PARSHA THEMES
Eitan
Mayer
PARASHAT NO’AH
QUICK REVIEW:
Contrary to what some people assume and contrary to the way in which we usually hear the term used, Parashat Bereshit hints that “tzelem Elokim” (humanity’s being created “in the image of God”) is not something handed to us as a gift and a privilege; instead, it is a mission for which we are equipped with tools and which we are commanded to achieve. This mission demands that we emulate Hashem in three ways: 1) creativity (procreativity), 2) asserting control over the world, and 3) behaving morally.
A DOSE OF REALITY:
Parashat Bereshit, last week’s parasha, ends on an ominous note; ironically, the parasha which we identify most with creation ends on the brink of destruction. This week’s parasha, Parashat Noah, is the parasha of the Flood, the great destruction of the world. Perhaps we think of the Flood as some sort of great rollicking adventure, Noah and his swashbuckling family aboard the Ark with hundreds of exotic animals. But the real story is not a laughing adventure, it’s a picture of death and horror. Floods, as we know from hearing the news about hurricanes or tropical storms or torrential rainfall, or from witnessing them ourselves, kill people: rivers overflow their banks, roads become impassable, buildings become weakened and collapse, people are trapped and swept away by powerful currents. The Flood covered the highest mountains with water, leaving people with no escape.
FAILURE AND
DISAPPOINTMENT:
We start with the reason for the destruction, which appears at the very end of last week’s parasha:
BERESHIT 6:5-7 --
Hashem saw that the evil of Man was great in the land, and all the inclinations of the thoughts of his heart were all evil all day. Hashem regretted having made Man in the land, and He was sad in His heart. Hashem said, “I will wipe out Man, whom I have created, from upon the face of the land; from Man, to animal, to crawling animal, to bird of the sky—for I regret having made them.”
It couldn’t be clearer that humanity has failed its mission and disappointed Hashem. (Obviously, there is a major theological issue to explore here—Hashem’s “disappointment”—but since this is a parasha shiur, not a philosophy shiur, we will take the Torah’s expression at face value and leave it for another time.) As we saw last week, the punishment for violating and renouncing the tzelem Elokim mission is death: humanity does not have the choice of either achieving tzelem Elokim or becoming animals. The only option is to be human—which by Hashem’s definition means tzelem Elokim—or to be nothing. The animals seem to be condemned along with humanity because they are created to serve humanity; if humanity is to be destroyed, they serve no purpose.
THE FLOOD: MANIFESTATION
OF A DEEPER DESTRUCTION:
BERESHIT 6:11 --
The world was destroyed before Hashem, and the world was full of violence. Hashem saw the world, and it was destroyed, because all flesh had destroyed its path in the land.
The description above might mistakenly be thought to describe the world once the Flood has already come. But in fact this is how the Torah describes the world *prior* to the flood. In a certain sense, the job of destroying the world is already done. Even though Hashem has not done a thing yet, destruction has already taken place on the most fundamental and significant level—the world is “destroyed” in a moral sense. The actual Flood comes only to make true in a physical sense what is already true in a spiritual and moral sense. Humanity has already destroyed the world; Hashem comes merely to make this destruction physically manifest. In this sense, the Flood is less a punishment than merely a consequence of sin, merely the visible side of the destruction already wrought by humanity.
PLANNING AHEAD:
We turn to a section just before the Flood begins, where Hashem gives instructions to No’ah:
BERESHIT 7:1-6 --
Hashem said to Noah, “Come, you and all your household, to the ark, for I see you as righteous in this generation. Of all pure animals, take seven-seven, man and wife, and of the animals which are not pure, take two, man and wife. Also of the birds of the sky, seven-seven, male and female, to keep alive seed on the face of the Earth. For in seven more days, I will rain upon the land . . . . And the Flood was water upon the Earth.
In case you do not have the full text before you, this section is a repetition. Hashem had just said the same thing to No’ah in the previous section. But two significant elements appear in this section which do not appear in the previous section:
1) The command to bring along seven pairs of the pure animals.
2) The explanation that the animals are to be brought into the Ark in order to re-establish life on Earth.
This second point is crucial because until now, there had not been any hint that there would be an end to the Flood! All Hashem had told No’ah until now was that there would be a Flood, that he should build the Ark, and that he should take all the animals aboard in order to save their lives. The section above is the first indication that the destruction of the world is not forever, that Hashem intends to re-establish the world eventually. In this context, it is particularly fitting for Hashem to command that seven pairs of the pure animals be brought; the reason No’ah will need so many more pure than impure animals is because he will need to bring sacrifices to Hashem after the Flood ends, and sacrifices can come only from among pure animals. At the same time that Hashem hints that the destruction will end and that the world will be re-established, He provides No’ah with the means to find favor in His eyes by bringing sacrifices.
