Noah, The Natural

I have written about The Natural, both the original novel by Bernard Malamud and the film by Robert Redford. I have suggested that we were dealing with people who had gotten off track, only to get on track later in life to do the important work fate has in store for them. It could also be interpreted other ways, one of which might be that they were prevented from coming on the world scene too early, lest their particular genius be destroyed by the avarice and anger of the world, preventing them from accomplishing those important works that destiny had marked them out to accomplish. It is a most unusual story. What do we do with unusual stories, stories that resist being obvious and mundane? Midrash! So - midrash it! Consider Noah. He walked in the ways of the Lord. Noah was tamim, which means he was perfect. If he was so perfect in the ways of mankind, his neighbors would not have scoffed when he began to lay the keel of his ark. If Warren Buffett were to build an ark, we would all want to be a part of the enterprise. Not so with Noah. The pundits scoffed. So he was not perfect in the law, nor in economics, nor in politics, nor in the military...he was a man of perfect simplicity. Thus could he walk in the ways of the Lord. When the Lord told him to build an ark, he did it, disregarding all the jeers and insults. He already had three sons. These sons already had families. So it was late in Noah's life that the keel of the ark was laid. Up until then, there was nothing about Noah to mark him as a celebrity in the eyes of the world. He created the Heroic Age of 40 days and 40 nights of rain, and the aftermath of searching for dry land. He maintained the integrity of the ark, he maintained social order among the people, he maintained the order among the animals; he fed them, cleaned up after them, and preserved life for the future. No small accomplishment. Afterwards, he had a new covenant with God, and then gets drunk and is brought back down from his world-historical-heroic pedestal. He was not the leader of all mankind for a long time, like Nimrod, the king, who established a kingdom in Shinar. Noah's heroic interlude is brief, but intense. And the changes he made last until this day. Do the work of God which we find easy; then step up to do the work that frightens us, yet He demands; then retire to your well earned rest, doing the simple works again. What are those important works that frighten us? What are we being asked to stand up to do? What is the hardest thing for us to do?