The rabbis note that Noah is called a “tzadik tamim” – a purely righteous person – at the beginning of our parashah but is later referred to simply as a “tzadik” — a righteous person. Is there a difference between being “purely righteous” and “righteous”?
“Noah was a purely righteous person in his generation” (Genesis 6:9)
“For you alone have I found righteous before me in this generation” (Gen. 7:1)
The Chassidic master known as The Meor Va-Shamesh responds: The “purely righteous person” fulfills all his daily religious obligations: he studies Torah, he prays regularly, and he lives according to Jewish law. Yet his spiritual life remains narrow. He does not deepen his wisdom, nor does he connect with other people. His service of God is confined to Torah study, prayer, and punctilious observance. In fact, he worries that interacting with those less pious than he might harm him spiritually. Lacking both the inclination and the intellectual tools to draw others closer to God, he remains isolated—pious, learned, but alone.
This was Noah before he began building the ark. He was content to pray, to study, and to keep to himself, letting others go about their lives without his involvement.
For this reason, God chose to destroy the world specifically with water. Building an ark would take Noah many years, and people would inevitably come to ask what he was doing. Their curiosity would force Noah to speak with them, to explain that God intended to bring a flood, and to urge them to repent so that God might reconsider. Through these conversations, Noah gradually shed his preference for solitude and learned to engage with others without fear of being corrupted.
By the time the ark was complete, Noah had changed. He was no longer the withdrawn “tzadik tamim,” but a tzadik in the fuller sense—someone whose righteousness includes connection, influence, and responsibility for others. Therefore, when the Torah later refers to him simply as a “tzadik,” it signals that he has risen from the level of tzadik tamim to the higher level of tzadik.
May we seek not only to be upright in our own conduct but also to be engaged with the world. May we be there to listen to and respond to others, thereby contributing to repairing our world, one human encounter at a time.
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