As mentioned in an earlier blog, Jewish practice and tradition stresses the importance of not embarrassing other people. I discussed the tradition on Tu B’Av that, when the Temple still stood, unmarried women wore white dresses and danced in the fields as the young men would choose their wives. These white dresses were all borrowed. Even the Daughter of the king would be required to borrow. The reason for this is that the poorer women, who did not have white dresses in the first place and who had to borrow, would not feel embarrassed. This detail shows the importance of taking another’s dignity seriously.
This week’s Torah portion, Noach (or Noah) gives us two illustrations on the importance of not embarrassing others. When the animals are being gathered together to be sent into the ark, G-d requested that a pair of each kind, both clean and not clean (kosher and non-kosher) would be collected. The Torah is known for its conciseness, so why would an extra word be used by saying “not clean” rather than “unclean” or “dirty?” The reason is to avoid embarrassing the animals by calling them derogatory words like “dirty.” If the Torah uses an extra word to avoid embarrassing animals, how much more so we should make the effort to avoid embarrassing other human beings.
An unfortunate story that occurred in the life of Noach was that he grew a vineyard, made wine and got drunk. When his son, Ham, found him sleeping naked in his tent, passed out drunk, he ran to tell his two other brothers, Shem and Japeth, who arrived at their father’s tent and covered him up, walking backwards so they would not get a glimpse of their father in his degradation. When he discovered what had happened, Noach blessed Shem and Japeth, but cursed Ham. Why? Because instead of doing something to help his father and to cover his disgrace, Ham acted like a gossip and ran to tell the rest of the family (at that time, since they were the only survivors, the whole world.) As in many cases, the Torah stresses action and demonstrates that it is better to help someone, if one can do so themselves, than to publicize a problem.