A while ago I was standing in a train station in London. Together with hundreds of others I was gazing up at the screens which show the times and locations of departing trains. The board announced that the train to manchester train was being prepared. It was taking so long, I pictured them finishing off the welding on the undercarriage and giving it it’s final coat of paint. Beside the train sceen there was another bigger and brighter one. This one flashed up that weeks television programmes on a certain channel. Commuters standing about bored, waiting for other "unprepared" trains, were meant to comfort themselves with the prospect of what they could spend the evening watching. At the same time the TV screen, advertised for contributors to forthcoming documentaries they have in the "pipe line". There was one they hoped to make about drugs. "Did you take Purple Hearts in the fifties?" Personally I was taking Cow and Gate in the fifties. Another future "Gem" was searching for other volunteers. "Have you a really bizarre past? would you be willing to come on to a new Talk Show and share your story with the nation?" They also tempted the train travellers with their breakfast programme in which the hosts would "As usual" be looking through the morning papers for the "Strangest" stories.

I wondered what sort of "bizarre past" would qualify someone for the talk show. Certainly the merely unusual would hardly suffice.

Now of course neither I nor anyone reading this will feel deprived that we will not be seeing any of these works of art after they are made. The clash between our values and those portrayed on Television was transparent to the Gedolim as soon as the "box" arrived on the scene. That clash would now be more of a full-scale war, as programming spins further and further away from a moral orbit. There is hardly any necessity to state the obvious, that Torah and TV don’t mix.

But the damage that "Tabloid Television" inflicts on society at large does affect us, as a consequence of effecting those who do see it. The effect is subtle but present never the less as we enter an office, go shopping, or walk down the street. How people see themselves affects how we see ourselves.

Just a few weeks ago we read that Noach was a complete Tzaddik in his generation. Each Tzaddik uses a unique approach in his Avoids hashed. Avrohom used Chesed, Yitzchok used Yiras HaShem and Yaakov used Emes.

Several years ago I was saying Shiurim at the Normandy Hotel in Bournemouth. The Hotel’s Minyan was honoured by the presence of the late Manchester Rosh Yeshiva Zt’l who was staying in a nearby flat. Numbers were a bit "tight" and after Friday night Davening he turned to me and asked, "Yehudah Yonah, will you be davening with us tomorrow"? "Im Yirtzei Ha Shem" I replied. The Rosh Yeshiva nodded and turned to go but turned back and with a smile and a sparkle in his eyes added that his attendance was also "Im Yirtzei HaShem". To see his Davening was to experience inspiration and the tears that required so many tissues during Shemoneh Esreh showed exactly what true Tefilla should be. Tefilla is another path to Tzidkus.

Rashi reveals in Avoda Zoro, that Noach’s Tzidkus was achieved because he was an Onov and Shfol Ruach, humble and self-deprecating.

Moshe Rabbeinu was "Onov Miod m’kol odom" Humbler than any other man. The Satmar Rov Zt’l asks, how would a student of physics feel in the presence of Einstein or a music student feel meeting Beethoven? Naturally they would be awed and humbled. But it wasn’t the fact that Moshe so frequently came face to face with HaShem Yisborach that sparked his humility. Moshe was Onov M’kol Odom he would feel humble even in the presence of you or me! Chazal say that Moshe knew exactly what his greatness was and where his Tzidkus lay. He saw in others other qualities and talents which he did not have and that maintained his humility.

 Reb Shlomo Wolbe Shlita, suggests a way of discovering what we are really like. Imagine a slide projector. When we are looking at the image on the screen that is exactly the picture which is inside the machine. What’s is inside us is what we see in other people! A Tzaddik like Moshe Rabbeinu will always be worrying that his own Avodas HaShem is deficient but what he projects onto other people is what is inside him. Moshe would see his Kiddusha in others. Again humility requires other people.

Such an option was not open to Noach in becoming a perfect tzadik…a perfect Onov. Ha Shem had already told him that people were so bad that they were to be destroyed. He would be unable to see good qualities which they had; they had none. He would be unable to project his Tzidkus onto them, he has been told they are evil. The Satmar Rov makes a brilliant observation. The last Posuk in Bereshis says "And Noach found favour in the eyes of HaShem" and the Medrash explains that how he did so is found in the first Posuk of Noach "These are the generations of Noach". When Noach could no longer look "horizontally" to the people of his own generation he looked "Vertically" up towards the future generations which would come from him, "Toldos Noach" and saw the qualities in Avrohom and his sons, that would allow him to remain a perfect Onov.

The Chidush of the Satmar Rov reveals an essential truth. How we see ourselves and the Madreiga we may reach is dependent in those we see round about us.

Society in general will define it’s moral norms through the people and the values they are exposed to.

So commuters return from work night after night to spend their evenings "Glued to the box" watching programmes that are morally corrosive. That defines how they see themselves. In our inevitable interactions in general society it becomes harder and harder to maintain that crucial Jewish Midoh of Anivus.

The Satmar Rov’s explanation of how Noach solved his problem becomes an essential prescription. When it is hard to look horizontally then we must look vertically, up to those individuals who can inspire; Gedolim of course but others too, Poshete Yidden, if there are any such things. I knew a Yid who lived in Prestwich who always arrived at Simchas before they were due to start. He told me he did this so that no one should feel embarrassed that they came too early. He learnt the practice from his mother. A few years ago when I started a new Shiur in Prestwich he used to come along. This Yid was a Talmud Chochom and certainly didn’t need to listen to me but he wanted to help establish another Shiur in his beloved Kehilla and give a rabbi encouragement, so every week he came.

I once stayed in New York with a Yid who was suffering great pain from an incurable illness. If he was feeling bad when he awoke he would still get dressed and with Tallis and Tefillin walk down to the pavement below. If he carried on feeling ill only then would he go back to bed. He had to be sure that it was genuine illness and not the Yetzer HaRa fooling him. It’s exactly that sort of "Poshete Yid" who can keep us looking up. Klal Yisroel is full of them.