When Noah was born, the world was already quickly descending into a state of depravity. He was therefore the world’s hope. That is why his father Lamech named him Noah, which is related to the word “comfort,” saying “This one will comfort us from our acts and from the sadness of our hands…”

But, although he was a righteous person Noah ultimately disappointed the world. He was unable to prevent the destruction of the world, and after the flood, he became drunk and embarrassed himself. What happened? The Holy Book never tells us stories for entertainment’s sake or simply to teach us history. While we cannot fully understand someone God calls “pure” and a “righteous” who “found favor in God’s eyes” why did Noah descend to that level?

The truth is that Noah was “The Lonely Man of Faith” for a reason. Every righteous person feels alone, set apart from the rest of the world. Anyone who wants to be a righteous must commit to treading his/her own path, not living like everyone else.

There is an element of loneliness inherent in any righteous journey. This must have been true on an even greater scale with respect to Noah after the flood. Not only was he alone as a righteous, but he watched the destruction of every single human being on earth except for his own family. One cannot even imagine the loneliness he felt at that time. Indeed, we know of people today who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder from far less jarring traumas that the destruction of mankind and a year of taking responsibility for the welfare of all the remaining people and other every creature in the world who survived the calamity.  

When I was young (I was born last millennium and last century 😆), there was a song that was just becoming popular about what brings all different types of people to a bar to drink, and one verse of the song said, “they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness but it’s better than drinking alone.”

While my mother family lost their many in the Holocaust (I have a little bit Jewish blood 🙃) they managed to rebuild their lives. But there were others who experienced the destruction who were completely broken by it. And there were still others who were completely broken by the fact that they survived. They felt tremendous guilt and could not psychologically survive their own survival. This happened also with my generation that experienced four civil wars in Former Yugoslavia (I survived three civil wars and few times my life was in danger that I faced near death). I survived, thriving and creating the new “Ark” with other Chaplains.

We cannot imagine the loneliness Noah felt or why he turned to alcohol. Perhaps he was medicating his feelings (my dad was addicted to alcohol and sadly overmedicated his feelings with alcohol and died from it). We know Lot did the same thing as well after his world, the city of Sodom, was destroyed.

But there was another righteous person in the Holy Book who felt completely alone. And that was Abraham, who was called “העברי, the Hebrew” which literally means “the one on the other side. The Midrash explains that he was called that because “the whole world was on one side and he was on the other side” (Bereishis Raba 42:8), “Abraham was one” meaning that he was alone in the world. He left his father’s home; he said goodbye to the entire world he knew before that and began working to change the world all by himself with no one but his wife behind him, backing him up. He was utterly alone in the world.

Adam was alone too, and he was in Paradise, perfect place. However, he was not happy. He was fortunate
that God (CPE Supervisor) send to him “Chaplain” Eve ☺️ to be with him. She filled his hole in his heart (after rib surgery) with caring listening presence.
Adam, was introduced by Eve to forbidden fruit and he ate it because, he couldn’t imagine living in Garden of Eden (Paradise) without Eve. What’s a point living in Paradise with Angels and animals without Chaplain Eve😊. Eve became his paradise.

People do not like those who “rock the boat,” who try to do things differently than everyone else. Abraham was therefore despised and powerful people wanted him dead. But Abraham embraced his aloneness and worked to bring the whole world over to his side, to the side of the Master of the World (Rashi on Bereishis 12:5). A person can be extremely intelligent, charming, talented, and bright. But if he always wants to fit in, to be “just one of the guys,” perhaps above-average, but not outstanding, he will never be a righteous, he will never change the world.

Chaplain Abraham served God only through the fact that he was ‘one,’ meaning that in his mind, he considered himself the only person in the world and he never looked at the other people in the world who tried to turn him away from his CPE Supervisor (God) and stop him, nor his father or other naysayers. Rather, he looked at himself like he was the only person in the world.

This is not, God forbid, mean being indifferent to others. Part of being a righteous means caring about and working to help other people. But in terms of how one identifies his own role in life based on his own personal talents and inclinations, one should not allow others to define him. A person cannot define himself by what people in the world, even nice, good, normal people, do.

Chaplains experience this existential loneliness on the spiritual level. When we are misunderstood, condemned for defending patients need, we realized that we are alone in the world. While it may be true, as we say we are called and on other hand we also can be hated because we are different. We are righteous of the world, different, set-apart, lonely, and subject to a completely different standard (CPE 🙂) than anyone else.

Everything we have spoken about until now is step one. By focusing on seeking out the lonely path of Chaplain faith, there is a danger that one may give up on the rest of the world. Noah built a shelter, an ark in which he and his family could hide from the world’s destruction. The generation of Noah was wiped out partly because Noah was not ready to go out and speak to them and bring them into his shelter like Abraham did, who tried to bring the whole world into his tent (hospital)

This is why Noah was called, in Yiddish, the “tzadik in a fur coat.” If a room is freezing, there are two ways to warm up. One is to wear a fur coat. It warms the person up but allows everyone else to freeze. The other method is to build a fire to give warmth to everyone in the room. Noah was a tzadik who wore a fur coat to shelter himself from a world which was freezing because of a lack of Godliness. So his loneliness eventually got the better of him and he was overcome by it. Abraham, however, built fires (talk to CPE Supervisor Steve about his fires 🔥) to warm up everyone he came into contact with. Even though he was alone in the world, he loved and cared for everyone else.

This is the idea behind Chaplaincy Pro, by inviting people from all faith walks and life philosophies, especially “outsiders”(pagans, atheist, LGBTQ+) into the ark. We cannot be indifferent to friends and coworkers who are unfamiliar with what Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care is, which is to BE with them (not to fix, convert, avoid, or dismiss). We cannot escape into ourselves by hiding in an ark, a fur coat, or alcohol. We must be like Abraham, living Godly lives as if there was no one else in the world, but never writing off another person.

The ideal is therefore to connect to other people, in touch with the social reality of one’s community, while never losing sight of who one is and what he/she is living for. We must never be afraid to swim against the tide. May we all merit to be like Abraham, always living in the right way as if we are alone in the world, but never indifferent to others, always working to help them in whatever they need!