Rashi explains on the posuk, “ויחל נח איש האדמה ויטע כרם,” that the language of “ויחל” comes from the root חול, secular and void of holiness rather than the simple understanding of “ויחל” meaning he “began”.ֲ  By virtue of the fact that Noach planted a vineyard, he became void of holiness.ֲ  Rashi says this void was caused because Noach should have planted something else first. Why does Rashi stress that? If Noach would have planted the vineyard second, would there have been a difference?ֲ  The Torah goes out of its way to tell us that Noach is a tzaddik, a righteous person, at the beginning of this week's Torah portion.ֲ  How does one individual go from one extreme to the other in such a small span of time?

Rav Wolbe zt”l writes that it is impossible for us to have a clear biographical sketch of who Noach was and what he intended to do when he planted the vineyard.ֲ  An individual who is called a tzaddik by Hashem however, must be someone who certainly had only the greatest intentionsֲ  in mind.ֲ  Rav Wolbe explains thatֲ  Noach certainly had intended to use the wine for libations on the mizbeach, however, Noach didn’t have in mind the other usage of wine, drinking. Because such a usage existed, Noach should have understood that something else like wheat should have taken precedence.ֲ  In other words, Noach erred by reversing the order of what should have been planted and it was that simple mistake that caused all of the problems. Even a prophet making such a simple mistake can spiral from kodesh to chol.ֲ 

Noach was 600 years old at this point.ֲ  A life of a prophet and full of mesirut nefesh for Hashem but as soon as he made that simple error, everything changed. Rav Wolbe explains that after every great spiritual high that a person may experience in life one has the danger of losing it all pending on what his actions are immediately following. This explains why there is a custom following Yom Kippur to immediately build the sukkah and engage in a mitzvah in order to maintain and protect the high that they have just attained.ֲ  In fact it is true following any mitzvah that we participate in and accomplish.ֲ  We have grown and moved forward in our spiritual quest, we need to be careful not to flip it all on its head.ֲ 

Am Yisrael has experienced a tremendous surge of achdus over the last week and a half during this war.ֲ  May we all be zoche to continue finding ourselves climbing the rungs of the spiritual ladder to enable Melech HaMashiach to come speedily in our days.

Do you have a comment or question on the shiur?
Comment below and we'll join the discussion