The Epitome of Evil – Noach
We live in troubled times. Natural disasters occurring all over the world, a global pandemic of COVID-19 and all its variants, unstable, crumbling governments and world orders, an increase in radicalism, economic uncertainty…….
What if I told you there was one place on earth you could go, where the air is so pristine it will cure you of all your ailments and allow you to live to a ripe old age in good health; where there is such fertile land and abundance that you will never go hungry; where the climate is perfectly moderate, never too hot nor too cold; where no illness or disease exists; no dangerous animals, reptiles, insects, bugs of any kind.
How much would you pay for real estate in a place like that? 1 million dollars? 10 million? It sounds too good to be true, right? Read on.
Parshat Noach is such a “nice” story that we teach our kids in kindergarten, right? Wrong! Noach is actually a terrifying story and certainly not one you should be telling children. There are many questions regarding the story of Noach –
In this shiur I will attempt to answer these questions from Midrashei Chazal and the other perushim and tell you the true story about Noach!
After Adam Harishon sinned, the earth was cursed and every time someone sowed they reaped thorns and thistles - until Noach was born.
Noach was the first person to be born מהול since Adam and as the passuk says –
אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו אֶת הָאֱ-לֹקִים הִתְהַלֶּךְ נֹחַ (בראשית ו, ט).
Noach was a tzaddik and in his merit the curse was lifted (as his father Lemech prophesied when Noach was born, in last week’s parsha) –
וַיִּקְרָא אֶת שְׁמוֹ נֹחַ לֵאמֹר זֶה יְנַחֲמֵנוּ מִמַּעֲשֵׂנוּ וּמֵעִצְּבוֹן יָדֵינוּ מִן הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר אֵרְרָהּ ה' (בראשית ה, כט).
The “eutopian” world I was describing at the beginning of the shiur – that is the world that existed in the time of Noach.
When Noach was born HKB”H transformed the world into a paradise. The air was so clear and invigorating that nobody ever became sick. Everyone lived to a ripe old age – 600 years, 900 years. Back then if you were only 200 years old you were “wet behind the ears”. The land became so fertile that each time you sowed it produced such plentiful crops that they lasted for 40 years (Noach is credited with inventing the plow). The climate was perfect, no extremes in weather, like בין פסח לעצרת the whole year round. This was the “eutopian” world in the time of Noach.
How did mankind repay HKB”H for all these blessings and abundance? Instead of thanking HKB”H and living according to His laws, they rebelled and became the most evil society ever to inhabit our planet.
What exactly made דור המבול so evil?
וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס (בראשית ו, יא).
Chazal tell us in the Midrash that דור המבול sinned in two areas – עריות and גזל - and they go into detail.
דור המבול were the first to “experiment” with genetic engineering. They would mate humans with animals and animals with other animals not of their species. Animals have no יצר הרע and would never have stooped to such a level on their own if the people had not forced them to do so.
Simply experimenting however was not enough - they institutionalized it. The institution of marriage between man and woman was no longer sacred. They legalized marriage between people of the same gender, between humans and animals. They legalized incestuous and adulterous relations within families and with other peoples’ spouses. Anyone could sleep with whoever (or whatever) they wanted, whenever they wanted - and they flaunted it without shame!
They perverted nature to such a degree that the animal kingdom and the even the plant kingdom became so jumbled that dogs would mate with wolves, chickens with peacocks, snakes with birds. When they planted barley, it grew as cucumbers - the entire natural order created by Hashem was muddled.
But it was not because of עריות that HKB”H ultimately decided to destroy the world - it was חמס, or גזל, that was the last straw. Not only would people steal other people’s wives, they also indulged in monetary גזל, but in an insidious way. They would steal things in an amount that was below the minimum to warrant court proceedings. For example, if a merchant set up his stall selling beans, the people would come and each steal one bean– only one bean! But after a thousand people, each taking one bean, there were no beans left. The merchant had no legal recourse. If the authorities confronted the thief he would say “What did I take? one bean!” This is the way their society was run, that nobody truly owned anything, it was all stolen from their neighbors.
Along comes Noach, the only tzaddik in the entire generation and Hashem decides to give these wayward, evil people one last chance. He tells Noach to build a תיבה. It takes Noach 120 years to build this תיבה, not because that is how long it takes to physically build it (there is a machloket in Chazal how long the actual building took – 5 years or 52 years), but because Noach had to grow the cedar trees himself for the wood to build it, because all the existing cedar trees were being grown and used for עבודה זרה.
