Life is precious - all life. This might be a strange statement with which to start a Dvar Torah on parshas Noah, the parsha in which Hashem destroys all life save for Noah, his family, and all the animals he brought with him into the Ark. However, in an era where people are once again clamoring about distinctions being both good and bad, perhaps we can find a new insight into the role of the Jewish people.
Of all the stories in the Torah, Noah is one of the most familiar. It has been absorbed, shared, and retold by the common culture. And yet it is interesting to note that in almost every depiction - whether artistic, toy, or comical - there is more focus on the animals arriving two by two than on the actual details given in the Torah that necessitate some animals boarding the teva in seven pairs. The confusion is easy to understand. First of all, it is much easier to envision two of every animal rather than trying to understand how the Ark could contain two of each animal and then some. Just picture six additional sets of oxen, not to mention twelve more giraffes. More seriously, however, the two by two depiction is most probably because Hashem first declares: "And of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the Ark. To keep alive with you; they shall be male and female. From birds of every kind, cattle of every kind, every kind of creeping thing on the Earth, two of each shall come to you to stay alive" (6:18 - 19).
It is only four verses later, into the next chapter and after Noah has completed the Ark., that Hashem tells him: Of every clean animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not clean, two, a male and its mate; of the birds of the sky also, seven pairs, male and female, to keep seed alive upon all the Earth " (7:2-3).
The most intriguing thing about these verses is that Hashem does not, here, specify what He means when He tells Noah "of every clean animal." Later in the Torah, after Bnei Yisrael has been established, we learn about the requirement of chewing the cud and split hooves and about which animals to be careful not to mistake for acceptable, but not here. Here is just a vague instruction. Rashi says that in these verses there is proof that Noah knew the Torah. Other commentators postulate that Noah came to his own correct conclusion of which animals were clean based on whether the animals were faithful to their species in their mating. Interestingly, Nachmonides suggests that "From each of them came two - a male and female - of their own accord. Noah additionally brought six pairs of the clean animals. Those [two] animals that came to be saved came of their own accord, but as for those that were needed as offerings, [Noah] exerted himself in the performance of the commandment [to take them in]."
This commentary hints at the secondary discussion of the question as to why Noah needed more clean animals than regular animals. At this time, humankind was still forbidden from eating meat, so the goal here could not have been a permissible food source. Rather it is understood by most of the commentators that the instructions to bring seven pairs of clean animals into the Ark was in order to provide a supply of acceptable offerings after they exited the Teva. The concept of clean and unclean animals may have been mysterious to Noah - as, indeed, one might even say about the need for a diet with such distinctions remains mysterious today since it is a chok (a halacha/law that has no common sense explanation) - but there are some particular characteristics that do appear common among, although not exclusive to, the kosher animals. For instance, the fact that kosher animals are neither hunters nor scavengers.
Within his larger commentary, Chizkuni makes an interesting statement: “Seeing that due to the fact that these species (clean animals) would [one day] be allowed as food, the dangers that unless there were multiple pairs of them in the Ark, they might die out, make it plausible that the Torah ordered him to take seven pairs of each. Even though certain other unclean mammals serve as food for the gentiles, such as pigs, etc, the fact that these give birth to multiple young made it unlikely that they would die out even if only a single pair of them would be taken into the Ark…. ‘take for yourself;’ seven males and seven females each, so as to diminish the chances that they would die out” (translation from Sefaria).
This seemed an interesting thought in that while there are plenty of wild animals that give birth to only one or two offspring at a time (like elephants), many of the unclean creatures have surprising rates of reproduction. No kosher animals produce their young in litters or broods, and so Hashem took action to make certain of their survival.
Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch comments on the term habehaima hatahara, the clean animal, that "tahar is related to tzahar, the transparent, the particles of which are homogeneous, and allow rays of light to pass through them. So that tahar is receptive, that which allows God’s rays to pass through, offers no resistance to them."
There is an integral aspect of the so-called clean animals that makes them tahor, that makes them more receptive to the Divinity in the world, which is why they were acceptable as offerings and, eventually, designated as food for the nation that chose an active relationship with Hashem.
Rav Hirsch concludes his commentary, however, by explaining that the commandment for additional animals doesn’t have such a mundane purpose. Why are these animals designated as clean, or pure, he explains that the command to take "seven pairs of the clean animals, was given to Noah with an eye to his future offerings, or for the future requirements for food in accordance with the laws of God, or out of consideration of both factors, in any case we can understand why this command is introduced with the name Hashem. Simply for the purpose of the preservation of the animal world in general there would be no reason for taking more than three times more of the clean animals. The ‘purity’ of animals only exists in connection with the purposes of the education of humankind which the name Hashem represents.”
These ruminations on the animals declared clean and the animals declared unclean have a shadow of a thought about the world population in general and the Jewish people. The concept of being a nation singled out is often misunderstood. It does not make us better; it means that we are expected to live up to a higher purpose. Hashem provided the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov with special rules and a different task from the rest of the nations because they opened themselves up to be receptacles of Hashem’s gifts, like the tahor animals. And like the clean animals taken in as extras on the ark, the Jewish people have been willing to sacrifice themselves to bring Hashem into the world. But while the extra clean animals are wanted and needed, this does not mean that Hashem’s love for the whole is any less, for Hashem made it clear first and foremost that “of all that lives, of all flesh, you shall take two of each into the Ark.”
*Tahor is most often translated as either clean or pure, neither of which is an accurate definition.
No comments:
Post a Comment