Noach, as the late Rodney Dangerfield would have said, is the Biblical character who "gets no respect." Despite being characterized as an "Ish", a "Tzadik" and "Tamim" (perfect), his prominence is continually dissected and debated, and he never quite makes it into the "Legion of Torah Super-Heroes".
Yet Noach, I suggest, is one of the greatest of all Torah personalities. After all, the whole world is destroyed and then rebuilt for his sake. And all of us trace our lineage back to the man.
Noach is great in two ways. He is determined to be decent in an indecent world, and he picks up the pieces and goes on when his whole world has literally come crashing down. Imagine what it must have been like stepping off the Ark and seeing the world in ruins. Enough to drive anyone to drink. Yet, Noach is not fazed; he sobers up, gathers his courage and does not look back.
This past week, the world lost a real hero. Christopher Reeve, best known in his role as Superman, finally succumbed to injuries suffered 10 years ago in a horse-riding accident and died of heart failure.
Growing up, I must admit that I was a great Superman fan. I collected the comics and watched him on TV and in the movies. Reeve seemed to fit the part perfectly, and so his paralyzing injury was all the more shocking. To be able to fly one day and to be wheelchair-bound the next must have been a horribly bitter pill to swallow.
Yet, Reeve never abandoned his optimism and hope for the future. He continued his career, and became an advocate for more research into spinal cord injury. He encouraged other paralysis victims to go on, and thrilled us when he came to Israel last year to visit disabled patients and pay tribute to Israeli advances in the field.
As our family is so close with Sgt. Shai Haim - who remains paralyzed from the waist down, an injury incurred during the gun battle in which our son Ari was killed - we took particular pride in Reeve's visit. If Reeve was Superman before the fall, then he was Super-Superman afterwards.
The conscious decision to go on when life is so bleak, when you have every excuse in the world to just give up and quit, displays a superhuman strength of inner spirit that is infectious and inspiring. Noach had it, Reeve had it, many giborim (heroes) in Israel have it.
They all prove one thing: every man can become a Superman.
Yet Noach, I suggest, is one of the greatest of all Torah personalities. After all, the whole world is destroyed and then rebuilt for his sake. And all of us trace our lineage back to the man.
Noach is great in two ways. He is determined to be decent in an indecent world, and he picks up the pieces and goes on when his whole world has literally come crashing down. Imagine what it must have been like stepping off the Ark and seeing the world in ruins. Enough to drive anyone to drink. Yet, Noach is not fazed; he sobers up, gathers his courage and does not look back.
This past week, the world lost a real hero. Christopher Reeve, best known in his role as Superman, finally succumbed to injuries suffered 10 years ago in a horse-riding accident and died of heart failure.
Growing up, I must admit that I was a great Superman fan. I collected the comics and watched him on TV and in the movies. Reeve seemed to fit the part perfectly, and so his paralyzing injury was all the more shocking. To be able to fly one day and to be wheelchair-bound the next must have been a horribly bitter pill to swallow.
Yet, Reeve never abandoned his optimism and hope for the future. He continued his career, and became an advocate for more research into spinal cord injury. He encouraged other paralysis victims to go on, and thrilled us when he came to Israel last year to visit disabled patients and pay tribute to Israeli advances in the field.
As our family is so close with Sgt. Shai Haim - who remains paralyzed from the waist down, an injury incurred during the gun battle in which our son Ari was killed - we took particular pride in Reeve's visit. If Reeve was Superman before the fall, then he was Super-Superman afterwards.
The conscious decision to go on when life is so bleak, when you have every excuse in the world to just give up and quit, displays a superhuman strength of inner spirit that is infectious and inspiring. Noach had it, Reeve had it, many giborim (heroes) in Israel have it.
They all prove one thing: every man can become a Superman.