It took quite a long time until Noach finally got established, and there is an important lesson here for us all.
In Noach’s time, everyone was rushing down the wrong path. They gave HaKadosh Baruch Hu only grief. There was just one person who wasn’t like that. He was a perfect tzaddik and was faithful to his Creator. That was Noach, of course.
We might assume that Noach would be showered with blessing and crowned with great and shining success. But the reality was not that way at all, at least at first. All the people of his generation were living out long and pleasurable lives in great tranquility and wealth. Hashem gave them a taste of Olam HaBa. And the one tzaddik, who found favor in Hashem’s eyes, didn’t even have children, which is a very great lack.
Everyone who saw this must have laughed at him: “Hey, there’s Noach the ‘tzaddik.’ What good does it do him? What’s his reward for being honest, upright and moral? Zilch. That loser doesn’t even have children.”
This wasn’t a passing matter, either. It wasn’t just a year or a decade like that. It went on for five hundred years! Everyone else was having children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and Noach the tzaddik was the most miserable and unfortunate person on earth, despised and reviled by all.
But we know the end of the story. He eventually had three sons, and their billions of descendants fill the world and are alive and well to this very day, while not a single soul is left from everyone else. All those people who thought they were so smart and led such successful lives are not here anymore to tell about it. The Mabul came and washed them away.
This phenomenon from the world’s early days sets a pattern that has repeated itself countless times throughout history. Great empires, replete with wisdom, wealth and beauty, came on the scene one after another, with great prominence and fanfare. Each met its own “Mabul,” and was deleted.
But we, the Jewish people, are alive and well today, even though a very many “Mabuls” have swept over us. And we will be around forever, because we have a “Noah’s Ark” in which we hide every time another “Mabul” comes.
What is this “Noah’s Ark”?
It is the shul and the beis midrash, as it says, “Go, My people, come into your rooms, and close your doors behind you. Hide for a short moment until the fury passes.”
This verse from Yeshayahu applies both to K’lal Yisrael as a whole and to each individual Jew. The beis midrash, the Torah class – they are our shield and shelter from the great “Mabul” that is presently raging outside (rampant G-dlessness and self-abandonment to sensual pleasures). Never has there been a Mabul like this. But as long as we stay inside our “Noah’s Ark,” we will be safe and sound!!
