Only Offspring: The Danger of Feeling Righteous

4a“These are the offspring of Noach …” This can be understood through the verse “As for me, in righteousness I shall behold Your face; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Your image.”¹ When a person thinks of himself that he is a tzaddik, he falls from his level. Even if he really was a tzaddik, this very thought makes him fall from his level. But when a person, even though he is a tzaddik, thinks that he has not yet done his full duty, and in his own eyes and heart he is like something imagined, a mere image, that has not yet come to the root and essence of avodah, the service of Hashem, then he is satisfied and flourishing in his level. He will stand strong and firm, and keep on rising.

4bThat is what Dovid HaMelech meant by “As for me, in righteousness.” When I see myself in righteousness, blameless and upright, then “I shall behold Your face,” and the verb Dovid uses, echezeh, is a word of Targum. The holy Zohar writes on the words “in a vision (bamachazeh), saying” that machazeh is a word of Targum, the Aramaic translation: because Avram was not yet circumcised and not yet whole in his level, Hashem revealed Himself to him in the language of Targum.² Targum, then, is the language spoken to one who is not yet whole. So here too echezeh means: I fall from the level I had at first, when the spirit of God spoke in me in the language of affection.³ But “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Your image”: when I think that I am only in “Your image,” only a semblance of the service, then “I shall be satisfied, when I awake,” for You will support me with Your righteous right hand and satisfy me with Your great goodness, with great levels, higher and higher, without end.

5Our verse hints at this for us too. If you think of yourself that you are righteous, you have still accomplished nothing. Since this thought has come to you, you have not yet entered the essential avodah; you are only like a toldah, an offspring, standing in place of the av, the father, but [not] at the root that is needed, which the father signifies. That is “These are the offspring of Noach”: he is only an offspring, if he thinks of himself, “Noach was a righteous man, whole.” This is easy to understand.