The Pasuk in Parashat Noach says
וַיָּבֹא נֹחַ וּבָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וּנְשֵׁי בָנָיו אִתּוֹ אֶל הַתֵּבָה
Noach, his children, his wife and his sons’ wives came into the Teva/Ark
מִפְּנֵי מֵי הַמַּבּוּל :-because of the waters of the Mabul/flood
Rashi asks:
Why did they only enter due to the waters of the mabul? Why did they wait until the onset of the flood? Didn’t Hashem tell him to go in prior to that?
Rashi gives a shocking answer, one that is also explained by the Midrash Raba and the Zohar as well. He says,
אף נח מקטני אמנה היה מאמין ואינו מאמין שיבא המבול ולא נכנס לתיבה עד שדחקוהו המים:
Noach was small in emunah. He believed, but he didn’t really believe, and didn’t enter until he was forced to because of the water.
This is shocking. Firstly, Noach was called an Ish- Sadik. Furthermore, G-d told him to build the teva, and he worked 120 years building it. He prepared all of the food, he gathered all of the animals and was ready to go.
It’s like a pilot boarding all the passengers, loading the baggage, fueling up and then not taking off. He doesn’t believe? Then why go through all of that? It’s a very hard a Rashi to understand.
There are three approaches to explain this.
Firstly, the Sifte Sadik says that Noach was a great man, like Nahum ish Gamzu. Nahum ish Gamzu lived in an old, rickety house that was ready to collapse. Recognizing that it was still standing only due to his merits, he advised his students to empty out the entire house before he left, because he knew it would fall the second he walked out. Similarly, Noach too felt that if he wouldn’t enter the Teva, then maybe the Mabul would not come. He was trying to save the people.
According to this explanation, Noach’s lack of emunah was that at the end of the day, if G-d wanted to punish the people, he should have gone in.
Another approach, from the sefer Bet Yaakov, is that Noach was very humble and could not believe that G-d would destroy the whole world and save only him and his family. He didn’t think he merited such a salvation. This was his lack of emunah.
In contrast, Abraham Avinu was humble as well, but understood:
ויאמן בה׳ ויחשביהו לו צדקה.
that everything was charity from Hashem. He knew that it was all hessed, that G-d was taking caring of him. He knew that even the smallest thing he got was charity. If you have emunah, then you understand that G-d gives us a tremendous amount of hessed on a daily basis. Noach should have understood that there is really no difference, for G-d, between running the world for a billion people and saving Noach by putting him in a Teva. Noach didn’t fully appreciate the hessed Hashem did for him, and this was his lack of emunah, explains the sefer Bet Yaakov.
The third approach is from Rav Haskel Levenstein. Rav Haskel states that this Rashi is extremely difficult to understand, not unlike a difficult Gemarah, but it in lies a very important lesson for us, which is that the levels of emunah are endless. He explains that Rashi didn’t say that Noach didn’t have emunah, it says מקטני אמנה - he was small in emunah Of course he had emunah. It was that just that he wasn’t a Gadol (great) in it. There are levels and levels. Even regarding Avraham Avinu, at a certain point, Hashem said, “Now I know that you’re G-d-fearing.” Now??!
Didn’t Hashem know that beforehand?
This is understood to mean that there are levels and levels.
Working on Emunah is a never-ending job. We can’t think, “I got this.” Emunah is not like a test that you can score 100 on and have mastery. It is constant work and there are endless levels.
Rav Yerucham Levovitz gives a mashal to explain. If someone asked a friend to lend him $200, so he could give Sedaka, the friend would trust him, and lend it. If the same man wanted $1,000, the friend might wonder why, and maybe want his money back a little sooner. If the man wanted $10,000, the friend might not be willing to give it all. He might only give $5,000.
And if he asked for $100,000 it would be a struggle, even for a good friend. If the man asked his friend for $1,000,000, despite their relationship, the friend would have to decline. The man might wonder, “Don’t you love me? Don’t you trust me?”
And the friend would say yes, but there’s a limit.
Rav Levovitz explains that it’s the same with G-d. We might trust Him enough to get up in the mornings to go to shul, but do we trust Him enough to give up a major deal because it seems a little shaky?
How much do we trust G-d? Noach had to give up everything, leave the world behind, and get in the Teva. He should have run right into it, but he was struggling with himself. He didn’t have enough strength in his emunah to just jump on.
This is a lesson for us, says Rabbi Levenstein. We have to keep working on our emunah. It’s a constant job, and constant work.
BeH as we work on it, we will all become Gedolei Emunah.
