“But Noah found favor (cheyn) in the eyes of the Lord.” (Genesis 6:8)
“Rabbi Nehemiah says, one who possesses cheyn does not need the assurances of others.” (Sefer Bahir)
“When a person is true to themselves, he also finds favor (cheyn) in the eyes of others.”
— Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk“If He scoffs at the scoffers, He gives grace (cheyn) to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34)
Cheyn is the language of unearned favor (chinam). (Bereishit Rabbah 30:10)
“Rabbi Yochanan was of beautiful form and appearance. When Reish Lakish saw him, he jumped into the river and swam toward him. Rabbi Yochanan said to him, ‘Such beauty is intended for Torah study.’” (Bava Metzia 84a)
“Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: Rabbi Yochanan’s beauty was like that of the first human (Adam), and his appearance was awe-inspiring.” (Bava Batra 75a)
“Whoever sees Rabbi Yochanan sees a glimpse of the Shechinah (Divine Presence).” (Berakhot 5b)
Noah’s name (N-Ch) contains the very same letters that form the word Cheyn, often translated as “beauty,” “grace,” “favor.” Noach is Cheyn backwards. Noach is also the first Biblical character explicitly described as someone who finds favor in God’s eyes. It is this characteristic which leads to his being spared during the apocalypse, and thus it is cheyn that saves the world. If Bereishit describes creation as making, Noach describes creation as letting live, as “not destroying.” Throughout the Torah, we meet characters who found favor in, or sought to find favor, in someone’s eyes, be they divine or mortal. Abraham asks to find favor in God’s eyes, as do Moses, and Hannah. All three preface their asks with a hedge “If I have found favor, let me…” Their appeal to favor is an attempt to excuse what might otherwise be seen as an imposition or trespass. Favor gets them in the door. Joseph, Esther, and Daniel, find favor in the eyes of kings and courtiers. Ruth supplicates Boaz for favor, as Jacob does his brother Esau.
The Midrash teaches that Cheyn is connected to Chinam, without merit or desert. It’s a form of bypass, an alternative route to justice or fairness: “Don’t spare me because I deserve it, spare me because I’m beautiful in your eyes.” The world is saved not for good reason, but for divine favor. By the logic of cheyn, we have an answer to Plato’s Euthyphro: God loves the good, not because it is good; rather, the good is good because God loves it. This isn’t fair. Just as it isn’t fair that some are gifted good looks and charm. Just as it isn’t fair that Jacob finds Rachel, but not Leah, beautiful. Cheyn is, on its face, neither meritocratic, nor is it egalitarian. But it is a world-saving force. Radak comments about the wicked city of Nineveh (Jonah 3:10), that they found favor in God’s eyes—teshuva, repentance, touches not God’s sense of justice, as it were, but God’s aesthetic sense. In defending his decision not to destroy Nineveh, God appeals to the children and animals—emblems of innocence, and, if we are to be contemporary, cuteness. God doesn’t end by appealing to the goodness of Nineveh, but to God’s attachment to it. Just as Jonah loves the plant that gives him shade, God takes pleasure in the inhabitants of Nineveh.
As discussed, Judaism is not merely a religion of explicit reason, as Hermann Cohen says, but also a religion of chok (statute) and favor (cheyn). God is not a system 2 thinker when saving Noah. We know this because the same language describes God before and after the flood—God’s reasoning for destroying the world is the same as God’s reasoning for sparing it (See Genesis 6:5 vs. 6:11-12). What changes is not God’s zedek or emmet, but God’s attitude, God’s bias. What Kahneman might call thinking fast, and even irrationally, is, what leads God to spare the world in the time of Noah and Nineveh in the time of Jonah.
A famous chevruta pair—Rebbe Yochanan and Reish Lakish—will help us appreciate the nature of cheyn by looking at its opposite: difficulty. Reish Lakish is a highway man, turned scholar, who asks hard questions, kashyas. His name means “head of the difficult.” He is a great sparring partner, but sometimes too sharp. He is the ultimate critical thinker, a proto-deconstructionist. But his conversion to Judaism is awakened by love and beauty, not reason. His perception of a beautiful man, and through that experience, his perception of the beauty of Torah, helps him channel his harsh and combative personality. If Reish Lakish wins by demanding explanations and showing work, Rebbe Yochanan wins by romance. Alfred North Whitehead describes three stages on the educational journey: romance, precision, generalization. The tension between the two sages is a tension between romance and precision, requiring a higher synthesis, one that tragically, in their case, never comes to pass. Romance without precision is superficial infotainment, an aleph-bet that never makes the jump to gimmel-dalet. Precision without romance is dry and irrelevant (an occupational hazard of academia). There is a place for hard and critical questions, but if we can’t fall in love with what we are learning, what’s the point? Then, learning becomes just banditry by other means. When looking at Noah and his generation, God falls in love with humanity, as Reish Lakish falls in love with Torah. The tough questions come second. Lead with romance to save the world. Lead with precision to destroy it.
Is this favor or beauty or grace just arbitrary and subjective, then? Is it superficial? No. The Kotzker Rebbe suggests that cheyn can be cultivated by being authentic, finding own’s own voice rather than miming consensus. Noah, remember, was a contrarian. While the world engaged in violence, Noah stood apart. While the world assumed corruption the norm, Noah faithfully built his ark..Noah’s trust in God was correlated to his own inner trust in himself. And as Proverbs highlights, cheyn is acquired by being humble, even as others scoff and mock. Cheyn is a kind of inner-confidence. If violence (Hamas) is the effect of those who are insecure, arrogant, and internally chaotic all at once, Noah’s peace is born of knowing who he is. God loves Noah not for “no reason.” Rather, Noah, doesn’t need a reason to justify his existence. He asserts that his life, and life in general, has intrinsic value. Thus, he is the custodian of animals, beings who embody not life qua rational, but life qua life. Noah is the steward of what Giorgio Agamben calls bare life. And he is the moral instructor who teaches us that even bare life should be valued. Man does not need to be a rational animal to live, only to be a beautiful animal. In this, he joins the elephants, the leopards, and the spiders. He is saved not for his maturity, but for childhood. He is evaluated not on the basis of his accountability, but on the basis of his exemption.
To put it provocatively, Noah and the animals he saves are God’s chok. God must save them, because the creation algorithm that God himself mandated requires it. God must let this algorithm ride even as his rational self wants to annul it. Rebbe Yochanan’s Beauty, Noach’s Grace, our Favor, which reflects the Glory of the Divine, is the shine not of reason, but being. Noah teaches us that creation cannot and need not be justified to be lovable. Of course, his teaching and legacy are incomplete, and only a predecessor to Abraham’s more rigorous pathway. “Noah’s children”—the term that refers to Gentiles and thus to all of humanity—are to be loved in spite of and because of their humanity. But Abraham’s children will rise to a higher standard, one that seeks not just the exoneration of babes and animals, but the moral grandeur of world-makers.
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins
Beautiful post!