Parashas Noach: Seeing the Good Without Losing Discernment

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. People are critical. It's a middah. It's called ragzanus. Why are people critical? Why do people find the ois, the derogatory? They don't see the positive. And the answer is, is because something's missing from within them. Everybody knows in psychology that people who are negative is because they themselves have a low self-image. They themselves don't feel complete, and therefore they always see what's not positive. I always thought, what was Noach? Noach was a person who was shleim. He almost didn't understand or believe bad in others. As the famous vort, it was a very famous Chassidic vort, which is beautiful. Noach miktananei emunah. Noach was from the small believers. Ma'amin v'eino ma'amin. He believed and he didn't believe. He didn't believe that the mabul is going to come, even though the Ribono Shel Olam told him, and he had to be pushed into the teivah mipnei hamabul. Rashi quotes it, that he was actually forced by the last minute when the rain started. Why didn't he believe? Yeah, but he just said he was tzaddik tamim hayah bedorosav. I never saw a koifer, a person who was a small ma'amin, to be called a tzaddik tamim hayah bedorosav. It doesn't really match up. The two descriptions don't match up. You can't be miktananei emunah and tzaddik tamim. It doesn't. Doesn't exactly match up. So there's a beautiful Chassidic pshat. Ma'amin, he believed in the chesed of the Eibishter, and therefore he believed that the mabul wouldn't come. Ve'eino ma'amin, he didn't believe in the chisaron of people. He had very little belief in evil, that people could be so bad. So between the two, he didn't believe. He believed the Ribono Shel Olam is all chesed, and therefore the mabul won't come. And he believed that the people do teshuva, they're good. So ma'amin, ve'eino ma'amin is Noach's way of looking at things. He saw everything very positive. He didn't see the negativity. Chazal tell us, lo yispalel al doro. The Zohar says, we're going to read it in the Haftorah, Mei Noach. The mabul was called the waters of Noach. Why? Says the Zohar, because shelo yispalel Noach al doro, so therefore we attribute the mabul that it's Noach. Noach, you somehow brought about the mabul. Why did he not daven al doro? It's a great question. It's a tremendous question. Why not? Many terutzim were given in the mefarshim. Why was Noach not mispalel al doro? Possibly, we could say that Noach didn't believe fully. That there'll be a mabul, like Rashi says. And this is a tremendous lesson, and that is, tamim tihyeh, yes, positive. A person should believe only good, im Hashem Elokecha, like the Chofetz Chaim says. But with people, you need to be wary. You need to be more, you know, you gotta think maybe, you know, not everything is always as perfect, not everything. Tamim, you want to be a tamim, im Hashem Elokecha. But in Bnei Adam, you better be a little more shrewd, a little more cynical. There's a balance. But the balance can't come from a chisaron that you're negative. A negativity leads to hadras limud sheba'olam. In a world of negativity, there's theft. In a world of negativity, there's min b'she'eino mino. Not appreciating the good that you have, not appreciating things leads to a breakdown in searching for ritzonos that you can't achieve, ritzonos that is not your shleimus.

And that leads to deraslah, the destruction of a beautiful world. The world around us is created in a positive perfection for the person. Re'u olami, Rabbeinu Shalom gave us a beautiful world. When you're positive, then you'll be able to save the world and see a beautiful world. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.