Parshas Noah – Standing Apart

We are all, I would comfortably say, familiar with the stories of the greatness of Avraham Avinu. We know that in a culture of avodah zara, Avraham recognized that there could only be one Creator, one singular greater power who needed no intermediaries. When no one seemed to understand, he sought (and succeeded) in building a relationship with Hashem. We know that Avraham destroyed the idols in his father’s idol shop. We know that he didn’t hesitate to take his wife and leave his homeland. We know he arrived in his Promised Land only to find it wracked by famine. And those were just his early years. 

Rarely do we focus on the fact that Avraham’s early years begin in Parshas Noah and that where his genealogy is listed – right after the narrative of the Tower of Babel – is also surprisingly significant. Thinking about genealogy – or, more precisely, the overlapping of the biblical generations – it seems rather perplexing how it could be that while Noah and his sons still lived people could “lose sight,” so to speak, of the Oneness of Hashem. They were still aware of Hashem, but they didn’t understand how to connect with Him. This led to both the avodah zara by which Terach made his money (one might even hypothesize that people over-complicated just talking to Hashem and thus created the distance) and the desire of Nimrod to lead the people to build the tower. 

Migdal Bavel is an interesting narrative in that it is a collective story. No one person is given focus, and the actions are detailed in a plural format. Indeed, some commentaries say that the people joined into the project of building the tower because it was promoted as a project of unity. 

These events happened in the lifetime of Avraham, when he was in his 40s according to Midrashic calculation, although we would only know this from careful study of the genealogy that follows. The question naturally seems to follow: How did Avraham react to this call for all people to come together and build a great city and incredible tower?

According to the Pirkei D’Midrash Eliezer, “Avram, son of Terah, passed by, and saw them building the city and the tower, and he cursed them in the name of his God, as it is said, ‘Swallow up, O Lord, divide their language’ (Ps. 55:10). But they rejected his words, like a stone cast upon the ground…” (24:7). 

Obviously, this curse reflects the storyline of the consequence laid down by Hashem, but the Midrash also highlights the fact that Avraham was already a person of enough consequence to feel it worthwhile to speak up. (It should be noted that other Midrashim/commentaries say he condemned their actions only later, when he heard of it. The Ibn Ezra actually comments that he was part of the building at the beginning.)

Obviously, it is not surprising to us that Avraham stood apart and condemned this act once he realized the true purpose of the building project. What is fascinating, however, is how we can relate to what Avraham experienced even today.

The building of Migdal Bavel seemed to be a project of unity: “And they said, “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world” (Bereishis 11:4). However, an idea such as was proposed is not often spontaneously generated by a group. It comes from a source who shares that idea with many. In this case, the generator of the idea was Nimrod, whose very name stems from marad, rebellion, and who is described as charismatic but vastly power-hungry leader.

But, one could say, what could be negative about building and protecting oneself? In this one pasuk, we can see the beautiful arc of rhetoric that would eventually come to be known as propaganda. Firstly, there is the “Bandwagon,” the method of making people feel that they need to get on board with everyone else. Then there is “Camaraderie,” making people feel as part of the whole. Then we see the beautiful subversion of the underlying problem (in this case “making a name for ourselves – which belies a concept of unity) by the rhetorical trick of “fear” – lest we be scattered. 

Avraham saw through the words and stood outside of the rest of the people. 

In the last few years, since the evolution of social media, our world has been swept up in a constant torrent of propaganda. This, as we know, has been particularly potent among the young people. The most powerful of these, as we have seen, has been the anti-Israel movement and the propagation of the Israel as oppressor narrative by university educators. They have taken words and pieces of history and twisted them at the behest of forces that they do not understand. We have seen, over the last two years, the people protesting for Gaza and Hamas who wouldn’t survive a week living in Gaza because their core values are so antithetical to Hamas. We have seen how easily young people have taken up chants and slogans that they barely even understand. And once they have accepted that Israel is bad, they have spread that sentiment to classic anti-Semitism… 

It has become obvious that so much of what has gone on in the west is because people are desperate to join in a movement that makes them feel like they are doing something good, but they are missing the underlying goal, which is far more than the destruction of Israel. 

