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Thursday October 11, 2007

We learn from Noah that expectations can be crushing

by Rabbi Judah Dardik

In the middle of introducing Noah’s family, the Torah describes him as “a righteous person” and “perfect in his generation” — a virtuous hero selected by HaShem to save the animals and continue the human race after the world is deemed unfit to continue. continue the human race after the world is deemed unfit to continue.

Yet the end of his story is quite sad. The Torah also tells us (9:18-24) that after our protagonist emerged from the ark, he “became a man of the earth, and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine, made himself drunk,” and rolled around the ground naked in a stupor. The drunken father is disgraced by his own son Canaan, and we hear little else of Noah after this.

So that’s it? We glimpse our hero drunk and disgraced and he never does anything more noteworthy? What happened to the great role model who saved humanity?

Let’s go back in search of clues. When we first meet Noah, the Torah tells us (Gen. 5:28-29) that Lemech had a son and named him Noah, saying “This one will bring us relief [‘Yinachameinu’— Noach] from the work and anguish of our hands, from the soil that God has cursed.”

The Midrash Tanchuma explains that for some time until Noah’s birth, the land had been cursed by HaShem. People would plant wheat or barley and thorns would grow in their place. But upon Noah’s birth, things went back to normal, and what was planted grew. Also, on the date of Noah’s birth, timesaving tools like the plow were invented.

All of this was noted at Noah’s baby naming. Here was the “golden child” who would save them, and they named him accordingly. That is how he grew up. Everyone knew him as the young man who had and would save them. He was the future.

So it came as no surprise when God spoke to Noah and informed him that he would be the one to assure the continuity of humanity after mass destruction. Humanity wasn’t worthy of survival, but Noah was. He was “righteous” and “perfect,” just like everyone said.

So this servant of HaShem did exactly as he was told and built an ark. He gathered pairs of every animal. He was a savior, after all. Through his family and work, there would be life after the flood.

Noah

Genesis 6:9-11:32

Numbers 28:9-15

Isaiah 66:1-24

But Noah may not have been prepared for the realization after the flood that he and his family were quite alone. Yes, they knew it in theory. But that could not prepare them for actually coming out of the ark and seeing nothing left — none of the people he grew up with, no trees, no cities.

At that moment, Noah met a profound sense of failure. Since the day he was born, he was told he was a savior — and he had failed. Our species would live on through him, but what of the others? Feeling a failure to achieve the purpose of his existence, it is no wonder he chose to dull his awareness and his senses.

Feeling that we have failed at the task that our parents and community expects of us is one of the worst feelings imaginable, and Noah couldn’t handle it. From his earliest youth, his identity had been imposed upon him by the expectations of family. The relationships between parents, children and expectations were poisonous, causing his perceived need to escape.

Every single one of us is a child of parents, and some have children of their own. On the one hand, we need to express our values to children. If they don’t know what we stand for, how can we expect them to take those values into account? Yet while doing so, we need to take care not to set expectations so specific that they are unlivable. They need the general direction of their parents, but when the expectations are too specific we run the risk of crushing children under the weighty sense of failure when they do not fulfill them.

And for ourselves — what expectations of our parents do we carry on our shoulders that simply weren’t “for us?” It’s time to let it go and discover our children and ourselves for who we are, and not who others wish we were.

Rabbi Judah Dardik is the spiritual leader at Orthodox Beth Jacob in Oakland. He can be reached at Rabbi@BethJacobOakland.org.

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