Planting and Praying

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

The parsha opens with real praise: “Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generations; Noach walked with Hashem” (Bereishis 6:9). Everyone around him was wicked, but he didn’t let their ways rub off on him. He spent 120 years building the ark, so people when would ask what he was doing he would tell them that Hashem was bringing a flood, and that they should repent. The Gemara in Sanhedrin (108b) tells us that he did such tremendous chesed, that he even made sure that every single animal in the ark was fed.

There is a great deal to learn from a tzaddik like this. But Chazal also have some claims against him, which seem to be very small. What could Chazal possibly have against a man like Noach? I’d like to suggest that if Chazal bothered to point these things out, we should learn from them too.

One claim was that when Noach came out of the ark the first thing he did was to plant a vineyard. Rashi (Bereishis 9:20) says that by doing this he made himself chullin — ordinary. The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 37:3) points out that until now he was called “a righteous man,” and now he was “the man of the earth.” Because of this vineyard, he lost a level of his righteousness.

This is hard to understand. The whole world was empty and desolate. Noach planted a vineyard to have wine. Wine brings joy, and he wanted happiness for himself and his family, so they would have the strength to rebuild the world even with ruin all around them. Besides that, he needed wine for kiddush and havdalah. What’s wrong with all this?

The Sforno answers that the complaint was not that he planted a vineyard. It was that he planted it first. The world needed many other things. Why start with the vines? It looks like he wanted the wine for enjoyment. The Ramban adds that he planted a whole vineyard, row after row — far more than a little wine for kiddush. So his own pleasure was part of the picture.

The Sforno explains that when you are starting something new, everything has to be done fully and for the right purpose. If, at the very beginning of the new world, Noach was thinking about his own benefit, that small thing could lead to much worse. And that’s exactly what happened. Noach became drunk, and one thing led to another.

We find the same idea in the Gemara in Bava Metzia (85b) about Rav Chiya. He wanted to teach Torah to young children. But before he began, he planted flax, made nets, and caught deer. On their skins he wrote a Sefer Torah, and only then did he teach the children Chumash and Mishnah. Why all the effort? Couldn’t he just have bought parchment, or a deer that was already caught? The Maharsha explains that he wanted everything to be lishmah — purely for Hashem’s sake — from the very beginning. He didn’t want any other feelings mixed in, so he did it all himself. If you want something to last, it has to be one hundred percent for the right purpose at the beginning. If it’s even a little bit off at the start, it will show up later — just like the Sforno said.

I think this is a message for all of us. We just finished Rosh Hashanah and the Yamim Tovim. We’re at the beginning of the winter, the beginning of a new year. So make sure your goals are good. In your avodas Hashem, what are your goals? How much do you want to learn, and what? Which middos, character traits, do you want to work on? And think about last year. What obstacles got in the way of your learning and your middos? Think now, at the beginning, about how to stop them. Make a real decision.

Some people say, “I’ll start off slow, and then I’ll build myself up.” No! The Sforno says start off strong, and that strength will carry you throughout the whole year, and it will be a year of great success.

There is also another claim. In Yeshayahu (54:9), Hashem calls the flood “the waters of Noach.” It sounds as if Noach caused the waters! The Zohar says that Noach really is to blame for the flood, at least a little, because he didn’t daven for the people. He never asked Hashem to save them.

This is hard to understand. He spent 120 years trying to get people to do teshuvah. What more should he have done? And why should he have davened for them anyway? Rashi tells us (Bereishis 18:32) that Avraham Avinu davened for Sedom, even though they were so wicked — but once it was clear there were fewer than ten tzaddikim, he stopped. Noach was alone with his family. Maybe there simply weren’t enough tzaddikim to save the world. And what was he supposed to say? Hashem had decided to destroy the wicked world and build a better one. How could Noach ask Him not to?

Rav Chaim Kamil explains that Noach shouldn’t have davened that they be saved while still wicked. He should have davened that they do teshuvah. If he had felt that their sins were his problem — “they’re sinning, and I feel it as if it’s mine” — he would have cried out to Hashem to save them from sinning. If his own son were doing aveiros, sins, wouldn’t he daven for him? We are all one. And if he had davened, it might have made a big difference. His talking didn’t work. Maybe his tefillah, his prayer, would have.

The Chazon Ish, in his writings at the end of Orach Chaim asks: how can you daven for someone else to stop sinning? Aren’t you interfering with his free will? He answers: don’t look at it like that. In ruchniyus — spiritual matters — we are all connected. If he is sinning, I feel the pain myself. I’m not a stranger to him; I’m part of him, so I can daven for him. I am not interfering with someone else’s free will. I am feeling that I am at one with him. That’s how Noach should have davened for his generation.

Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel used to tell the bochurim, the young men of the yeshivah, at the beginning of every winter term: “It’s not enough to learn. You have to daven for your learning.” The Gemara in Niddah (70b) says that to succeed in learning, you have to daven for it. But, he said, it’s also very important to daven for your friend. “If you see a friend who is struggling — he’s not learning well, or he’s having a hard time in ruchniyus — daven for him! Feel his pain, and daven for him.”

The Gemara in Berachos (12b) says that a person who is able to ask for mercy for his friend and doesn’t is called a sinner. And if his friend is a talmid chacham, a Torah scholar, he has to make himself sick over it. If a talmid chacham is struggling, you should feel sick about it and cry out to Hashem to help him. Tefillos for our friends, especially in spiritual matters, help much more than we can realize.

I want to tell you a story about my rebbe, Rav Reuven Gershonovitz, a great tzaddik. One time he told me, “Pray for the other bochurim in the yeshivah.” I took it as very important advice — but I thought it was just advice. Then someone close to him told me, “You know, he doesn’t only tell you to do it. He does it himself. He prays hard for a lot of bochurim, and sometimes he even fasts so they should improve.” That made a very big impression on me.

But the story doesn’t end there. Years after I left the yeshivah, something was bothering me, and I went to a rav to ask for a berachah, a blessing. He said, “I’ll give you a berachah. But I want you to know something. You already have help. There’s an old man who is praying for you every day.”

I was startled. An old man praying for me every day? Who could this be? I thought about it a lot, and I thought — I’m not sure, but I think — it must be Rav Gershonovitz. I don’t remember asking him but I had been out of the yeshivah for years and years and he was still davening for me  That’s a real rebbe. He cared about his talmidim, his students, so much that he kept praying for them years after they had gone.

May we be zocheh to really feel the problems of the friends around us, and to cry out to Hashem for them from the bottom of our hearts.