THE “UNZIPPING” OF THE
WORLD:
We now move to the theme which occupies most of Parashat No’ah: the Flood itself. The destruction caused by the Flood is not a “random” destruction; it is not merely a powerful force unleashed on the world to wreak havoc. Instead, it is a careful, divinely planned *unraveling* of the Creation—playing the same movie in reverse, le-havdil. The first step:
BERESHIT 7:6 --
. . . And the Flood was WATER UPON THE EARTH.
This particular phrase—“mayyim al ha-aretz,” “water upon the Earth,” appears *thirteen* times during the parasha! In terms of the theme we are trying to develop—that the Flood is a reversal of Creation—the phrase “mayyim al ha-aretz” is significant as the reverse of one of the steps of Creation. If we jump back to the story of Creation in Parashat Bereshit:
BERESHIT 1:9-10 --
Hashem said, “Let the waters be gathered from under the heavens to one place, and let the dry land be visible”; and it was so. Hashem called the dry land “Land,” and called the gathering of waters “Seas”; and Hashem saw that it was good.
While Creation withdrew the water from the land and confined it within given boundaries, making life possible on dry land, the Flood reverses this process and makes life on land impossible: “water upon the earth.”
THE NEXT STEP:
BERESHIT 7:10-11 --
And it was, after those seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the land . . . . All the springs of the great deep were broken open, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
The water which becomes the Flood comes from two different sources -- 1) “the springs of the great deep,” indicating the seas and other sources of water within/on the Earth and 2) “the windows of the heavens.” Sources of water deep within the Earth break open and gush forth as the heavens “open” and rain pours down in torrents. The gushing froth of the “springs of the deep” should remind us of the gathering of the water to the seas, as the breaking open of the springs reverses this process. And the opening of the heavens should remind us of one of the steps of Creation reported in Parashat Bereshit:
BERESHIT 1:6-8 --
Hashem said, “Let there be a firmament within the water; it shall divide between water and water.” Hashem made the firmament, and it divided between the water below the firmament and the water above the firmament; and it was so. Hashem called the firmament“Heavens” . . . .
The atmospher(“the heavens”) separated between the water below—oceans and lakes—and the water above—the water which composes the clouds. In bringing the Flood, this separation disappears; the two bodies of water (oceans and clouds) reach toward each other, the seas rising and the rain of the clouds falling, to join and blot out the space in between—the dry land.
Let us continue in Parashat No’ah:
BERESHIT 7:13-14 --
On this very day came Noah, Shem, Ham, and Yafet, Noah’s sons, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them into the ark. They and all the wild animals ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and all the tame animals ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and all the crawlers which crawl on the ground ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and all the birds ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, all birds, all winged.
The way this list of creatures is formulated (and the similar list of creatures) should remind us of the original process of Creation:
BERESHIT 1:25 --
Hashem made the beasts of the land ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and the tame animals ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and all crawling things of the ground ACCORDING TO THEIR SPECIES, and Hashem saw that it was good.
What we have here in Parashat No’ah is not a reversal of this process, it is a repetition: this list of creatures is to be saved from destruction and set aside to re-establish the world. On the other hand, the Torah repeats this list of creatures half a dozen times through the parasha, often when telling us who is being destroyed; used in that context, the list is indeed a reversal of the Creation process.
Bereshit 7:19-20 covers a reversal we have already seen. Here, instead of gathering to one place, the water becomes “ungathered” and covers the ground. Instead of the land appearing from under the water, as in the Creation process, the ground disappears under the water:
BERESHIT 7:19-20 --
And the waters grew very mighty upon the land, and all the tall mountains under the heavens were covered. Fifteen cubits above did the waters grow mighty, and the mountains were covered.
Finally, 7:22 reverses the ultimate Creation process: “Anything which had a soul of breathing life in ITS NOSTRILS . . . DIED” (7:22). This is the diametric opposite of the crowning step of creation: “And Hashem formed the Man of dust from the ground, and he breathed INTO HIS NOSTRILS a LIVING soul, and the Man became a LIVING creature” (2:7).
CREATION, TAKE II:
Once all life (besides what floats in the ark) has been destroyed, it is time for the world to be re-established. What we find now, not surprisingly, is a pattern of processes which repeat the original processes of Creation.