Like our forefather, we stand on the side and watch as language that seems to be the same language we are speaking is taken and twisted. We watch as the media, with a few deliberate modifiers, shifts the narrative. Language has once again become a tool for evil, and we are standing on the side wondering how they can twist language in such a harmful way. 

There is no great take away, nothing we can learn as to how to change the world we are in right now other than to remain steadfast in the path set by our forefather. Like Avraham, we must look past what “everybody” does, and we must constantly work on building our relationship with Hashem. 

Parsha Noah: In an Era of Safa

 Parshas Noah: In an Era of Safa

Let’s be honest. Many of us are looking to the week ahead and wondering what will be. As I write this Dvar Torah at midnight on Erev Shabbas Rosh Chodesh MarCheshvan, the headlines are filled with discussions of Iran’s threats of imminent attack and no one can even make sense of the political headlines on the eve of the US elections. Thank goodness Hashem runs the world as we mere mortals are truly on the wrong track.

 

Interestingly, we might be on the same wrong track as one described in this week’s parsha - the Dor Haflaga, the generation of the Tower of Bavel. It is a narrative we all know. The world’s population gathered together and built a tower with the intention of fighting Hashem. They believed that they had no need for Hashem. If we look back twenty years or so ago, many people in the west possibly felt same way. Certainly, there were problems, global hot spots or revolutions, but with the dissolution of the Cold War, most nations felt more connected than ever. The internet’s pervasiveness crossed and broke boundaries; it brought people together. Technology would shape our lives.

 

When we talk about language in a Torah context, most of us think of lashon, which is also the word for the tongue. It’s how we form words internally. Our inner voice is the voice of our souls. But Bereishis 11 does not talk about lashon. It talks about safa, the language of the lips.

 

Safa is an external language. Safa is the language of the internet. Safa is the language spoken because that’s what everyone else is saying. It’s how politics devolved into hyperbole and soundbytes and name calling, because it became more important to sound like part of the herd then to stand out.

 

The Dor Haflaga was noted as being unified, and one might argue that today’s society is divided rather than unified – is unable to build because it is shaking its own foundations. But this question is addressed in an interesting Kli Yakar on Bereishis 11:1:

 

“For when the wicked gather together, they think among themselves of wicked plans against others. On top of this, fights, disagreements, and hatred break out among them. And this is the law of jealousy (alluding to Numbers 5:29) that is found among groups, all the actions of which are not for the sake of the Heavens, but rather to make a name for themselves in the world (referring to Genesis 11:4). And the main reason for this is that, since each one has his own personal motive, their hearts are divided against each other. For this one will desire money and glory, that one much food, the other much sex, and still another one will say, "Let's make a name for ourselves," and wants to be the highest of the high. Because of this, a fight develops. Either it is from not having one goal, given that there are many evil paths, whereas there is only one good path. Or it is from each one wanting and desiring to be more important and higher than the others. And is this trait not found in most of our people? Hence the dispersion of these groups is better than their assembly…”

We see this today. The language of protest is used to promote harrassment. The language of justice is used to promote hate. Our world is so much larger than the world of the Dor Haflaga. (After all, we aren’t the regeneration of human life after a world-washing flood.) Therefore, it is harder to recognize how unified the language of the world is. But it has been pointed out, far too many times lately, that both “the right” and “the left” have seen a dramatic rise in unveiled anti-Semitism. They are two sides of the same coin.

 

The Dor Haflaga lived in a time when Hashem’s presence was almost physical (Hashem is described as walking through Gan Eden, Noah is described as walking with Hashem). That was many eras ago, before Hashem pulled Himself back and before Hashem designated one nation to represent Him amongst all the others. The Dor Haflaga used their safa to build a tower to attack Hashem, the upcoming generation in western society – in their need to be seen as heroic, each as a “good” person – are using their safa to slander and demoralize Klal Yisrael, that one nation.

 

The Dor Haflaga recognized the existence of Hashem but resisted the idea of being under control. Today’s generation does not believe in Hashem, in the active force of God in the world. But, the Jewish people know differently.

 

Everything that has occurred over the last fateful year makes it almost impossible not to see Hashem’s hand in the world. Hashem is blindfolding an entire generation so that they appear unable to see true evil when it is before them, and Hashem is doing this, perhaps, so that Klal Yisrael will have their own eyes opened and will step away from the other nations and closer to Him before He knocks down their figurative tower.

