TALKIN’ ABOUT OUR GENERATIONS…

There is a pair of mishnayot in Avot that look totally out of place in a tractate that is concerned with the criteria that our Sages lay down for good behaviour. They read like this (Avot 5:2-3):

עֲשָׂרָה דוֹרוֹת מֵאָדָם וְעַד נֹֽחַ, לְהוֹדִֽיעַ כַּמָּה אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם לְפָנָיו, שֶׁכָּל הַדּוֹרוֹת הָיוּ מַכְעִיסִין וּבָאִין, עַד שֶׁהֵבִיא עֲלֵיהֶם אֶת מֵי הַמַּבּוּל

עֲשָׂרָה דוֹרוֹת מִנֹּֽחַ וְעַד אַבְרָהָם, לְהוֹדִֽיעַ כַּמָּה אֶֽרֶךְ אַפַּֽיִם לְפָנָיו, שֶׁכָּל הַדּוֹרוֹת הָיוּ מַכְעִיסִין וּבָאִין, עַד שֶׁבָּא אַבְרָהָם אָבִֽינוּ וְקִבֵּל שְׂכַר כֻּלָּם

There were ten generations from Adam to Noah. This is to teach us the extent of God's tolerance; for all these generations angered Him, until He brought upon them the waters of the Flood.

There were ten generations from Noah to Abraham. This is to teach us the extent of God's tolerance; for all these generations angered Him, until Abraham came and reaped the reward for them all.

Since the Mishnah is not a work of history, it is implicit that there is more to these teachings than the transgenerational narrative suggests.  Much attention is paid to important philosophical issues such as the withholding of punishment from generations that were deserving it or the fairness of giving Abraham the reward for meritorious acts of others, as well as theological issues relating to the imputation of human qualities such as forbearance and anger to an inscrutable Deity whose characteristics are beyond human comprehension. But there is one topic that is generally ignored: the counting of generations.

The problem these mishnayot raise is this. Counting Adam as 1 and Abraham as 20, as the genealogical chronology of the Torah suggests, there are only 19 generations (you can try this yourself with a box of matches: if you lay out 20 in a row, the number of gaps, representing the generations, will only total 19).

Paul Forchheimer (Maimonides’ Commentary on Pirkey Avoth) asserts that Noah belongs only to the first mishnah. He brings no support for this assertion, but Tosafot Yom Tov, the Maharal in his Derech Chaim and the Anaf Yosef see provide it for him. The Torah itself challenges this view, though since, though the first mishnah ends with God bringing his punishing Flood, we discover at Bereshit 9:28 that Noah lived for another 350 presumably quite unrewarding years—thus taking him well beyond that cataclysmic event and placing him firmly in the second mishnah.  Another reason for including him in the second grouping is that, at the end of this period, God is not in punishment mode but is distributing rewards. Noah, whom the Torah describes as a tzaddik and who is the instrument through which God saves humanity, would appear to belong more to the generations that earned rewards—even if they were withheld—than the generations that deserved to be wiped out.

Ultimately the question that should concern us is not which mishnah or mishnayot contains Noah but, rather, what the anonymous author of these teachings is trying to teach us. This should not be hard to establish. The main actor in each mishnah is God. It is an oft-repeated axiom that we are supposed to emulate His ways. Just as He is merciful, so too should we be merciful, and so on (Shabbat 133b). Transposing this axiom to our pair of mishnayot, the lesson is clear: just as He is patient and tolerant, we too should be patient and tolerant; and just as He is not hasty to hand out rewards to those who are not fit to receive them, so too should we exercise the same caution.

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