With the recent observance of Shavuot (a two day festival in the diaspora that recalls and celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses and the Jews at Mt Sinai in 1313 BCE, 2448 years since creation on the 6 Sivan) the Festival of the time of the giving of our Torah, parsha Noach has lingered.
Normally, a pilgrimage festival to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem; however, sadly, due to our sins, the Temple has been destroyed and now we compensate by using our lips in praise and song. So on this festival of the giving our Torah, we increase Torah study, read Megillah Ruth and have many dairy dishes.
Re-reading parsha Noach, for which several life and societal lessons can be gleaned, two highlights have been appearing to me in reflection. Firstly, the uncovering of Noah’s nakedness by Ham (whose lineage is not only to be the Canaanites but also the Egyptians to make a few), while his other two son’s, Seth and Japheth took the added measures of walking backward and raising a cloth thus to conceal their father’s nakedness.
Rabbis, great sages, scholars, learned laymen and novice have heard and explored its meaning for millennia. On the surface, it sheds a light on shame and it’s proliferation; how it can be handled by the individual (and when the individual is unable) and those around them! it teaches …
The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed memory, relays ”When you are confronted with a fellow’s deficiency, there are two distinct elements in your awareness: (a) the fact of that person’s wrongdoing; (b) his guilt, culpability and decadence. The former does not necessarily imply the latter. You may be aware of the fact that a fellow has done wrong, yet such knowledge can be accompanied with understanding, compassion and vindication.
In order to correct your fellow’s wrongdoing, it is enough to know that the action is wrong. To also sense his guilt and lowliness is completely unnecessary; on the contrary, it only hinders your ability to reach out to him in a loving and tolerant manner. The only possible purpose that it can serve is to impress upon you how despicable that thing—or something similar to it, if only in a most subtle way—is in yourself, and thereby compel you to correct it.
This is what the Torah is telling us when it says, “And they did not see their father’s shame.” Not only did Shem and Japheth not physically see their father’s shameful state—this we already know from the (twice-repeated) fact that “their faces were backward”; they also did not perceive his guilt or disgrace.
Unlike Ham, whose own debasement was reflected in his vision of his father, their entire reaction to their knowledge of what had transpired lay in what they must now do to correct it. The shame of their father, however, they simply did not see.
(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

(photo credit: Matsada, Eretz Israel, 2016; Curtis, C.)
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