THE RESTLESSNESS THAT BRINGS US HOME

The Torah extols Noach as a man “who walked with G-d.” However, Rashi draws attention to the distinction between this description and the Torah’s portrayal of Avraham Avinu:

[Whereas the pasuk says, האלקים התהלך נח - “Noach walked with Hashem,”] regarding Avraham, Hashem said, התהלך לפני - “Walk before Me.” This indicates that Noach needed Divine support to uphold him in his righteousness, while Avraham strengthened himself and walked in his righteousness on his own.

The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 30:5) further highlights the essence of Noach’s avodah by questioning the repetition of his name in this pasuk:

אלה תולדות נח, נח —This is bewildering! The pasuk need only have said, “These are the generations of Noach: Shem, Cham, and Yafes.” Rather, the doubled name alludes to the idea that Noach brought נייחא—tranquility for himself and tranquility for the world; tranquility for the fathers and tranquility for their descendants; tranquility for the heavenly and tranquility for the earthly; tranquility [for himself] in this world, and tranquility in the World to Come.

The precise nature of this “tranquility”—and its implications on Noach’s avodas Hashem—warrants closer examination. Why did menuchah distinguish his path from that of Avraham Avinu, who strengthened himself through his own initiative and continually advanced in his righteousness?

To understand this distinction, we must first recognize two fundamentally different approaches to serving Hashem. Both may be rooted in sincerity, and both may reflect a genuine desire to fulfill the will of the Creator, yet they diverge in their attitude toward continued spiritual growth.

The Comfort of Having Arrived

A person may serve Hashem with wholehearted devotion, earnestly seeking to bring a nachas ruach to the Borei Olam. However, his sincere commitment to avodas Hashem coexists with a certain sense of ease and tranquility. He does not seek to abandon Torah, tefillah, or kedushah, chas v’shalom, but neither is he determined to demand more of himself, to stretch beyond the confines of his present madreigos, or to undertake the difficult journey toward heights he has not yet attained. He has reached a level with which he is satisfied, and sees little reason to disturb the equilibrium he established. If he performs the mitzvos sincerely and they seem complete within the parameters he has set for himself, why surrender the comfort and tranquility of his familiar surroundings and worldly affairs?

This is the deeper meaning of “tranquility in this world and tranquility in the World to Come.” Such a person experiences genuine satisfaction in his avodas Hashem, while also seeking a measure of ease and peacefulness in his physical life. In both ruchniyus and gashmiyus, his orientation is toward preserving a state of contentment rather than continually striving to transcend it.

The Strength to Keep Going

Chazal, however, praise the other path: a life in which no accomplishment becomes a final destination and no madreigah, however lofty, becomes a place of permanent rest. The Gemara (Brachos 64a) says תלמידי חכמים אין להם מנוחה לא בעולם הזה ולא בעולם הבא – “Talmidei chachamim have no rest, neither in this world nor in the World to Come,” deriving this idea from the words of Tehillim (84:8), ילכו מחיל אל חיל יראה אל אלקים בציון – “They go from strength to strength; each one appears before G-d in Tzion.”

Rashi there explains that talmidei chachamim have no rest because they continually travel from one yeshivah to the next and from one beis medrash to another. In his commentary on Tehillim, Rashi adds that through their continual movement from one strength to the next, “their host and army will ultimately appear before HaKadosh Baruch Hu in Tzion.”

The word חיל carries a double meaning. It denotes strength, but it can also refer to a host of soldiers, a disciplined army whose members are continually advancing toward their objective. A soldier in the army of HaKadosh Baruch Hu does not seek to rest or stop. He is always on the march, going מחיל אל חיל, from one madreigah to the next. Having advanced in Torah, he seeks to advance further. Having deepened his kedusha and taharah, he strives to deepen them still more. Each attainment becomes the foundation for the next, and every new level awakens within him a renewed desire for a closer, more profound relationship with Hashem.

This is the deeper meaning of the pasuk (Tehillim 16:8) שויתי ד׳ לנגדי תמיד – “I have set Hashem before me always.” The word “always” must be understood in a literal sense. It means being mindful of Hashem’s presence at every moment and in every hour, not only at designated times of tefillah or Torah study, nor only when one’s surroundings make avodah easier. It means continually confronting the possibility of drawing closer, of refining oneself further, and of bringing one’s life into greater alignment with the will of the Creator.

