Five Who Saw a New World and the Righteous Provider

Rabbi Samuel said: There are five [men of whom Scripture says they "were"]. Noah: yesterday it was said, "The waters wear away the stones" (Job 14:19) - for Rabbi Levi said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, even the iron axle-pivot of a mill is dissolved in the waters - yet here you say, "And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark" (Genesis 9:18)! This is astonishing. Rather, he saw a new world. Joseph: yesterday, "They afflicted his foot with fetters, his soul came into iron" (Psalms 105:18), and now, "And Joseph was the ruler over the land" (Genesis 42:6). Rather, he saw a new world. Moses: yesterday fleeing before Pharaoh, and now he is sinking him in the sea. Rather, he saw a new world. Job: yesterday, "He pours out my gall upon the ground" (Job 16:13), and now, "And the LORD added to all that Job had, double" (Job 42:10). Rather, he saw a new world. Mordecai: yesterday he was set up for hanging, and now he hangs those who would have hanged him. Rather, he saw a new world. The Rabbis say: Everyone of whom "he was" is said, fed and provided. Noah fed and provided for all twelve months in the ark. Joseph fed and provided, "And Joseph sustained his father and his brothers" (Genesis 47:12). Moses fed and provided all forty years in the wilderness. Job fed and provided, "And I ate my morsel alone" (Job 31:17) - perhaps no orphan ate of it? [The verse implies the opposite.] Mordecai fed and provided: once he went around among the wet-nurses and found none for Esther, and he himself nursed her. When Rabbi Abbahu expounded this in public, the congregation laughed at his statement. He said to them: Is it not a teaching? The milk of a male is clean [ritually pure]. "In his generations" (Genesis 6:9). Rabbi Judah says: In his generations he was righteous; thus in the generations of Moses and Samuel he would not have been righteous. In the street of the blind they call the one-eyed man "full of light." A parable: of one who had a cellar of wine. He opened the first cask and found it vinegar, and so the second, and so the third, and found it fermenting. He said, "There is none here better than this." So, in his generations he was righteous; but had he been in the generation of Moses and Samuel he would not have been righteous. Rabbi Nehemiah says: If in his generations he was righteous, had he been in the generation of Moses, how much more so! A parable: of a flask of balsam-oil sealed tight with a stopper and set in a graveyard, and its scent wafted out; had it been outside the graveyard, how much more so! A parable: of a virgin who dwelt in a street of harlots and no evil report went out about her; had she been in a street of proper women, how much more so!