Why does the Bible say (Genesis 6:9): 'Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his generations. With G-d walked Noah'?

G-d warns Noah that he is very upset with the way the world is going. He is going to bring it to its senses through the Flood. Noah should prepare a temporary floating home for himself, his immediate family and the animals. Noah complies with this command and is saved from the flood, together with his family and the animals.

However, in the subsequent story of Abram, G-d orders the latter to 'Go for yourself from your land, from your relatives and from your father's house' (Genesis 12:1).

Noah obeys G-d by leaving his comfort zone, building a boat and living in it together with his family and animals until dry land appears. By contrast, Abram is to leave his comfort zone without any of his family and make a new start in an unknown environment. Later (Genesis 17:1), G-d tells Abram to 'Walk before me and be perfect.'

At this point, G-d makes a covenant with Abram. Abram now becomes Abraham, the father of many, and is circumcised. The Hebrew for both covenant and circumcision is brit.

What is the difference between Noah and Abraham? Noah is the type of person who is extremely cautious by nature, sticks to the rules, never questions and just looks after himself and his immediate environment. This is why, when Noah finds himself outside his safety zone, he 'debases himself' (Genesis 9:20), in the words of the biblical commentator Rashi; he gets drunk and becomes an embarrassment to his children.

Abram becomes Abraham after a number of tests specially designed by G-d. However, Abraham doesn't schmooze G-d: he doesn't suck up to him or to anyone else and sometimes he argues with G-d that G-d is being unreasonable by his own standards.

This Abraham-type attitude towards G-d is the prophetic role in Judaism, which will come to its climax in the person of Moses who is known as 'our teacher'. Abraham is a fitting role model for Moses and after him for Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah and all the other great Hebrew prophets who have both warned and comforted the Jewish people over thousands of years.

Abraham's finest moment is when he encounters G-d at Sodom (Genesis 18) and pleads with him not to destroy all the people on account of the wickedness of the vast majority of the town. Abraham bargains with G-d. If 50 people can be found? If 45 people can be found? 40? 30? 20? 10?

Alas, 10 men were not found and Sodom was destroyed for the sin of lack of hospitality towards strangers.

Noah was perfect in his own generation, but only by sticking to the letter of the law and walking with G-d. This is the sort of attitude that we found among the ordinary Germans during the Holocaust: sticking to the letter, their very efficiency brought an inferno upon the world and themselves.

One of the great 20^th century rabbinic thinkers, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who studied philosophy in Berlin during the last weeks up to the accession of Hitler in January 1933, always blamed the Holocaust on the overly compliant nature of the Germans, which he saw with his own eyes.

The Abrahams of this world are not easy to control and usually act outside of the box. Winston Churchill was of this ilk when in 1940 he nearly single-handedly took on the British establishment, including friends in his own party (and he was nothing if not loyal to his friends), because G-d had given him the vision to see clearly the outcome of appeasement of Hitler and his allies.

Another great Abraham type was Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, whose English was negligible, but who took on the British Oxford graduate and governor general of Jerusalem (Ronald Storrs) as chief rabbi under the Mandate (1921-35). When Rav Kook got nowhere with Storrs, he advocated go-slows and strike action against the British rulers of the Jews of Palestine who were favouring the Arabs at that time.

Most Noah types are highly respected pillars of the community – but outside of that community they are lost and often revert to infantile behaviour, frequently with dire consequences.

The Abrahams of this world will never receive OBEs, CBEs or reach the heights of the official church of the land. Their mission in life is summed up best by another great 20^th thinker who studied philosophy in pre-Hitlerite Berlin with the Lubavitcher Rabbi – Rav Joseph Soloveitchik.

In his book, The Lonely Man of Faith, Soloveitchik posits two types of 'Adam': the communal, back-slapping Adam of the public face, and the inner, spiritual being who would prefer to be alone with his or her G-d.

This Lonely Person of Faith – as we would say nowadays – is all of us. The challenge faced by religious people is not only not to be taken over by the strictures of our religion (symbolised by Noah's ark on the stormy seas), but to use those very strictures to be of benefit to humanity and to the wider world.

Noah let the side down: Abraham rose to the occasion and G-d was pleased with him for so doing.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Soloveitchik and others all 'sat at the feet' of the greatest philosopher of the 20^th century, the German existentialist, Martin Heidegger, author of the monumental Being and Time, who attracted hordes of students to his lectures on philosophy at Berlin University.

Heidegger was certainly able to think outside the box (especially when he used the work of others, mostly Jews, without acknowledging their input). But as soon as Hitler came to power in January 1933, Heidegger hailed him in Messianic terms, removed Jewish colleagues from university posts and usurped their positions. He also endorsed the Nazi regime 100 per cent.

What separates the Abraham types from the rest is the ability not only to think differently, but to act differently. In Judaism it is not words but deeds that count – and all of us (at one time or another) fall short.

It is the brave person who is able to stand outside the flow and act according to what G-d really wants and not just what the social and religious conventions of the time require.

For this trait, Jews have been persecuted by other, more conformist, religions, as well as by atheists, secularists and governments of all hues.

But Abraham and his spiritual descendants have always known that challenges are there for a purpose. Simply keeping to the rules might be OK for 99 per cent of the time. However, in all of our lifetimes there will be at least one situation where rules and regulations, social conventions and worrying about what people think have to be sacrificed on the altar of the greater good.

For Abraham this was Sodom and for the Jewish people in general it is the fact that we have no true friends but G-d and still have to behave towards others as we hope they would (in a world peopled by Abrahams and not by Noahs) behave towards us.

Dr Irene Lancaster is a Jewish academic, author and translator who has established university courses on Jewish history, Jewish studies and the Hebrew Bible.