This, then, is the distinction Rashi reveals between Noach and Avraham Avinu. Avraham “strengthened himself” and gave his soul no rest. He continually moved forward, elevating hiskiyum hamitzvos and his avodas Hashem. Every step generated further strength, and every madreigah awakened within him the cheishik to advance further, until he no longer required another force to uphold him; the journey itself fueled him.

Noach, by contrast, embodied the middah of נייחא, menuchah. Although his avodah possessed the quality of “tranquility in the World to Come,” he also sought “tranquility in this world.” He did not entirely withdraw from the affairs and comforts of worldly existence, nor did he continually press beyond the boundaries of his present madreigah. Consequently, he required “support to uphold him,” lest he lose his footing as an “Ish Tzaddik.”

This One Will Bring Us Rest

The association between Noach and menuchah is already intimated in the meaning of his name. The Torah tells us (Bereishis 5:29), ויקרא את שמו נח לאמר זה ינחמנו ממעשנו ומעצבון ידינו מן האדמה אשר אררה ד׳ – “And he called his name Noach, saying: This one will bring us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands, from the ground that Hashem has cursed.”

Rashi, quoting Chazal, explains that Noach transformed the agricultural world. He introduced the plow and other tools that made cultivation easier, enabling people to work the ground more effectively despite the thorns and difficulties that had resulted from Adam’s sin.

Noach’s very arrival in the world thus foreshadows the quality that would come to define his life: ease and tranquility. The physical respite he brought to the world parallels the spiritual disposition that the Midrash identifies in his avodas Hashem: he brought “tranquility for himself and tranquility for the world.”

Avraham, on the other hand, embodied the avodah of a soldier in the army of the King of Kings—one who never settles into the comfort of their present spiritual standing, but continually advances toward ever-greater closeness to Hashem.

Ultimately, Klal Yisrael will fully manifest this dimension of Avraham’s avodah l’asid lavo, when, in the words of Rashi, “the host and its army will appear before Hashem in Tzion.” At that time, the world will recognize the greatness of a people who refuse to remain spiritually stationary, whose aspirations extend beyond every attained level, and who continually yearn for greater kedushah and kirvas Elokim.

The Raven and the Dove

This distinction between menuchah and continued growth also illuminates another episode in our parshah, where the pasuk (Bereishis 8:6–7) relates, “And it came to pass at the end of forty days that Noach opened the window of the teivah that he had made. He sent out the raven, and it went out, going and returning, until the waters had dried from upon the earth.”

Chazal (Sanhedrin 108b), whose words Rashi brings, explain that the raven only circled the teivah, “going and returning,” refusing to fulfill its mission because it had already been assigned to feed Eliyahu HaNavi during the drought. As the pasuk states (Melachim I 17:6), והעורבים מביאים לו לחם ובשר – “And the ravens brought him bread and meat.”

This raises an obvious question. The raven’s mission in the days of Eliyahu HaNavi lay many centuries in the future. Why should this distant role prevent it from carrying out the task Noach assigned it in the present—to simply ascertain whether the waters had abated?

We can perhaps approach this through the words of my grandfather, the Bnei Yissaschar, in his seferAgra D’Kalah (Parshas Noach), on the pasuk (Bereishis 9:2), ומוראכם וחתכם יהיה על כל חית הארץ ועל כל עוף השמים –“The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens.”

The Bnei Yissaschar explains that when a person truly fears the Borei Olam, his yiras Shomayim itself inspires awe and dread in the creatures of the world. They become afraid to harm him, submit to his presence, and will even assist him in carrying out his endeavors and avodas Hashem—much like Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:23), where the lions would not harm him.

Accordingly, the Bnei Yissaschar interprets the pasuk as follows: “The fear of you and the dread of you” means that the fear and dread arising from your own reverence for the Creator will rest upon the beasts of the earth and the birds of the heavens. Through your yiras Shomayim, the creatures themselves become subject to you, and as the pasuk concludes, “into your hand they are delivered” (see there for broader discussion).

