Happy is everyone who fears the LORD
128:1 Happy is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways.
128:2 You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.
Every single moment is a fate-turning one. Every single hour leads someone to a crossroads. Every single person is the center of the universe, and every single soul is a universe in its own right. Every single year is a history-determining milestone.
Nonetheless, human history after the Great Deluge, which can be called ironically the Great Milestone regarding civilizational reboot, just started with drunkenness, according to the Bible.
Contrary to Adam's ale, which is a pure glass of water, Noah's wine is an alcoholic beverage. The old tale says that Adam was the first tiller of the soil, and Noah was the first vine planter. After the Flood, Noah began growing crops, and he planted a vineyard as well, saying that its fruit, fresh or dried, is sweet like honey, and also that one will be able to make wine, for the drink gladdens the heart.
According to the wisdom-recording tradition, the ancient sages taught that before the grape harvest, Satan himself went to the vineyard and brought an ewe lamb, which he slaughtered there. After that, he brought a lion, then a monkey, then a pig, and slaughtered them as well. With all the blood of the slain animals, Satan watered the vineyard.
This ancient parable at the dawn of human history tried to warn humanity of the dangers of heavy drinking. When a man drinks a glass of wine, he becomes a lamb, humble and meek. When he drinks the second glass, he feels like a lion, bragging and boasting with strength and imagined power. When he drinks the third glass, he starts to act like a monkey, disgusting and obscene, losing decency. Finally, drinking even more, men become pigs, leaving behind all dignity, wallowing in physical and moral mire. The sages said that unfortunately all of these befell Noah.
According to the Book of Genesis, when “Noah drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.”
From the biblical context and the corollaries of the events, it is clear that Noah became so drunk that he lost consciousness, and his drunkenness was a shameful act in the eyes of his sons.
Why did Noah choose to make wine, and why did he want to make merry his heart?
Why did he get blackout drunk, and why did he become an abomination in the eyes of his sons, even if for one day only?
We shall not forget what they went through. The book of Genesis says that the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the Earth, and it grieved him in his heart. The Lord God was grieving not only because he was sorry that men became so wicked that they turned out to be cannibals and even worse, but the Lord God was grieving also because he foresaw the punishment as well—that he would blot out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle.
God grieved the fate of the humans. As it is written in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 18:
“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
Even giving a chance to humans to repent and live, the Lord says in the same chapter that:
“…if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live.”
The generation of the Flood did not repent, and they were wiped out. Noah was righteous and he lived, and with him all his family and the continuation of humanity survived. God still grieved for the people, and so did Noah.
Thus, even after the Flood had stopped and humanity had its life rebooted, Noah was still grieving for a long time, or maybe for all his time left. We cannot imagine the scale of the extermination event that had just happened to Earth at the time of the Great Deluge. Noah must have suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which involves depression, disorientation, confusion, a death wish, and so on.
So he planted a vineyard, saying that the wine would gladden men’s hearts. When drinking was not enough to forget the destruction of the Earth and the cities and the towns, he drank more until getting blacked out and knocked out.
No wonder he grieved excessively, when even God grieved excessively.
Maybe Noah, in his grief, turned into a person like Israel occasionally behaved later, as Ezekiel wrote about it: “…if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die. Yet you say, `The way of the Lord is not just.' Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?”
In Noah’s mind, justice—even divine justice—might not have been completely enough anymore to justify the mass extinction, so he turned to drinking instead of turning to God.
We ourselves often blame God, accusing Him of injustice, though we can see in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah that God is not only just and lawful, but merciful and lenient as well.
Abraham himself had begun to have an argument with God before the judgment day on the two cities, saying: “Will you, O Lord, sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
The bargaining went down to begging for the sake of ten people.
The Lord answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”
We know from the Bible that not even ten righteous people were found in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the two cities were destroyed by a rainstorm of fire from the skies.
Thus, we have to do the math in any single town: how important it is in a community to have at least ten praying people, to have at least ten upright people, to have at least ten pure-hearted, tender-hearted people, and to have a community where the elderly are respected and cared for, where the children are loved and provided for, and where brothers and sisters do not compete, but cooperate for the common good of all.
We must never turn to alcohol to find joy or to forget trauma, because real joy is the divine purpose of life, which includes family and friends, community, and care in generational waves.
All of them, each and every one of them, is a gift from the Creator.
As it is written:
"128:1 Happy is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways.
128:2 You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you."
May we spend our lives in real joy, may the Sun shine on our faces as a smile, may the rain happily grow our crops, and may our grandchildren bless our names when we leave for Heaven.
May the Kingdom of God be blessed.
AMEN
