This week’s Torah portion is Noach: Genesis 6:9 – 11:32
This week’s portion is Parshat Noach. Parshat Noach is about God telling Noach that He is going to destroy the world by flooding it, and Noach and his family need to build an ark and put one pair of every animal on it. Noach obeys, and sure enough, it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. During this time, Noach might have felt afraid and overwhelmed, but he also would have been happy to have been chosen by God to stay alive and take care of all the animals. The Torah says in Genesis 6:9 that “Noach was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age.”
I interpret this as the Torah saying that he was a good person — he was kind to other people and to the world around him. It also may be telling us that Noach was religious — we know he obeyed God because God saved him when he listened to God about building an ark. But the text specifically says that Noach was blameless in his age. “In his age” is an odd phrase to use. The ancient Jewish scholar Reish Lakish taught that Noach was a very good person, despite everyone else around him doing terrible things. The Etz Hayim chumash explains that Reish Lakish is saying that people have the power to stand up to society. Today, we call that being an upstander.
Everyone is able to be an upstander, but some people choose not to, and instead they follow others and act as a bystander — someone who doesn’t engage or involve themselves in the situation. A bystander might not be a bad person, but it is often someone who doesn’t care enough to do something. But when people are bystanders, they allow other people to keep doing wrong. More people should be upstanders — upstanders care about everyone, and they help society by pushing back against the bad behavior of others.
I try to stand up when someone is being antisemitic or bullying others. On social media, I’ve seen people be very antisemitic and say untrue things about Israel and the Jewish people, and I respond and tell people not to hate on Judaism. I find it hard to speak up because I don’t want to engage and possibly lead to people being mean to me, but I also don’t want to just let it go. I don’t think that there should be any hate for different religions; everyone is different, and everyone has what they believe in. If you don’t agree with what someone is saying, you can tell them that, but you should not insult or stereotype a whole group of people. Being an upstander is a good deed. If you really don’t agree with something and it makes you upset, you should speak up — after all, you only live once!
Alexa Schermer is a seventh-grade student at Krieger Schechter Day School.
