14 Oct Dvar Torah with Rabbi Josh | Parshat Noach
ב״ה
People try to put us d-down (talkin’ ’bout my generation)…
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (talkin’ ’bout my generation)…
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
~ The Who, My Generation
You’re talking about your generation, sermonizing, giving a discourse. Straight talk, eyeball to eyeball ~ Bob Dylan, The Philosophy of Modern Song
Although we generally eschew the term “a famous Rashi” when teaching the giant of Torah and Talmud commentary, the second Rashi In the Parsha this week certainly would be one, if there were such a thing. When the Torah tells us that Noach was a tzaddik, a righteous man, “in his generation”, Rashi tells us, surprisingly, “some interpret it derogatorily: In comparison with his generation he was righteous, but if he had been in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance.”
This is striking for a number of reasons, primarily because we don’t have much in the way of the Torah’s text signaling any deficiencies in Noach’s righteousness, at least at this juncture. The detraction feels gratuitous, a cheap shot. The different approaches cited by Rashi, however, have less to do with Noach himself than they are a function of the time he lived in – his generation. Deeper critiques of Noach center on the fact that he should have protested God’s decree to wipe his generation out, rather than dutifully build the Ark; Noach should have admonished the people; Noach didn’t use his influence as a tzaddik properly – – all put in relief to the world-changing iconoclasm and leadership of another generation’s tzaddik: Avraham. It would seem then, that even those who diminish Noach’s righteousness are really gesturing to a more profound question of how one lives in their generation.
This is a live question in education as well. As parents and teachers, we constantly hear, and sometimes voice, laments about how “this generation is different” when referring to our students and kids. The phenomenon even has a name: the “kids these days effect.” It’s a timeless thing: “generations come and go, but the land lasts forever,” intoned King Solomon in Kohelet [1:4]. It seems another constant is thus the inevitable comparisons of one generation to the next. The Greatest begot the Boomers who begot the X who begot the dreaded Millennials who begot the Zoomers, and so on. Each generation has its standard critiques of the next generation, usually some version of “they have it so easy” and conversely, of the previous – “they are so backward”. It’s dizzying enough that some have argued that the whole concept of discrete generations should be discarded altogether.
What this puzzling Rashi might ultimately be doing is using Noach to bring the futility of such debates to light – who can know what Noach were to do in a generation that wasn’t facing global annihilation? Who can really know how Avraham would have responded to pervasive chamas? Education and parenting are about giving our children the tools and support they need to thrive in their generation – focusing on their struggles and successes relative to ours is a fruitless and ultimately doomed endeavor. Hopefully, with Hashem’s help, we will be able to nurture them to become righteous in their generation and capable of raising righteous children of their own in the next.