Noah, ishhood, and responsibility

Genesis 6:9 reads (in part) “Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted” (Jewish Publication Society 1917 translation). At least two interesting things are going on here.

First, why specify “in his generations”? Who else’s generations would he be righteous in, right? Noah lived in a time of great wickedness. Rashi notes that among the rabbis of the Talmud, there are some who take “in his generations” as praise. He was fully righteous even in his corrupt environment; if he had lived in an age of righteous people, he would have been even greater. Others take “in his generations” as a reproach. He was righteous only by the standards of his corrupt time; had he lived in the time of Abraham, he would have been considered a mere nothingness righteousnesswise.

Second, the phrase translated here as “man righteous” is ish tzaddik. The basic meaning of ish is “man”; in various contexts, it can mean a person or a leader of either sex. The word tzaddik can be either the adjective “righteous” (an adjective comes after its noun in Hebrew) or the noun “righteous person.” Ish tzaddik does indeed mean “righteous man,” but tzaddik by itself can also mean that. So ish seems superfluous in this verse. Why is it there? I have no clue, but I won’t let that stop me from preaching about it.

Pirkei Avot 2.6 quotes Hillel as saying “in an ish-less place, strive to be an ish.” In this context, an ish is a person who takes responsibility. Hillel is addressing the non-ish among us. A job needs to be done, and there’s nobody around to do it. So you, who aren’t yet an ish, you need to step up and take care of things.

This is Noah under the derogatory understanding of his character. A job needed to be done, and Noah, who let’s face it wasn’t such a big tzaddik, took care of biz. The non-ish became an ish. For those of us (such as my good self) who aren’t as righteous as Abraham, mediocre Noah is more inspiring than magnificent Noah. This Noah guy, he wasn’t such a big deal, and he saved all life on earth. I’m even more superlatively mediocre than he was, so what’s my excuse for not doing the same?