 

With this in mind, as the week bears down on us, let us pray not for the right outcome – since what ever outcome occurs is right, is per Hashem’s intentions – but rather, let us daven the Klal Yisrael be given the strength to stay strong and see truth.

 

I wish you all a beautiful Shabbas

Did Noah Drink Alone

 Jewish tradition contains a great deal of ceremony that includes drinking a cup of wine. There is Kiddush at the Shabbas meals, and Yom Tov meals as well…Not to mention four cups of wine at the Pesach Seder. There’s wine drunk under the chuppah, and even wine given to the babe at the bris (to sooth him and numb him from the pain to come). And there is often a great deal of wine on Purim and Simchas Torah. And yet, on the whole, Jews are not known as a drunken people, perhaps because at each of these occasions at which wine is drunk, one is meant to be sharing time with others.

The first mention of wine in the Torah comes in Bereishis 9, in Parshas Noah. After the world has been destroyed and Hashem has made the covenant of the rainbow with Noah, the Torah states: “And Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard” (9:20). Most commentaries immediately flag the fact that planting a vineyard was what Noah chose as his very first action. One would think that he would first plant food. Noah planted a vineyard and immediately the Torah tells us that he drank and got drunk and embarrassed himself. His son, Ham, derided him while his other two sons, Shem and Yafes, tried to treat him respectfully. When Noah woke from his wine induced slumber, probably with a fearsome hangover, he cursed  son Canaan.

This famous story, when looked at a little closer, leads to some rather fascinating realizations about how we read the Torah. Telling time in the Torah is not always a simple thing, to say the least. With its string of conjunction vav’s, and…and…and…, it often sounds as if one thing happened right after another, and they are therefore related. Certainly, one reading the narrative of Noah imagines it all happening as consecutive action. Noah and sons get out of the Ark, build an altar for an offering, receive Hashem’s blessing and covenant, and set to farming the land and plant a vinyard. There is no mention of a passage of time, which makes Noah’s taking to drink seem all the more unacceptable.

But then there’s Canaan. When Noah gets drunk and goes “uncovered in his tent” (9:21), the Torah tells us: “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness” (9:22). After Noah awakens, he doesn’t curse Ham, but rather Ham’s son Canaan. Not surprisingly, given the pacing of the Parsha, most people don’t stop to question where Canaan came from. After all, it is stated quite clearly that only Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives got onto the Ark. The subtly active role of Canaan in these verses tell us that Noah did not just hop out of the Ark and think about getting drunk.

Given the fact that the Midrash states that Noah and his sons and Noah’s wife and his sons’ wives kept themselves apart while the flood ravaged the land, we can assess that Canaan was not even conceived until after the catastrophe. But then, if Noah turned to farming so soon after the covenant of the rainbow, how old could Ham have been at the time of Noah’s drunkenness? Researching grapes, one finds that there is a common assessment that it takes from 3-7 years for a grapevine to bear fruit. Once we are realizing that these situations did not take place with the immediacy that is implied in the pacing of the verses, one can now recognize that by the time Ham insulted his father’s dignity, Canaan was already a child old enough to be influenced by the actions of those around him…if not already a young adult.

This leads to a basic question of why Noah sought to get drunk. One might have thought that Noah was drinking as a means to forget the destruction of the world that he knew, but now we know that a significant amount of time has passed. Life is moving forward and there is a whole world to rebuild…a whole world for his sons and their wives and his grandchildren. Noah, who was a unique and special man from among his generation, finds himself on the other side of life and perhaps doesn’t know what to do with himself. This is would also, possibly, explain why some commentaries accentuate the idea that Noah wanted to have a fourth child and was prevented from doing so by the actions of Ham. That fourth child would have brought him relevance among the next generation.

Planting the vineyard would not, in itself, seem to be a problem. One can assume that they all drank some wine. Archeological and historical studies have found that wine or beer was often the more common drink than water. The problem was that Noah drank to excess, and did so, perhaps, purposefully because he no longer felt a purpose. The problem was that Noah did not feel connected to the world his sons were building. Shem and Yafet could show such a perspective sympathy. Ham could not.

