Adam's Sin and Noah's Sin

 Many writers have noted the comparison between the situations of Adam after creation and Noach after the flood.  Both are brought into an empty world and charged with the mission of populating and cultivating it.  After the flood, God proclaims His commitment to maintaining the natural cycles of day, night and the seasons (8:22), reaffirming and reestablishing the processes of creation, as though putting the natural order back into motion.  Noach, like Adam, enters a newly-created earth – or, in his case, a newly-recreated earth – bearing the responsibility of continuing its development.

            The parallel perhaps continues with the mistakes made by Adam and Noach shortly after their “creation.” Adam, of course, partakes of the forbidden fruit, and Noach becomes intoxicated.  As a result of Adam’s sin, a curse is pronounced upon the ground, and Noach’s intoxication results in a curse upon his son, Cham.

            The parallel between Adam’s sin and Noach’s intoxication underscores the obvious distinction between the two incidents.  Adam violated an explicit prohibition; he partook from the tree that was clearly designated as forbidden and off-limits.  Noach’s mistake, however, did not involve a specific violation.  As Rashi (9:20) cites from the Midrash, “He profaned himself – he should have begun involving himself in a different planting.”  Noach violated not a particular prohibition, but the general value of dignified behavior.  He did not commit an offense, but rather failed in his mission of setting an example of productive, dignified activity for his children and future descendants.  Unlike Adam, he did not eat forbidden food, but acted in an unseemly manner.

            If the narratives of Adam and Noach are indeed intended as parallel accounts, such that Adam’s sin corresponds to Noach’s intoxication, then a meaningful lesson perhaps emerges.  Namely, undignified behavior, even if it involves no specifically prohibited activity, must be viewed with the same gravity as sinful acts.  If Noach’s inappropriate indulgence parallels Adam’s partaking of the forbidden tree, then we, too, must equate unseemly behavior with specific violations.  As the Ramban discusses in one of the most famous passages in his Torah commentary (beginning of Parashat Kedoshim), it is possible to live a lifestyle that is contrary to the Torah’s values without transgressing any particular laws.  The wine which Noach drank had not been designated as forbidden, but his excessive drinking rendered him – in Rashi’s words – chulin, “profane,” as he failed to live a life of dignity and holiness.  Like Adam, he sinned – only not by performing a particular, forbidden act, but by engaging in activity that is wholly inappropriate for a devoted servant of God.