Always Disqualifying Yesterday's Service

1The Midrash Rabbah on this parshah says (Bereishis Rabbah 30:3): “‘These [eleh] are the generations of Noach’ [Bereishis 6:9]. The word eleh disqualifies what came before. Here, too, it disqualifies what came before: the Generation of the Flood.”

2This Midrash can be explained with what I heard from my holy teacher, the Rebbe of Radzimin. On “These are the journeys of the Children of Israel” [Bamidbar 33:1], he said that eleh disqualifies what came before. The “journeys” of the Children of Israel are their way of life. A Jew must conduct himself so that he constantly understands more of the Creator's greatness. As a result, he will see that yesterday he did not grasp so much, and that his avodah was not complete before the Creator, because he did not yet know how to serve Him. So he will always disqualify his earlier service. Those were his holy words.

3So too here. As we have said, Noach knew in his soul that he, too, was not worthy, as Chazal say (Sanhedrin 108a; Bereishis Rabbah 29). He was saved only because he “found chein” [Bereishis 6:8] from the treasury of undeserved gifts. So he always disqualified his earlier deeds, and saw them in his own mind as no better than the deeds of the Generation of the Flood. The Midrash I cited earlier says this explicitly: “I too acted as they did, but I trusted in Your kindness, which You granted me, and You said, ‘Come into the Ark’” [Bereishis 7:1]. That was his conduct and his way of life. And that is “the generations of Noach,” for the main offspring of tzaddikim are their good deeds (Midrash Tanchuma, Noach). This is a fine trait among the virtues of tzaddikim and chassidim, as the Chovos HaLevavos explains, and as we see in the well-known story of R' Saadiah Gaon. This is also the meaning of “You shall place these [eleh] words of Mine upon your heart and upon your soul” [Devarim 11:18]. A person should always remember the lesson of the word eleh. He should think: only now am I beginning to accomplish something, and to understand a tiny bit of Hashem's greatness that I did not know until now. And he should always disqualify his earlier deeds.