Understanding the motivations of the Biblical personalities helps us to understand deeper lessons in the Torah. Here, where it is easy to take an attitude of condescension to Noah for his behavior, perhaps one should also take the time to think about his motivations. Perhaps one needs to contemplate Noah’s life before, during, and after the flood. Perhaps one needs to not glance quickly at the situation and presume a failing, but rather think through the steps that brings a person to a place.  In learning to do so, we come back to the beautiful truth at the heart of Jewish life: we are a family and we are meant to be there for each other.  

Shabbat Shalom

 

Sons of the Mighty and Their Wives

 Parshas Bereishis, in the beginning… so many times our Divrei Torah start in the beginning of the parsha. For this reason, I decided to base the parsha this week on the last perek of the parsha, Perek Vav (6), of which only 8 pasukim (verses) are included.

Parshas Bereishis is the outline of the creation of the world and the history of the origins of humanity. Adam and Chava begat their sons, and their sons begat other children, and the population of the world increased, just as Hashem had commanded and blessed when He said peru u’revu – be fruitful and multiply.

The sixth chapter of Bereishis begins with statement of time: “And it was when man began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them” (Bereishis 6:1). This pasuk has two very interesting dimensions to explore. The first question is the use of the word rov, multiply, which has the implication not just of increasing numbers but also of strength or greatness. It was not just that there were now so many people, but rather that they began to delineate greatness among themselves. Thus it makes sense when the commentators explain that the bnei eh’lohim described in the next verse in contrast to bnei ha’adam refers to the sons of princes or men of power rather than to a more literal “sons of god.”

Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsh explains the opinion that these b’nei eh’lohim were the descendants of Seth, Adam’s son born after the death of Hevel at Kayin’s hands. In Seth’s line, “the godly, even if not strong enough to effect the complete salvation of the generation, did always recur.” When the Torah describes those who had grown mighty, it is relating to an elite that had a greater affinity to connecting to the Divine, as opposed to the descendants of Kayin who worked toward invention and industry but without looking for Divine purpose.

The second half of the first verse is more perplexing. Why is the time frame defined by the time when daughters were born to them? After all, throughout the list of begettings (Chapter 5), it frequently states “and he begot sons and daughters.” Not to mention that if there hadn’t been daughters, there would not be begettings…

Perhaps the daughters mentioned here are the daughters of those who were growing in greatness, the daughters of the line Seth specifically. This would give us an interesting perspective on verse 6:2, which states: “And the sons of the mighty saw the daughters of men, that they were good and pleasing, and they took them for wives from whomsoever they chose.” As all the commentators seem to agree, the sons of the mighty put beauty and pleasing ways at the forefront of their decision making, and they found that in the line of Kayin rather than in those who were more spiritually focused. Perhaps there is an inference in these two verses together that not only were the sons of the elite choosing wives from those who were less focused on spirituality, but that they were ignoring women of caliber from their own extensive line.

This may sound elitist, but that is not the intention. A girl from b’nei ha’adam could be one who strove to connect with the Divine and thus would be a good match. The intention of this severe demarcation is noting that the priority was on their being good and pleasing, but not on their background, not on the possibility of having absorbed negative traits. Rav Hirsch explains further, when discussing the verse’s statement that they took from whomsoever they chose, that “They married girls without considering where they were taking them from.”

Family matters. Thus Rav Hirsh continues to explain that it was not an impossibility for such a union to produce a line that was spiritually forward thinking, but that it held great risk. That risk came to fruition, for corruption increased upon the earth. The Midrashim describe that the violence referred to in Parshas Noah included men grabbing women they desired to marry, even women who were already married. The value system skewed, and it ended in the near destruction of the world.

Jewish tradition teaches us that all humans are b’tzelem E-lokim, created in the image of God. The people of the world are divided into 70 nations, and each of these nations has a derech, a path, and a tafkid, a purpose. Bnei Yisrael is distinct among the nations in that our purpose is spiritual connection, and here in Bereishis is a lesson to help us remember to focus on our values and not the values of others.

Parshas Noah - Language

Have you ever noticed that certain biblical narratives gain more notoriety than others? For instance, the story of the Tower of Babel has entered common culture not only as a story but with a whole level of understanding distinct unto itself. To Babble is to talk rapidly or meaninglessly, and Babbel. com is a language learning program. For all that the narrative of Migdal Bavel, as it is called in Hebrew, has gripped our imaginations, most people do not realize that it is a mere 9 verses in the Torah (Bereishis 11:1-9). Those few verses, however, are rich with subtext. 

