In the Torah portion for this week, Parashat Noach, we learn that the earth became corrupt and was filled with lawlessness. God is ready to destroy everything and everyone, saving only Noah, his family and two of every creature because God found Noah alone to be a tzaddik, a righteous person, in his generation.

The rabbis debated what “righteous in his generation” means. One argued that Noah was righteous for his time, but had he lived during the period of Abraham or Moses, he wouldn’t have been called “righteous.” It was only by the standards of a corrupt, depraved and violent age that he stood out. Another sage, however, said that if Noah could be better than all others in a period of moral decline, how much more righteous would he have been in other generations. Noah was the first man in the Torah to defy public opinion and expose himself to abuse and ridicule.

Why was Noah chosen to be saved? It seems he was an average man except for the defining fact that he maintained his moral standards while all others corrupted theirs.

The opening verse of the parashat may be translated as, “This is the line of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his age; Noah walked with God. Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.” Samson Raphael Hirsch comments that Noah is named as the first in his line, rather than his children being named first, because the first result of Noah’s work was his own character. Rashi says that the real progeny of righteous people are their good deeds.

When I saw in this Torah portion the word, “righteous,” defined as “one whose conduct God finds to be irreproachable,” my mind immediately went to thoughts of Righteous Gentiles, those rescuers who saved Jews during the Holocaust. They certainly were better than others in a period of moral decline.

Since 1963 Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, has honored thousands of these Hasidei Umot Ha-Olam, literally “the Righteous Ones of the Nations of the World,” commonly called “Righteous Gentiles.” To be selected three criteria have to be met: the rescuer had to be motivated only by humanitarian considerations in helping to save a life, risked his or her own life, and received no compensation of any kind for his or her act. The medal awarded bears the Talmudic saying, “He who saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire world.”

While the number of rescuers is statistically small, compared with the large number of perpetrators and bystanders, their good deeds distinguish them. What characterized these righteous people saving Jews? Dr. Perry London, a psychologist, who interviewed more than 200 rescuers, cited three characteristics he found in them. First, most had a strong identification with a parental model of moral conduct, which helped them act compassionately, and made it more likely that they transmitted such values to their own children. The second characteristic of rescuers is that they were almost invariably active individuals whose style was to do rather than to talk. Third, the rescuers could handle the isolation of being individualists in the midst of communities with values different from theirs. Some felt alienated before the Holocaust, which made them more empathetic to another outside group, such as persecuted Jews, but many had felt a sense of belonging to their communities.

The most common answers that rescuers gave to the many researchers who asked why they helped to save Jews was, “We just did what a human being is supposed to do,” or “We did what a good Christian would do or “We did what we had to do; anyone would have done the same.” They stressed that they were ordinary people, but we now know that they accomplished extraordinary deeds. They believed that an individual can make a difference. This week we remember Rosa Parks, an ordinary woman, who made a tremendous difference in our country.

A few of the rescuers are now well-known, such as Raoul Wallenberg, Oskar Schindler and Chiune Sugihara, but most are not. We wonder whether we could have behaved in such a courageous manner. Some of those interviewed said they never would have thought they could do what they did.

Nehama Tec, author of When Light Pierced the Darkness, wrote that the rescuers had a long history of doing good deeds and therefore these deeds didn’t seem extraordinary to them. They were connected with others in committed, caring relationships. They identified with victims of injustice, and they saw beyond race and ethnicity, which better equipped them to act in an emergency.

Rabbi Malka Drucker and Gay Block, who is Rabbi Block’s mother, produced the book, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. Gay’s photographs and Malka’s interviews show the incredible diversity of this group. Malka says, “The rescuers are being more than humble. They are telling me something about myself. If I view them as extraordinary, then I imply that compassion, empathy and responsibility for one another are exceptional, and that indifference is normal. If I say the rescuer is extraordinary, like Mother Teresa, I let myself off the hook. Who can be a saint? By making the rescuer larger than life as a hero, and by making the Nazi a demon, I exempt myself. I would never be a Nazi, but neither would I ever be a rescuer.”

Many of the rescuers had relationships with Jews before the war, and some suspected they had Jewish ancestry. But some had never before seen the person or the family to whom they gave shelter. What motivated numbers of rescuers was hatred of occupation by the Third Reich, a refusal to be bullied, an unwillingness to let evil triumph and contempt for prejudice.

Eva Fogelman, author of Conscience and Courage, writes, “The decision to risk one’s life happens quickly, coming from an inner core that automatically calculates the chances of success. Once rescue begins, a new ‘rescuer self’ develops to take necessary actions and maintain secrets and a façade of normalcy.”

A rabbinic commentary on the words, “line of Noah” says, “Righteous persons are not only just on their own account, but justice is that part of their parents that is reborn inside of them.”

A tzaddik, a righteous person, has had a role model who taught justice and morality. A tzaddik doesn’t merely think about and admire righteousness but lives a just life. A tzaddik, like Noah, has the courage to distance from the rest of the community when the community puts justice and compassion aside.

I want to close with this quote from Albert Einstein:

"Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know. That we are here for the sake of others…Above all, for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by the bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own inner and outer life is built upon the labors of my fellow human beings, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”

Amen.

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