120 years! People passing by would see Noach building this enormous structure (which began to overflow onto the neighbor’s driveway and interfere with the morning paper delivery) and they would ask – “What is this?” Noach would then tell them that it is a תיבה and that Hashem is going to destroy the world and only those who repent and follow Hashem’s commandments will be allowed on the תיבה and be saved. In 120 years not one single person did tshuva! Quite the opposite, they ridiculed and threatened Noach, accusing him of using cedar trees for a purpose other than עבודה זרה. Hashem who is רחום וחנון gave them 120 years to mend their ways, but they laughed at Him!
Why did HKB”H decide to bring a flood? Why not an earthquake, a tornado, a solar flare? An even bigger question – why destroy the entire generation? Later on in דור הפלגה, the generation also rebelled directly against Hashem, they declared war on Him - and yet HKB”H did not destroy them, He simply dispersed them and jumbled up their languages.
Chazal say that דור הפלגה was not destroyed because they were united and HKB”H loves unity, even if it is put to bad use. But דור המבול had no unity. They were all stealing each other’s wives and possessions, so even this one “protection” was lacking.
The reason for destroying them with water is because water is the source of עריות and גזל. HaRav Chaim Vital in his sefer Sha’arei Kedusha says that the world is made from 4 basic elements- ארמ"ע, in other words אש, רוח, מים, עפר. Similarly, the temperament of a person is made from these same 4 elements. The element אש is attributed with temper and anger, רוח makes a person more spiritual, עפר is attributed with laziness and מים is the source of all תענוגים. Think about hotels. A huge chunk of them are located next to water – the beach, swimming pool, etc. because pleasure is associated with water. There is little difference between עריות and גזל – one is stealing a man’s wife and the other is stealing his money and one eventually leads to the other.
HKB”H punishes מידה כנגד מידה, and since the דור המבול sinned with מים, Hashem punished them with a flood. According to Chazal, the first 7 days it was only light rain (some say mixed with snow). Again, HKB”H was giving mankind one last chance to repent, but instead they all came out and built snowmen and laughed. This is when the full power of the מבול was unleashed, after the first week. It was not simply rain – it was rain heated in the furnaces of גיהנום. It rained boiling water and everything on the face of the earth got cooked until a depth of 3 tefachim. The world was “sterilized” from all the perversion and השחתה by boiling. Only the water surrounding the תיבה remained cool and the water close to the sea bed, where the fish swam to and were saved (the fish were the only creatures who did not sin).
Let’s talk a little about the תיבה. Why was it called a תיבה and not an אוניה or a ספינה ? (these words also appear in the Torah).
The first interesting thing to note about the תיבה is that HKB”H is very explicit in His measurements and design - 300 cubits (amot) long, 50 wide, 30 high, where to put a window, the door, how to compartmentalize the whole thing, etc.
When Hashem communicated with Avraham, He was not that explicit – “Lech Lecha 4567km in a West-North-West direction until you get to coordinates 31°N, 35°E”. Or when He told Avraham to sacrifice Yitzchak on a mizbeach – “The mizbeach should be 3 amot long, 2.5 amot wide, 1.5 amot high”. Nada! “Go to the land that I will show you”. “On one of the mountains that I will show you!” Very vague.
There is only one other place in the Torah where HKB”H is expansive about the details – and that is with the Mishkan. Every structure is detailed - the length, width, height, etc. Why so specific? And what would be so terrible if the Shulchan was 3 amot long instead of 2? or if the Menora had 8 candelabra, like a Channukiah instead of 7?
No! It has to be built exactly according to these specifications – because the place that houses HKB”H’s שכינה has to be built properly, according to Divine guidelines.
The Mefarshim say that this was exactly the same with the תיבה. The תיבה was not a boat or a ship, it was a floating Mikdash, it was the location that Hashem’s שכינה resided during the flood.
How did all those animals fit in the תיבה? Tens of thousands of species of birds, mammals, reptiles, etc., where was there place for the food for all those animals? How did the food not spoil for a whole year? How did they cope with the smell?