It is a common concept within Divrei Torah to talk about the generation of Bavel and compare it to the destroyed generation of Noah and comment on how this demonstrates that Hashem is far less worried about humankind insulting or fighting against Him than He is about humanity destroying each other. The generation of Noah was destroyed because they had managed to create a world of total chamas, violence – defined by the sages as a world of selfish grabbing whatever they wanted. The generation of Bavel, on the other hand, worked together and was, therefore, spared destruction. 

Let us divert a moment to speak about the concept of unity. Unity is a very important concept in Judaism, and we are inundated with messages about the importance of Jewish unity (although it is a goal we still struggle to achieve). Even as we long for a time when Klal Yisrael will be united, to the time of Moshiach, we do not discuss it as an era where all of humanity will be united except for in one thing, which is the innate knowledge that Hashem is the King of Kings. 

But unity was not what was expected of these immediate descendants of Noah’s sons. The Dor Haflaga, the generation that was scattered (meaning bavel), was not meant to be a steadfast settlement of people who stayed together. Rather, they were meant to fulfill the blessing/command the Hashem gave to Noah and his three sons when they returned to land: “Be fertile and increase, abound on the earth and increase on it” (Bereishis 9:7).

The fourth verse of the narrative relays: “And they said, ‘Come, let us build us a city, a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered over the world” (11:4). On this verse, the Rashbam* points out: “…their principal sin was in not fulfilling G’d’s basic directive to be fruitful, to multiply, and to populate the whole earth, not just a small valley. Their declared objective had been not to scatter (verse 4). The fact that G’d forcefully scattered them afterwards shows that their sin must have been their failure to do so voluntarily” (translation on Sefaria.org).

If God wanted them to spread out, to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the earth, why did they fear being scattered? Why did they desire walls to keep themselves together if already Hashem has promised that “The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand” (9:2) – that the natural world would be easily ruled by humankind. Whom did they fear if everyone on earth was unified in their actions, as is implied in the verse: “Everyone on earth had the same language and the same words… and they said to one another…” (11:1,3)”? The Netziv** notes in Haamek Davar, “And it is understood that this [their fear of being scattered] was related to the uniformity that was among them. And since the opinions of people are not identical, they feared that people might abandon this philosophy and adopt another. Therefore, they sought to ensure that no one would leave their society” (sefaria translation). 

It is interesting to note that while we think of the narrative of Migdal Bavel being the first place to mention language, this is not so.  Bereishis 10, which is a list of genealogy, discusses languages three times. Each time noting the descendants of the sons of Noah and how they became specific clans and languages. The word for language used in Bereishis 10, however, is lashon, associated with tongue. The word for language in Bereishis 11 is safa, associated with lips. “Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler*** explains the difference between these two terms as follows: One’s ‘lip’ is an external feature of his body, while one’s ‘tongue’ is an internal feature. Consequently, one can only refer to a language as a lashon (‘tongue’) when its speakers embody the inner meaning of that language. By contrast, a language can be called a safa (‘lip’) when its speakers embody only the technical, external features of the language, but not its core values” (taken from Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, “Speaking in Tongues” ohr.edu, December 23, 2017). 

Here what I say may be radical, but perhaps now we can understand why Hashem saw the need to knock down, so to speak, their tower. Hashem saw, perhaps that they were all speaking to each other in the plural tense – “Let us build a city and a tower… let us make a name for ourselves,” but Hashem knew that in their hearts each one was striving to rule the other. (Certainly, this fits in with the personality of Nimrod, whom the Midrash tell us was the leader). Following the idea that Hashem could understand that their seemingly plural-unified language was false was perhaps why Hashem, the One God, used the same syntax to announce His plan. “Let us then, go down and confound their speech” (11:7). He was revealing to us that He understood the true meaning of their words. 

Hashem destroyed their collaboration because He understood that each man involved (and numerous commentaries suggest that there were specifically 70 as in the 70 nations of the world) were determined to set themselves up as “a name.” They each thought that they could take over as the diety, for it is generally understood that their building of the tower was with the aim of supplanting the angels and overthrowing Hashem. The idea that a human could think of themselves as Divine seems ludicrous only to those ignorant of history. 

