arrives when the prevailing culture has accepted something that the Torah rejects, when a person must choose between the approval of those around him and his responsibility to Hashem.

That is when a person discovers whether his standards are rooted in Torah or merely borrowed from his surroundings.

Hashem instructed Noach to build the teivah over an extended period so that he could carry on discussions with the people of his day and seek to influence them to mend their ways. Though Noach’s efforts proved fruitless, he himself wasn’t swayed by the degradation of the society around him and remained committed to acting according to the will of Hashem. Though he was constantly mocked, he continued building the teivah as Hashem had commanded him.

That is the responsibility of a Jew in every generation. We cannot control the moral climate of the world, and we cannot always persuade others to recognize what is wrong. But we are responsible for ensuring that the standards by which we live our lives do not become casualties of the society around us.

We live in a world in which the language of morality is constantly invoked, but the meaning of morality is increasingly contested. Conduct that was once regarded as shameful can be celebrated, while those who object are dismissed as backward, intolerant, or out of touch.

Just because something is popular, widely promoted, and accepted by influential people does not mean that it is right. Popularity is not proof of truth, and acceptance is not evidence of righteousness.

The world can applaud something that is wrong, just as an entire generation can become accustomed to behavior that destroys the fabric of society. If we allow the prevailing culture to determine our standards, we risk losing the ability to distinguish between what is right and what is merely fashionable.

This danger is not confined to the larger society. It exists within our world as well. A person can become accustomed to speaking improperly, treating another person unfairly, wasting precious time, or making compromises in his hanhogah until what once troubled him no longer registers. He may continue to regard himself as an honest person, a responsible person, and a ben Torah, even as he gradually adjusts his standards to accommodate his behavior.

The danger is not only that we may do something wrong. It is that we may reach a point where we no longer recognize it as wrong.

A person who knows that he has stumbled can seek to correct himself. A person who has convinced himself that there is nothing to correct has closed the door to improvement.

That is why the Torah’s description of Noach’s generation should give us pause. It teaches us to consider not only what we are doing, but how we judge what we are doing. Are our standards determined by the Torah, or do we slowly, and perhaps unknowingly, adjust our understanding of Torah to accommodate the standards around us? Are we troubled when we see something wrong, or have we become so accustomed to it that we no longer notice or care? Do we examine our conduct honestly, or do we find comfort in the knowledge that others behave the same way?

Noach’s generation became so immersed in its conduct that its people lost the ability to recognize where their choices were leading. The world was filled with chomos, and yet the corruption had become ordinary. What should have been a cause for alarm had become the background of everyday life.

Noach teaches us that we must preserve the ability to see clearly, even when those around us have lost it.

There is a reason that the Torah tells us that Noach walked with Hashem. A person who leads his life by what everyone else does gets swept away in the tide of hedonism, self-indulgence, and a way of life incongruous with Torah values.

Noach reminds us that when the entire world goes astray, righteousness may look strange and may feel lonely. When everyone goes somewhere and you don’t, it may appear as if you are the one missing out, but, in fact, you are like Noach in the teivah, living life the way it was meant to be lived.

Over the Yomim Noraim and Sukkos, we invested much effort in reaching higher levels of ruchniyus, striving to improve ourselves, strengthen our connection with Hashem, and carry the inspiration of those exalted days into the year ahead. The task of those days was to work to elevate ourselves above the distractions of the world and draw closer to the person we know we can become.

As we return to regular life, what we gained over Tishrei is vulnerable to the murky floodwaters of a society in which the lines between right and wrong are increasingly blurred and our generational values can gradually be eroded.

As we learn this week’s parsha and return to school and yeshiva, we must take the lesson of Parshas Noach to heart and work to go against the flow rather than get swept away by the challenges to our mesorah and Torah way of life.

We can choose the standards by which we live, the influences to which we expose ourselves, and the values we transmit to our children. By remaining loyal to Torah and its values and doing what we can to bring goodness and ruchniyus into the world around us, we build our personal teivah, a place of refuge in which our families can remain anchored even as the waters rise around us.

We may not be able to keep the world from sinking, but we can ensure that we do not allow ourselves to sink with it. We can act as our grandfather Noach did, attempt to influence those around us, seek to make the world a better place, and help prepare the world for the coming of Moshiach Tzidkeinu bekarov.