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It is hard to read this week’s Torah portion and not think about the role that wine plays in it. This is largely due not only to the first appearance of wine in the Torah, but also a certain sense of drama going on. So how does this story involving the titular character of this week’s Torah portion inform us regarding wine and drinking in the Torah?
When we read of Noah’s planting of a vineyard (Gen. 9:20), it seems to be the immediate focus of his postdiluvian life, as reflected in one third-century rabbi’s opinion on Noah’s wine timeline (Bereshit Rabbah 36:4):
אָמַר רַבִּי חִיָּא בַּר אַבָּא בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם נָטַע, בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם שָׁתָה, בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם נִתְבַּזָּה
Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said: “On the same day he planted, he drank, and he was humiliated.”
It would seem that Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba is picking up on the rapidity and terseness of the story’s timeline, yet astute readers will know that there are months, if not years, that need to pass before grapevines are ready to yield their fruit, as well as time to harvest the grapes, and then to ferment them. It may be that the Biblical narrative’s focus is on explaining where Noah’s store of wine came from, rather than the mechanics of wine production. In other words, it would certainly seem strange to a reader of the story that Noah survived a massive flood, yet there happened to be wine available; yet our Torah portion explains that, owing to his agricultural prowess, Noah was able to cultivate a vineyard and create wine with it.
But the final aspect that Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba puts on our radar is a humiliation of Noah: what is this humiliation? Is it simply that he got drunk and passed out, or is there something more?
While it would seem that Noah got naked while drunk, it may also be that this nakedness is related to his son, Ḥam. This supposition arises primarily from the curse that Noah levels against Ḥam after realizing what happened to him. While this matter is an entirely separate topic (for more, see episode #5 of The Jewish Drinking Show (29 October 2019)), from the perspective of the narrative, we are left with Noah’s planting the vineyard, drinking the wine, getting drunk, and waking up from his drunkenness.
Of course, one matter that is unclear is if this is the first-ever such vineyard (see Ramban on Gen. 9:20), if it’s Noah’s first action upon disembarking from the ark (see Sforno on Gen. 9:20), or something else, which would point to his motivation. The text is silent as to the causes of Noah’s drinking and/or subsequent inebriation, although it may be fair to speculate that it was either to celebrate a sense of completion, or perhaps even to mourn the passing of the world he had known.
Whether borne out of celebration or despair, Noah’s drinking yields his passing out, with something happening to him involving his son Ḥam . Thus, the first recorded Biblical encounter by humanity with wine is a curiously ambiguous story, yielding a variety of possibilities for this first Jewish drinking story. How we consider this story may also shed light on how we consider wine, drinking, and drunkenness in both the Torah, as well as our own lives.
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