Noach was a righteous, pure person who found favour in the eyes of G-d and saved the world from destruction. While some like to downplay the righteousness of Noach, the Torah clearly thinks he was an amazing person. We all owe Noach a huge debt of gratitude. We are all alive only because of his righteousness; all of humanity is referred Bnei Noach – the children of Noach. One small subset of his descendants, (some of) the descendants of Araham were chosen for a special covenantal relationship with G-d[1].
As great as Noach and Avraham were – and they were great – they, like all of us, owe a debt of gratitude to those who helped them attain their greatness, namely their fathers[2]. We know little of Noach’s father – many may not even be able to name him – and we would have little reason to think he raised Noach to be the righteous person he was. Presumably, he was just as wicked as the people of his time and like them perished in the flood.
We tend to view Terech as a idolater, not just any idolater, but as a purveyor of idolatry, spreading idolatry far and wide through His idolatry shop. Avraham was great, despite his father whose way of life he totally rejected. And in order that he not be influenced by the idolatrous ways of his family G-d told him to leave home and only upon going to “the land that I will show you” would he become the father of a great nation.
As common as these perceptions may be, a close reading of the Chumash presents a rather different picture. The Torah tells us not only that Lemech named his son Noach, but why he did so. Realizing that his son was the first person (as recorded in the Torah) to be born after the death of Adam and presuming that G-d’s punishment of Adam was specifically for Adam the person and not Adam the progenitor of mankind he named his son Noach in the hope that he would “bring comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which the Lord placed under a curse” (Breisheet 5:29). Lemech had internalized the message of the sin of Adam and Eve and raised his son to be better. He hoped Noach would lead a moral revolution in which one partners with G-d and would dare not defy Him.
Hinting at Lemech's righteousness the Torah tells us that Lemech lived to 777, the youngest to die since Chanoch “who walked with G-d”. All too often it is the righteous who die young. Moreover 777 is not some random number. It is a triple seven, seven representing G-d as Creator and G-d as the G-d of history. Noach seems to have received a strong grounding in ethical monotheism from his father[3].
Similarly, Avraham, or shall we say Abram, did not become Avraham in a vacuum. The Torah tells us very little about Terech but what it does say is most illuminating. Like Lemech, Terach also had three children, another way of linking Noach and Avraham. Terach, we are told, was 70 years old when Avraham was born. That number is also not coincidental. The Jewish nation is a result of the 70 people who went down to Egypt. There are 70 members in the Sanhedrin, Supreme Court leading the nation and the nation suffered 70 years of exile so that they may come back stronger. 70 is of course is 10 - the number of statements by which G-d created the world – times seven.
The birth of Avraham is introduced with the phrase Eleh Toldot Terech indicating that Avraham is a continuation of the legacy of Terach. And that continuation is nowhere better seen than by the fact that “Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and they set out together from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan” (Breisheet 11:21). The Torah suggests rather clearly that Avraham is completing the journey started by his father, the first Zionist.
It may be true that Terach worshiped other gods (See Yehoshau 24:2) but at least he was worshipped other gods, and not money or honour. His actions may have been incorrect but his intentions were most noble. And he was blessed to have a son whose intentions and actions were pure.
While Terach journeyed toward Israel on his own, Abram did so only after received a command from G-d. With an aging father in Charan Avraham was not about to leave him. G-d, had other plans. And demonstrating his obedience to G-d Avraham listened, leaving his father behind, never to see him again. Yes later Avraham was faced with a more difficult command – to “leave” behind his son. But unlike the idolaters of the day who demonstrated their love of God by sacrificing their most precious gift, their children, the path G-d choose for Avraham charted a new path to divine service.
[1] It is the comparison of Noach and Avraham, the fathers of humanity and the Jewish people, that leads many to downplay Noach. If he was so great why did G-d not choose him to found the Jewish people? Whether that is a fair critique is open to debate and seems to be the basis of the differing interpretations Rashi quotes of the meaning of “in his generations” used to describe the righteousness of Noach. Of course, Noach was not perfect but neither was Avraham nor Moshe nor any other human.
[2] While undoubtedly their mothers played a great role in their development the Torah leaves them to be anonymous and introduces us to their fathers only.
[3] I find this 777 fascinating for an additional reason. When Cain pleaded for mercy from G-d, he was told that any punishment would be delayed for seven generations. When Cain’s descendant, named Lamech (with which with no vowels in the Biblical text is the exact same spelling as Lemech) killed he told his wife’s if Cain is spared for 7 generations I shall be spared for 77. Noach’s father Lemech, was very different, a corrective if you will to the ways of Cain and his own namesake and hence lived to be 7 and 77 or 777.