Today, our power struggles are far less overt. However, the lessons remain the same. We live in an era where we truly war with and on words. Right now, in the 2020s, we have become experts at manipulating language, but the language that we share is most often safa, that which is meant only externally rather than revealing our lashon, the language of our honest, most spiritually connect selves. If we wish to rebuild a world we find broken by safa, we must learn to speak with our lashon. 

This week’s Dvar Torah is dedicated to a refuah shelaima for Dovid Chaim Hacohen ben Tzipora.  

*Rashbam: Rabbi Samuel ben Mair (1085-1158)       ** Netziv: Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (1816-1893) ***Rabbi Dessler – Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892-1953)

What Clean Means (Noah #3)

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.

Not Too Earthy (Noach #2)

Parshas Noach’s famous narrative is, obviously, the great flood that destroyed the world. As detailed as the narrative is (look at the measurements of the ark and the specification of the numbers of the animals), there are quite a number of pieces to the story that beg for questions. For instance, what actually was so special about Noach? Sure the text says straight out that he was a righteous man in his generation and a man who walked with God, but, to be honest, that doesn’t really give us much insight into what Noach did to be considered righteous and to walk with God. Another interesting question is why a flood? Being perfectly frank, couldn’t God have just clapped his anthropomorphic hands and made everything disappear?

Have you ever noticed that parshas Noach actually begins in parshas Bereishis? The text read for parshas Noach begins with the ninth pasuk of the sixth perek. Perhaps the sages divided it this way to encourage us to look backwards and gain a deeper understanding.

When studying the parshiot, it is very easy to gloss over the long, somewhat repetitive-feeling family trees. Father-son-father’s death, father-son-father’s death … repeat and repeat. Between the begetting and the begats (and of course the truly exciting parts of parshas Bereishis – creation, Adam and Chava, Cain and Hevel), the final portion of parshas Bereishis is easy to miss. And yet Noach’s birth actually has more written about it than just that he was begot: “When Lemach had lived 182 years, he begat a son. And he named him Noach, saying, ‘This one will provide us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands, out of the very soil which Hashem placed under a curse'” (Bereishis 5:28-29). It then states, after recounting Lemach’s years and death, that “when Noach lived 500 years, Noach begat Shem, Cham, and Yafet” (5:32).

Noach was born with a mission, at least according to his father. One could infer from this that Noach held himself aloof from his fellows because he believed that he could be more, that he could make a difference. Indeed, there is a very interesting commentary about the fact that all of the other fathers listed before him named one son and then it is written about them that they “begat sons and daughters.” Noach appears to have only had his three sons. Don Yitzchak Abarbanel says: “Had Noach been given many sons he would have been unable to keep a watchful eye on them so that they don’t mix with their contemporaries and emulate their corrupt ways. He would be unable to raise them in the discipline of self-restraint that was necessary in order to offset the indulgences of that generation.” 

But there is, perhaps, even more one can glean from Lemach’s statement upon naming his son Noach. The populace of the earth, the descendants of Adam and Chava, were struggling. They felt, on a daily basis, the traumatic effects of Adam’s curse. “Cursed be the ground because of you; By toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you. But your food shall be the grasses of the field; By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground— For from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return” (Bereishis 3:17-19).

Taking a step back, let us remember that Adam was created from the adama, the earth, and given a Divine spirit with the breath of God. According to tradition, until he ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad, his physical and spiritual sides cohabitated perfectly, so to speak. Once Adam and Chava ate from that fruit, their spiritual side was, one might say, suppressed by their physical side. Perhaps this was why Hashem punished Adam by cursing the earth, because now that the physical was his dominant aspect, Hashem did not want to make it too easy for Adam to allow his more natural – perhaps more animalistic – side to conquer his being all together.

Living in the wake of this punishment was difficult, and we can’t really imagine how difficult. One could speculate that perhaps the corruption of humankind was a result of “cursed be the ground because of you.” It was too hard. Life was too completely physical with its toil. Perhaps they lost any spiritual/moral compass because their spiritual side was suppressed and their physical side was disconnected and at odds with its source (the earth).

