Maximizing Our Time

Parshat Bereishit (and a little about Noach)

From Adam until Noach, only two individuals do not reach the lofty age of 900 or its vicinity (Mahallel lived to 895). They are Hanokh and Lemekh (Noach’s father) who lived to 365 and 777, respectively. (5:23, 31) In a strange coincidence, the letters in both verses depicting their numbers of years have the same gematria (numerical value): 3022.

Is this really a coincidence?

The midrash goes into much detail about Hanokh’s short(er) life, but there are conflicting reports. Some say he was a great leader, devout, who became very close to God. Based on these accounts, one might be able to call him the first great Teshuvah leader. Other approaches, however, put Hanokh in a negative light — either that he was bad, or, as Rashi puts it, since he was about to become bad, God plucked him at the right moment.

Lemekh, on the other hand, is not viewed in quite the same manner. Rashbam begins his comment on 5:31 asking, “why do we need to count the years of the wicked?” While his answer focuses on the need to understand the passage of years from creation until the building of Solomon’s Temple, he first raises evilness in the context of speaking of Lemekh.

This may not be a proof in either direction of Lemekh’s integrity, but Lemekh stands out in another way as well. In 5:29, when his first son is born, the Torah tells us that Lemekh named his son Noach, on account of the need he felt for a new child to “bring us relief from our work and the anguish of our hands, from the soil that God has cursed.”

The language is similar to that employed by God when punishing Man for eating from the Tree of Knowledge (3:17) “The ground will therefore be cursed because of you. You will derive food from it with anguish all the days of your life.”

What is the connection between Man’s fall from the Garden of Eden and the birth of Noach? Is Hanokh connected to any labyrinth that ties together the souls of ancestors and descendants over a thousand years?

When one looks at the generations from Adam to Noach, we find that only three of the men listed in the Torah died before Noach was born — Adam, his son Shet, and Hanokh. Shet is described in 5:3 as being “just like Adam,” so, for our purposes we will just group them in the same category. After the death of Adam, Noach is the next link in the chain to be born. Perhaps Noach’s father felt there was comfort in the curse against Adam ending with his death, and that his (Lemekh’s) new son would carry evidence of the new freedom in his name.

Let us make no mistake: the Torah makes it easy to remember how long Hanokh and Lemekh lived; the number of days in the solar calendar and a repeated digit number (triple-7) respectively. And it is not just because in their own ways each fell out of the routine and the rote of the long generations, producing children and becoming noticeably different.

Whether Hanokh was good, bad, or about to turn bad, his years remind us of the cycle of the solar calendar. Every day of the year we are all confronted with opportunities to make decisions — some more important and some less. Each of us has the potential to make good choices, bad choices, or to get help before we actually make a bad choice. Perhaps Hanokh’s death at this age is meant to remind us to think of the precious value of each and every day. Relative to the people of the times he lived in, Hanokh lived a short life. But what did he accomplish through utilizing every day to its maximum potential? Think about the Arizal, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov and, more recently, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan — men who all accomplished so much but returned to their Maker much sooner than their followers were ready to part with them.

When we think of Lemekh’s years, we see the number seven, we may even think of Rabbenu B’chayei who suggests Noach’s name should have been Menachem (following the grammer of Lemekh’s logic in naming the boy).This leads us to think about Shabbos, and resting, and comforting.

If Noach’s birth was a comfort for the sins of man, then Lemekh, who noticed this and made a permanent mark on the world by specifically giving his son a name that commemorated man’s journey from sin to eventual comfort, is a person we want to remember as well. Being different, even through naming one’s child, can be a cause célèbre, a reason to be remembered. Did it really matter if he lived 777 or 900-plus years? Not at all. What’s a hundred years when you’re living for 700?

But if your death reminds people that not everything is about sweat and hard labor, that there is a day of Shabbos, that there is a child whose name means “rest” even though it’s supposed to mean “comfort,” you leave behind a legacy of real value, of real importance.

I think Hanokh and Lemekh are singled out and united — by dint of their verses of equal numerical value — because of what their legacy is meant to teach us. Either through the way they lived or the way they died, we learn that we have opportunities every day to make good choices and become better people, as we are reminded that our lives revolve around the Shabbos, a day of recuperation, rest, relaxation, comfort, and drawing closer to God.