Noach

1. The flood

One thing that I was thinking about for awhile is what must have been going on in everyone's heads throughout the entire ordeal of the flood. By everyone I mean Noach, his family, and everyone being punished. Overall, it seems like it would be very scary and traumatizing for everyone.
First I'll consider Noach. He had a week to build the ark, so he was probably pretty busy. Often, being busy can be pretty powerful in terms of taking your mind off other things. If I were Noach, I would probably be so focused on the fact that I had to make such an intense ark and get together all the animals that I wouldn't have much time to think of what was really going on. Everyone he knew, except for his wives, sons, and daughter-in-laws, was going to die what were likely slow and painful deaths. Sure, everyone was corrupt-- but they were still Noach's neighbors and cousins.
The word "tzadik" is used to describe Noach, but not his sons, even though they were allowed to come on the ark. Were they nearly as corrupt as everyone else, but perhaps not on such an extreme level and luckier because of their lineage? After all, some people needed to stick around to repopulate the world. I think they may have been more ilkely than their father to associate with these corrupt people. Some of them would have been their wives' immediate families. And, since they themselves weren't "tzadikim", the sons probably hung out with some of the less desirables, even if they weren't AS bad. But let's be real. We know they aren't perfect. Just note the later occurrence of Cham's reaction to finding Noach passed out drunk.
That said, now I'm thinking about what happened once they were on the ark. Until the flood started, everyone probably laughed at them. Civilization continued normally. Was Noach's family witness to the destruction? Did they see their neighbors and cousins and business partners get swept up by the torrential rains? Did they hear them screaming for help and watch them drown? Even if they didn't, they must have known it was happening. That's just scary.



2. Aftermath

Finally, in perek tet, they are out of the ark and back on land ready to live life. But before they start the rebuilding process, Hashem has a few thing he wants to outline. Animals are there for man to kill and eat. But, if a man kills another man, he himself should be killed because man was created in the image of G-d. I'm a little bit torn about this. On one hand, it almost seems like a classic example of "two wrongs make a right". If, because man was created in the image of G-d, taking the life of a man is such a big deal, how could the response be taking the life of another man, who was also created in the image of G-d? On the other hand, I understand the need to have major consequences for majorly wrong actions, especially at a time like this. Everything was just destroyed because the world was in such a corrupt state. Maybe the reason for this terrible state of the world and its inhabitants was a lack of consequences for actions.
Hashem makes a pretty strong covenant with us, saying that He will never again destroy the entire world with a flood. How does He know that this won't be necessary? Perhaps the step of beginning to incorporate clear-cut consequences into humanity is a way to avoid the world evolving into such a deplorable state again. When consequences are laid out from the get go, things won't get as out of hand.



3. Noach gets crunk

At the end of perek tet we have the incident with Noach and his sons. Noach got mad drunk one night. After finding him, Cham definitely messed up by telling his brothers. But still, did he really deserved to be cursed for that? Especially by his own father?! This irks me. Lots of kids mess up. A lot. Even on purpose. Some teenagers go crazy and try to sabotage everything. But do really good parents curse them? Or do they try to figure out what character flaw is at the root at the problem and then try to help their kids? I'm not saying that Noach was a bad parent. Clearly he had been through a lot in his lifetime. But I am still bothered by the fact that he cursed his own son, Cham. Maybe this kind of highlights the idea of Noach as a tzadik only relative to his own generation. Would a tzadik of all tzadiks curse his own son for embarrassing him, even if it was done maliciously? Noach's curse seems like more of a spontaneous emotional reaction than a thought out consequence. It's a tough call. After all, I've never met Cham. Maybe he was a real jerk and deserved it.