This is the significance of the flood. As noted in many places, water is often connected, metaphysically, to Torah, which is the apex of spiritual power in the world. God sent the rain…so much rain that the whole world flooded. What happens during the flood? The topsoil was washed away. The adama, the land, cursed by Hashem was cleansed by its immersion in Heavenly water. In washing away the effects of the trauma of Adam, Hashem preserved the one man and his family whom he knew could survive the transformation of the world because this was the relief he had been striving toward his whole life. This was the goal he had taught his sons and trained them to seek.

When Lemach named his son, his words were like a prayer. He knew that this son would be part of a generation that would not have seen Adam, not have been affected by understanding what they had lost. More than that, as the commentator Chizkuni points out: “Seeing that he had been born after the death of Adam, the curse decreed on earth as being effective during Adam’s lifetime could now be lifted.”

Many people assume that Noach’s name refers to comfort. However the Malbim points out that it can also be connected to the root of the verb for changing a mindset (one’s own or that of another). “The general concept of nechamah as a change of attitude is the clue to Lemach’s prayer … Lemach hoped and foresaw that his son Noach would work to inspire mankind – mired as they were into emptiness and depravity ten generations after the Creation – to turn their actions around. Lemach prayed that Noach would reverse the curse of the ground, a curse which resulted from the deterioration of people’s behavior.”

The words of Lemach at the birth of his son add a wealth of insight into our understanding of Noach. Noach’s father seems to have raised him to be less physically rooted than his peers, allowing his spiritual side a little more space. This freedom for his soul was, perhaps, the reason that he could “walk with God,” and that characteristic offered God the opportunity to “wash the earth,” for he knew that from Noach there might come the people who could bring back the equilibrium of body and soul.

Humans, Not Animals (Noah)

The generation into which Noah was born was a generation of corruption. Throughout rabbinic literature and Biblical commentary, one can find discussions of what it means that the people had become corrupted. They stole from each other. They took each others’ spouses. They were violent in their dealings. But one of the most interesting Midrashim is one that explains that God decided to wipe out ALL flesh (kol basar, not just all of humankind) because man’s behavior had begun to corrupt the behavior of other species. I am not going to explore the details of what behavior this midrash is inferring, but it goes along the lines of interspecies cohabitation and such.

So how could humankind have such an influence over animal-kind. How did man corrupt beast? The fact is that we do not (and perhaps cannot) understand humankind’s relationship with animals before the flood. In one particularly interesting set of verses in parshat Bereishis, Hashem determines that “it is not good for Adam to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him” (2:18). Hashem then brings all of the animals to man “to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that would be its name...but for Adam no fitting helper was found” (Bereishis 2:19).

According to one Midrash, Adam lived closely with the animals, which is why he was able to name them. Only when it was obvious that Adam was different from all the rest did Hashem create the division of Adam and Chava, so that now they were a pair. And while God gave them dominion over the land and the animals (“Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth” - 1:28), perhaps they were still closer in nature to the other creations. Indeed, perhaps this is why they could communicate with the snake.

There are lots of current discussions about what separates humankind from animal-kind, and the list of abilities often include speech and reason and discourse. Speech and reasoning and discourse...is it possible that these distinctions were the result of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad?

Perhaps the generations just before the flood could have such influence over the animal kingdom because they did not distinguish themselves from them. After the flood, however, Hashem gives Noah and his family a new understanding of their relationship with the animals they had just preserved: “The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky – everything with which the earth is astir– and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand. Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these” (9:2-3).

It is very hard for us, today, to understand both how Adam could have named the animals and how the animals could have been corrupted by a generation (and, one could add, how Noah and his family dwelt in a boat with all of the animals). Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsh points out that herein: “the attachment between man and animal is broken. Animals fear man, he is no longer their guiding master. Man has unlearnt [sic] to understand animals and they keep fearfully away from him.” He later adds, “the bond between humankind and the animal world is torn, and humankind is primarily directed to work on itself and for itself.”

These ideas are particularly fascinating in the 21^st century, in a world where people might have …an emotional support squirrel? PETA? Equivocating animal rights to the Holocaust and perceiving animals to be no different than humans? If world history is an arc, with the end being the coming of Moshiach, and we are in the final centuries before the messianic era, than perhaps there is a reason that people are once again blurring their understanding of the difference of humankind (made in the image of God) and animal-kind.