The Mefarshim say that just like during the period of the Mikdash –
לא הסריח בשר הקדש מעולם,
עומדים צפופים ומשתחוים רווחים,
לא הזיק נחש ועקרב בירושלים מעולם,
לא אמר אדם לחברו צר לי המקום שאלין בירושלים. (אבות ה,ה)
It was the same in the תיבה. It was all a נס that took place in a floating Mikdash, where Hashem’s שכינה rested during the flood.
After the flood, Hashem promises never to destroy the world again and shows Noach a rainbow. Chazal say you should never stare at a rainbow, because it is like looking directly at HKB”H’s שכינה. You should notice it is there, make the bracha –
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֶ-לוֹקֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם זוֹכֵר הַבְּרִית וְנֶאֱמָן בִּבְרִיתוֹ וְקַיָם בְּמַאֲמָרוֹ
and avert your gaze, just like you do not look at the Kohanim when they duchen.
Chazal consider Noach something of a conundrum. Their views are split whether he was really a tzaddik or not and they compare him to Avraham, Moshe and others. Sometimes Noach comes out smelling like roses and other times not.
What is indisputable is that HKB”H selected Noach to re-seed the world. Just like Adam Harishon was born מהול, so was Noach. Just as Adam had three sons (Kayin, Hevel, Shet), so Noach had three sons (Shem, Cham, Yefet). Just like two of Adam’s sons were tzaddikim and one was a rasha, so too with Noach.
If this is the case, he must have been a special person, or Hashem would not have chosen him.
As for comparing him to Moshe, to Avraham, etc. - I think the perush that says that every generation has their leaders and that it is pointless to compare generations – is the right perush. HKB”H selects neshamot to live in this world at specific times because that is their time and they are fulfilling their purpose and can only do so at that specific time. If you took Noach and plonked him in the period of Avraham and the reality of the world at that point, it would not conform to the goal set he was put there to achieve.
Regardless of how Noach ended up - (איש האדמה), compared to his beginnings (את הא-לקים התהלך נח), regardless of whether he rebuked his generation sufficiently or not and all the other criticism many of the Mefarshim throw at him, the bottom line is that HKB”H selected him at that place and time, He had Noach build a Mikdash and His שכינה resided in Noach’s “Mikdash”. We are all descendants of Noach and I think we should be proud of that and leave it at that.
Instead of analyzing Noach’s merits and shortcomings, we would be better occupied analyzing the failings of the דור המבול and making sure we do not repeat them in our time.
If you examine the details of the behavior of that generation above you may wonder “Why is that the epitome of evil?” Subsequently in history there have been periods that to us may seem worse, like Nazi Germany (ימח שמם וזכרם) for example, which may seem to us “much more evil”. The truth of the matter though is that Hashem destroyed the entire world because of the דור המבול, whereas the Nazis (ימח שמם וזכרם) only lost the war and many lived to tell the tale. It is the only time in history that HKB”H has taken the world back to the drawing board and started over from scratch. So if that is the case, then in His eyes the behavior of the דור המבול was worse than Nazi Germany or any other dark period in human history. In His eyes עריות, total perversion of the natural world and to top it all גזל, is the epitomy of evil.
The geneticists of our generation would be wise to heed this, because with all the fooling around with DNA that goes on in this day and age, the question is – “Where do you draw the line?”
The progressive, liberalist movements of our generation would be wise to heed this because with institutionalized legalization of relationships that Hashem has forbidden, when same gender marriages are legal and run of the mill, when a Jew can legally marry a dolphin, the question is - “Where do you draw the line?”
All of us would be wise to heed this every time we go to the supermarket and sample a grape in the produce section, or buy 300g of pistachios but just “nosh” a few cashews from the sack while we are waiting in line. But your honor – it was only one grape! The question is - “Where do you draw the line?”
The similarities in our current society and the דור המבול are terrifying! To us these things may be run of the mill, the norm. To HKB”H they are the epitome of evil, because this is where it begins - with someone marrying a dolphin, legalizing same gender marriages, transgenesis – combining DNA of different species, like a spider and a goat to make parachutes, thousands of people, each tasting only one grape! That is how it begins. How it ends up however is with the world so perverted that there is no remedy, but to erase it and start all over!
Am Yisrael must be the conscience of the world regarding this and first and foremost make sure that these things don’t happen in our midst!
