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In Parshat Noach, we come across a fascinating incident.  Noach, having just arrived on solid ground after being at sea for almost a year, plants a vineyard.  When the grapes mature, he uses them to make wine, becomes intoxicated in his tent, removes his clothes, and is found in his tent by his son Cham.  Cham tells his brothers Shem and Yefet of their father’s embarrassing state, and Shem and Yefet respond by covering their father in as dignified a way as possible.  When Noach regains his senses, he curses Cham and Cham’s son Canaan for their disrespectful behavior, and he blesses Shem and Yefet for their kind deed.

This episode is extremely confusing, and a number of questions arise from it.  First, Cham is constantly referred to as “the father of Canaan.”  Why is he seen only in terms of his son?  Second, why would Noach, in a world recently devastated by flood and stripped of all vegetation, plant a crop that is not vital to the survival of life?  It would make more sense for him to concentrate his energy on crops that are necessary sustain life, such as grains, or on the digging of wells.  Instead, he plants a fruit that is used for frivolous purposes.  Additionally, why would Shem and Yefet go into their father’s tent and cover him; wouldn’t it have been be easier for them to have just guarded the entrance of the tent so that others could not enter?

The answers to these questions are all connected.  First, examine Canaan, forefather of the nations Bnai Yisrael conquered many generations later.  Here he is seen as the heir to Cham’s tradition: certainly nothing to be proud of.  It is now easier to understand why this nation must be conquered, knowing that their ancestor was capable of embarrassing his father in such a fashion.  (Rashi states that it was Canaan who saw Noach intoxicated and naked, and he told his father about it.)

To understand the next question, one must understand why Noach wished to become intoxicated.  He had undoubtedly heard about Gan Eden: the easy existence, the unchallenging life, the simple state of a world run by Hashem with man as a bystander.  He wished to restore that existence and believed that if he did his part in restoring it, Hashem would handle the rest.  The first aspect would be to remove his clothes and return to the state of Adam and Chava in Gan Eden, where clothes were not necessary.  To do so, he first had to loosen his inhibitions, which is easier to accomplish when intoxicated.  Thus, he was not trying to have a good time, but rather to recreate Gan Eden, first in the privacy of his tent and eventually worldwide.  The final question is now easily answered, as Noach’s purpose is understood.  Shem and Yefet, in covering their father with the very item he wished to shed in the return to Gan Eden, were showing their father that one can never go back: Gan Eden is gone, and we must deal with the world we are given.

Noach was the first idealist, a man who looked at the world not as it was, but as it should have been.  Shem, Yefet, and even Cham (though in a harsher manner that his brothers) were more practical, and they realized that the world can only be altered to a certain extent, certainly not as far as Noach wished.

While this episode in Noach’s life shows us that some things can never go back to the way they were, it does give us hope and a little advice.  Only those willing to look or feel a little strange can possibly hope to change the world; only a man willing to remove his clothes and release his inhibitions could possibly hope to restore Gan Eden.  The world cannot change completely, but we have to improve the world that is presented to us.  An idealist never achieves his goal by creating a new society; rather, he uses the existing system or society and improves upon it from the inside to create a piece of his vision of perfection.  May the idealists among us rise to the challenge and make the world a better place from the inside out.