BERESHIT 8:1 --
Hashem remembered Noah and all the wild animals and tame animals with him in the ark, and Hashem passed a wind over the Earth, and the waters calmed.
The passing of the calming wind over the waters—a small step toward recreation—parallels one of the earliest phases of Creation I:
BERESHIT 1:2 --
And the Earth was empty and chaotic, with darkness on the face of the deep, and a WIND of Hashem swept over the face of the water.
The next step is for the sources of the floodwaters (the springs of the deep and the water of the heavens) to be closed once again:
BERESHIT 8:2 --
And the springs of the deep and windows of heaven were closed . . . .
This parallels the original separation between the undifferentiated waters into two great gatherings of water: the atmosphere and the oceans:
BERESHIT 1:6-8 --
Hashem said, “Let there be a firmament within the water, and it shall divide between water and water.” And Hashem made the firmament, and it divided between the water below the firmament and the water above the firmament, and it was so. And Hashem called the firmament “Heavens” . . . .
The next step of the Noahide recreation process is for the land to reappear:
BERESHIT 8:5-14 --
The water became less and less, until the tenth month; in the tenth [month], on the first of the month, the mountaintops could be seen . . . And it was, in the 601st year, in the first [month], on the first of the month, the waters dried from upon the ground. And in the second month, on the 27th day of the month, the ground was dry.
This clearly parallels the original ingathering of the water to reveal the land beneath:
BERESHIT 1:9-10 --
God said, “Let the waters be gathered from under the heavens to one place, and let the dry land be visible,” and it was so. God called the dry land “Land” and called the gathering of waters “Seas,” and God saw that it was good.
Now that the Creation process is complete for the second time, Noah, his family, and all of the animals emerge. Noah sacrifices some of the animals of the pure species to Hashem:
BERESHIT 8:21-22 --
Hashem smelled the pleasant smell and said to Himself, “I will no further curse the ground because of Man, for the inclinations of the heart of Man are evil from his youth. And I will no longer punish all living things as I did. For all the days of the world, planting and sowing, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.”
Hashem ‘realizes’ once and for all that Man is not what he is “cracked up to be.” In the beginning of the parasha, we saw a similar statement—Hashem is disappointed in humanity and regrets having created Man, so He decides to destroy just about everyone. By now, Hashem ‘realizes’ that destruction is “not the answer.” In order to avoid being disappointed, Hashem decides to downgrade His expectations of humanity even further. What can you expect from a being whose basic nature contains evil? Man learns nothing from destruction, since his basic nature includes a powerful evil inclination.
But what is the solution to the problem? If the purpose of creating humanity was to create a form of life which could and would emulate Hashem, isn’t the whole experiment a failure? Is Hashem saying that Man can’t be punished for failing the mission because his nature is evil?
Not necessarily. Note that our parasha is the turning point between two phases of Hashem’s relationship with humanity: in phase one, he creates humanity and assigns it a mission: to reflect the divine. Kayyin (Cain) is the first to fail this mission: he murders his brother, but seems to learn little from Hashem’s reaction, as he neglects to impress upon his children the value of human life; his grandchildren continue his murderous pattern. Adam and Hava react by attempting to replace their first two children with a third child: Shet, who is described by the Torah as “created in the image” of Adam, who himself had been created in the image of God. Shet is Adam’s hope; success in the tzelem Elokim mission rides upon his shoulders. But after several generations, humanity degenerates into violence and corruption, convincing Hashem that He had made a mistake by creating humanity. Hashem appears to preserve some hope for humanity, as he saves the life of Noah and his family. But Noah, too, disappoints Hashem, founding the new world only to plant a vineyard and stupefy himself with the wine it produces. Hashem now waits, as the generations pass—He waits for someone like Avraham, whose appearance marks phase two of Hashem’s relationship with humanity. At some point between Noah and Avraham, Hashem gives up the notion that ALL of humanity can achieve the ideal, that ALL of humanity can maintain a relationship with Him as reflections of His divinity. Hashem decides that the great experiment of humanity can continue only with a small, select group of subjects. Hashem now looks for an individual or group of individuals to set an example for the rest of the world. Avraham is that individual; he and the nation he will found are selected for intimate relationship with Hashem. The rest of the world has shown that it is unable to maintain such a relationship, so Hashem now turns his attention to a select group. The aftermath of the Flood is the turning point at which the idea of an “Am Segula,” a most-favored, most-treasured nation, takes shape. The damp soil of the Flood is the fertile ground from which spthe seed of Kelal Yisrael.
Shabbat shalom,
Eitan