Miller's Musings Parshas Noach: Picking Up The Pieces

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לעילוי נשמת

יחיאל בן אלעזר יוסף

                      בס''ד

Noach, it seems, is something of an enigmatic figure. It is somewhat a point of contention as to whether he was subjectively righteous compared to his evil generation, or objectively so. What is clear is that he stood head and shoulders above those of his time and was the sole reason for Hashem relenting on His decision to obliterate His creation. When all others lived lives of depravity and deceit, he transcended the filth and decadence and existed as a beacon of light in the dark. How was this possible? How could he elevate himself to such a degree, when everyone and everything around him should surely have contaminated and corrupted even the most noble of personalities? 

No matter where one finds oneself, there are always opportunities that await you. Some places provide huge opportunities for connecting with Hashem, whilst others are replete with the threat of distancing oneself from Him. Those that contain such spiritual dangers are time and again scenes of spiritual downfall and defeat to the evil inclination. A Rabbi was once asked by a man why it was that after he had gone through just such a place of impurity, the subsequent prayer after this experience was more elevated and powerful than any previous ones. He replied that any places that contained such potential for failures would have seen many people fall victim to its temptations, and sin. Any time that happens, some of the sparks of holiness fall from those who fail that test. When you walked through that place, and overcame the trials within it, you picked up all those sparks and left a spiritually uplifted man. These are rather esoteric ideas that I cannot claim to fully understand. But in a world bursting with impurity, a man such as Noach who strove to prevail over all tests he encountered, was able to not only reach higher levels from his own efforts, but also pick up those sparks wherever he went. It was perhaps this that granted him the ability to rise high above the world he inhabited and achieve what seemed the impossible, against all odds.           

Even if we cannot truly appreciate this concept, what we can perhaps comprehend is that a person able to achieve when all others have been unsuccessful, surely carries that person higher than would be possible if their efforts were without this comparison. The world is full of temptations; perhaps more than ever before. And we will slip up and we may fail. But we must realise that when we don’t. When we are able to make the right choices and do the right thing. We are not just gaining from that virtuous act. We are also seizing those fragments of holiness that have been left by those who have not passed their tests. Perhaps we feel that we cannot compare to the giants of the past and their incredible feats of faith and righteousness. But in a time where there is so much to drive us away from Hashem and where so many lack the fortitude or will to do as they should, each victory we achieve possesses tremendous power to bring us exponentially closer to our perfection.

*May we absorb all the holiness of Shabbos within us and leave it a different us*

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