Hot answers tagged noach-noah-the-man
24
As David Perlman stated in his answer, Biblical Noah was not Jewish. Depending on how you define Judaism, the first "Jew", or rather, the first person to recognize the G-d that Jews worship as the Creator and Master of the universe, was Abraham.
If you are interested in nationality, it goes something like this:
Noah and his children were the only survivors ...
15
R' Yehosef Schwartz, in his Tevuos HaAretz (composed in the 1840s), writes (translation from here):
Twenty-five miles southeast of
Baal-bek is the village Sachala, where
the inhabitants point out a monument,
which they allege to mark the grave of
Noah. That, however, but little faith
can be placed in such like popular
legends, will appear ...
14
Biblical Noah was not Jewish. The first Jew was Abraham. Abraham came along ten generations after Noah.
From a Jewish perspective all people are children of Noah. All children of a maternal descent of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are Jewish.
So no, not everyone is Jewish.
EDIT:
Thanks to Seth's comment I did a bit more research on the topic.
The question of ...
5
There is a popular idea (I don't know an actual source for it) that Noach was the classic "tzaddik in a fur coat." The metaphor used is that when the house is cold, you can do one of two things: wrap yourself in a warm coat, ensuring your own comfort but ignoring everyone else's; or build a fire (or turn on the heater, etc.) so that everyone benefits. ...
5
One Answer
From Torah Insights for Shabbat Parshat Noach 5758 by Rabbi Aaron Borow:
Rabbi Ki Tov answers. Noach believed that the people of his time were too far gone. They were beyond salvation. They had no respect for their own humanity or for that of others. Among all those who lived in his time, Noach could not find even a minyan of good people.
...
4
Among the midrashim we find several opinions as to why Noach cursed K'naan. Here's a few:
Hashem had already blessed Noach and his sons (9:1) and a curse cannot exist while the blessing stands. He thus could not curse Cham (the actual perpetrator) and cursed his grandson K'naan instead. (Bereshis Rabbah 36:11; R' Yehuda) [As to why K'naan instead of Cham's ...
3
The Lubavitcher Rebbe explains as follows (Likkutey Sichos vol. 25, pg. 28 - adapted in English here):
The Ark contained a pair of every species of animal known to man. The fact that they could co-exist in a structure measuring 300 X 50 X 30 handbreadths for an entire year was nothing short of a miracle. In fact, it was a taste of the Messianic era when, ...
2
Daas Z'kenim mibaale hatosafos (ad loc.) cites a midrash that says that K'naan overheard the announcement in verse 22, and went and sodomized Noach. (Cham himself, according to this midrash, did nothing wrong except speak of his father disparagingly and in public.) Verse 24 refers, then, to a grandson as "son" (not uncommon, and makes more sense here than ...
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