Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel

Why wasn’t Ham cursed instead, as it was clearly his sin (Gen. 9:25) ? R. David Tzvi Hoffman (1843-1921) suggests that Ham was the youngest son of Noah, and he sinned against his father, therefore he was punished measure for measure by having a curse placed on his youngest son. However, Noah’s cursing of Canaan simply because he happened to be the youngest son of Ham is an assumption Hoffman never proves.

It is far more likely that Canaan was singled out because of all Noah’s grandchildren, only Canaan reveled in his grandfather’s humiliation. Perhaps Ham and Canaan were together when they saw the elderly patriarch drunk and naked. It is also possible that it was Canaan who first brought this matter to his father’s attention, but instead of correcting his disrespectful son, Ham also took pleasure in his father’s ridicule and joked about it to his other two brothers (Ephrem the Syrian).

Apparently, Ham thought his brothers would also find the incident humorous, but they didn’t.  Alternatively, perhaps Noah curses Ham’s son because he fill feel personal grief and responsibility at causing his son to suffer. Unfortunately, it does not occur to Noah that he is cursing his grandson as well!

According to Gersonides, the story also illustrates why modeling proper parenting is so important in the Torah because Ham’s worst tendencies were already present in his son Canaan’s personality. Even in his drunken stupor Noah realized the root cause of his humiliation; Canaan and for that reason he cursed him. Benno Jacob suggests that  the Torah  did not curse Ham since so as to not include the other sons that he had, therefore they were not included in Noah’s curse.

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Notes:

[1] Genesis, 68.