Parshas Noach: Surviving in an Ark versus Leading the Ship: The Importance of Reaching Out - Part A

Why add the words generations? Obviously, if someone wants to say a, an absolute statement such as Eddie is a very smart person, that's a compliment.

On the other hand, if I say Eddie is the smartest person in this room, by my addition of saying in this room, we're not sure what that means.

We're placing it in a relative perspective.

It's a qualifier.

It's a modifier.

So the question is what kind of...

Well, that's the question.

What does it mean? Am I talking about, uh, what's the name of that genius, uh, group over there?

Mensa.

Mensa.

So if I say you're the smartest person in Mensa, it's a compliment.

If I say you're the smartest person in the special ed class, then it's not exactly...

I don't know, what is this class? Is this special ed or is this Mensa? [laughing]

[laughing]

So therefore, this became an unresolved question that Chazal themselves had.

Chazal used an interesting, um, analogy.

In fact, we make two mashal out of it.

One mashal that the Gemara as well as the Midrash uses is that Noach was like perfume.

You take perfume and it smells nice.

If you put it in a very smelly location and it still fixes up the whole place and it smells nice, you could see how powerful and how great and wonderful that perfume is.

So in a sense, it's a compliment then if one views Noach that way.

He's perfume in a generation like that.

[speaking Hebrew] He was a great smelling, a wonderful smelling perfume, even in that degenerate, decadent generation.

It's a wonderful compliment for Noach.

He's able to be a tzadik tamim even in that kind of generation.