VBM Noach and His Sons By Harav Mosheh Lichtenstein ​

The stories in the book of Bereishit are preoccupied with family matters. The book of Bereishit is not told from a nationalist perspective; it does not relate the stories of nations and world powers and the relationships between them. It deals with the personal relationships of the fathers of mankind and the Jewish people. Thus it is stated in the Midrash: Ben Azzai said: "This is the book of the generations of Adam" (Bereishit 5:1) – this is a great principle in the Torah. (Bereishit Rabba 24, 6) In the story of Noach's drunkenness (Bereishit 9:20-27), Noach is portrayed as a survivor, who saw a world built, destroyed and then rebuilt, and the story describes how Noach dealt with the extreme changes that he experienced. But the story also brings the other side of the coin: how the world dealt with him.