The Targum Onkelos emphasizes that “Noach walked in the fear of Hashem” because, indeed, Noach’s avodah was rooted in yiras Shomayim, and by virtue of this reverence, he achieved a measure of dominion over the animals and birds, enabling him to enlist them as messengers to determine the condition of the earth.

Yet here, too, Noach’s defining middah comes into play. Although his control over the creatures was real and rooted in his yiras Shomayim, it reflected the menuchah of his avodah, and his reluctance to go beyond what he had already attained. The raven, therefore, lacked the same inclination to extend itself beyond its established role. Its failure to assist Noach was not a matter of physical incapacity, but an expression of menuchah, of refusing to go further, or do more, than what had already been assigned to him.

Thus, in place of the raven, Noach sent a dove, because the defining quality of a dove is that it never rests. As the pasuk relates (Bereishis 8:9), ולא מצאה היונה מנוח לכף רגלה – “And the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot.” The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 39:8) distinctly describes:

All birds, when they grow tired, rest upon a rock or upon a tree. But the dove, when she is flying and grows weary, draws in one of her wings and flies on with the other. She never fully rests on both her feet.

Where the raven remains bound to its designated role, the dove demonstrates the capacity to go beyond it. Even when the journey becomes difficult and it grows weary, it continues onward, refusing to settle for what it has already accomplished or what awaits it in the future. This is why the dove, not the raven, ultimately returned to Noach with a sign that the mabul had receded.

The Longing to Come Home

The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 33:6) offers a further insight on the pasuk, “and the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot”:

Had she found rest, she would not have returned. Likewise, “[Bnei Yisrael] dwells among the nations; she has found no rest” (Eichah 1:3). Had they found rest, they would not have returned. Likewise, the pasuk (Devarim 28:65) says, “Among those nations you will have no relief, and there will be no rest.” For had they found rest, they would not have returned.

This Midrash suggests a profound paradox: the absence of rest is precisely what preserves the possibility of return. Just as the dove’s defining quality was that she would not rest, but continued flying until she reached her destination and returned to Noach, so, too, Klal Yisrael’s existence in galus is marked by an unwillingness to become entirely at home. Even when they establish themselves among the nations, their longing remains directed toward their Source.

For close to two thousand years, Yidden have built homes and shuls, established yeshivos, raised families, and earned their parnassah within the societies they have found themselves. Yet beneath the rhythms of ordinary life, the Jewish heart has never stopped thinking about Home. Three times each day, Yidden turn toward Yerushalayim. At every chasunah we break a glass. At the close of every Pesach Seder and every Yom Kippur, and even as we leave the sukkah, we say, “Next year in Yerushalayim.” We have lived among the nations and fought to sustain Jewish life wherever we have been dispersed, yet we have never regarded galus as our final destination.

This is the meaning of the Midrash’s words: “Had they found rest, they would not have returned.” Had Klal Yisrael become too comfortable in galus, had the communities we’ve built become a home in which our deepest longing could finally be stilled, we might have been lost among the nations. Precisely because of the absence of menuchah, precisely because we refuse to regard the comforts of galus as a substitute for Geulah, our yearning for Home has endured, carrying within it the promise of return.

This is the avodah our parshah places before every Yid. A person can be an “Ish Tzaddik” and still seek menuchah. He can serve Hashem sincerely, attain a meaningful madreigah, and feel satisfied with what he has accomplished. Yet the Torah’s description of Noach and Avraham Avinu teaches us that there is a greater dimension to avodas Hashem: the resolve to keep moving forward, to continue growing, to learn one more blatt, to daven with greater kavanah, to refuse to make peace with galus, and to keep longing for Geulah until Hashem brings us Home.

May it be the will of Hashem that our avodah be one in which we continually go from strength to strength and never allow yesterday’s accomplishments to define tomorrow’s possibilities. May we merit to continue advancing in Torah, in kedushah, and in kirvas Elokim, until we have aroused the mercy of Heaven upon all of Klal Yisrael. And like the dove that returned to Noach with the olive leaf in her mouth, may we merit to return Home, see the fulfillment of our hopes and prayers, and welcome the arrival of ben Dovid, speedily in our days, through His abundant mercy and kindness.