Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 9:23 captures one of the quiet, careful acts of love in Torah. After Noah has fallen asleep in the shame of the wine, Shem and Japhet took a mantle, and bare it upon the shoulders of each, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned back, and the nakedness of their father they did not behold.
Picture it. Two brothers, each carrying one corner of the same garment on his shoulder. Walking backwards into their father's tent together. They refuse even to see him exposed. They cover him without looking. This is not a single-handed act of mercy — it is a shared act, carried on two shoulders, performed with downcast eyes.
Jewish ethics has always pointed to this verse as the model for kibud av, the honoring of a parent. When a parent is in a moment of weakness — sickness, grief, the decline of age — the child's job is not to photograph it. It is to cover it. To protect the dignity of the one who once protected you.
The Targum keeps the detail of their turned-back faces because the face is where shame lives. Not to look is itself a sacred act.
The takeaway the Maggid carries from this verse: love, at its finest, often walks backward. It does not need to see everything to do the right thing.