Parasha: Bereshit · Aliyah: Seventh (Malchut)

ויאמר השם לא ידון רוחי. G'd said: "My spirit will not abide in man permanently." This verse needs someone to explain it. Our sages have given numerous explanations to it without explaining the plain meaning of the verse. It appears that the Torah wishes to tell us that a change occurred in G'd's dealing with man. During the lifetime of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, G'd personally had rebuked man for any misdemeanour. When man's deeds became increasingly repulsive to G'd, He decided not to deal with them on such an intimate basis.

The word רוחי in our verse therefore means "My Presence." Man had forfeited the privilege of proximity to G'd's Presence. G'd's Presence withdrew from man in direct proportion to his deeds. As long as G'd had confronted man directly whenever He had reason to rebuke them they were on the spiritual level of prophets. When man began to profane himself (meaning of החל in 6,1), he no longer enjoyed that status. In the course of time outstanding individuals, צדיקים, appeared on earth. These individuals succeeded in restoring a closer relationship between man and G'd. After the destruction of the Temple there were no more prophets; the most that remained were individuals who possessed a degree of what our sages describe as רוח הקודש, a measure of holy spirit. Ever since Israel's eyes closed, we no longer have even ריח הקודש, a holy fragrance, not to mention רוח הקודש. The absence of this line of direct communication from G'd is the greatest misfortune for those of us who thirst for at least a fragrance of the holiness of our Father in heaven in order to revive our spirits. The curse we speak about originated with the generation of the deluge. G'd supplies the reason for this in our verse. בשר בשגם הוא, man added to his abominations by adding the sin of בשר, adultery to his other sins. G'd hates sexual permissiveness more than anything else. As a result G'd resented having to communicate directly with such people.

The characteristic of the righteous is that they refine the body to give it spiritual content. The characteristic of the wicked is that they do the reverse. They degrade the spirit making it the tool of the body. This leads to the destruction of the universe. G'd referred to this when He said: "My spirit will not find satisfaction in them forever more," not even in the world of eternity. This is because they have turned even their spirit into a tool of the flesh. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 108) states that the people who were destroyed by the deluge do not enjoy a life in the Hereafter.

Another way of understanding our verse is based on the use of the term רוחי. Whereas G'd frequently cancels an evil decree due to considerations of His attribute of Mercy, in this case G'd announced that the decree was irrevocable. Normally, G'd applies the attribute of Mercy because He keeps in mind that man is a mixture of flesh and spirit. In this particular case G'd gave notice בשגם הוא בשר, that the decree was final although man is also flesh.

Still another meaning addresses G'd's practice of paying the reward or punishment in the Hereafter, the righteous receiving his share in that world and the wicked descending to Gehinom. In this case, G'd gave notice to the wicked that they would not be judged after death but that since they had tainted their spirit as much as their flesh their spirit would also undergo the afflictions normally reserved only for the flesh. The 120 years G'd speaks about is the period needed to allow the righteous of that generation such as Methuselah to live out their allotted lifespan in full. The Zohar on Genesis 7,22 explained: "all that had a soul of living spirit in its nostrils, of all that were on dry land died," as a reference to the righteous who died on dry land, before the onset of the deluge.

Another message contained in our verse is that henceforth G'd would never again apply the attribute of Mercy exclusively. The verse is introduced with G'd speaking in His capacity of the attribute of Mercy, ויאמר השם. It switches immediately to tell us that His spirit, i.e. that of mercy would not anymore abide in this world completely. G'd attributed part of the corruption in His world to His having exercised too much mercy. He had allowed man to indulge his greed too much. From now on G'd reserved more of His mercy for the Hereafter. As a result of this change of emphasis, even such a righteous man as our patriarch Jacob was not allowed to enjoy the benefits of this world in tranquillity. As soon as Jacob set out to so so, he experienced all the trouble with his favourite son Joseph (compare Rashi on Genesis 37,2).

וירא השם כי רבת רעת האדם, G'd saw that man's wickedness on earth kept increasing. G'd regretted that He had made man on earth. Why was the evil man did connected to "the earth?" The wording of the Torah gives the impression that man perpetrated evil deeds on the body of the earth, whereas their wickedness consisted primarily of violence and sexual perversions as per 6,11-12. While it is justified to describe the theft of land as violence and evil perpetrated on the earth, this is a mere technicality, a minor detail. Why did the Torah not simply say: "G'd regretted having made man," instead of saying that "G'd regretted having made man on earth?" This leads us to believe that if only G'd had made man elsewhere He would not now have had reason to regret it. Surely this is not what the Torah meant to tell us!

How do we understand G'd's "regretting" anything? Did not Bileam describe G'd (Numbers 23,19) as not ever regretting anything! Besides, what is the point of describing G'd as "saddened?" If this feeling had to be mentioned at all, it should have been mentioned after G'd had carried out His revenge on all the rebellious human beings and had wiped them out. The Torah addresses itself to the four elements man is composed of, fire, air, water and dust. These elements differ in importance and value, the lowliest one being dust seeing it is murky, opaque. The next higher category is water, followed by fire, followed by air or spirit which is the highest ranking of these elements. Although all creatures contain all four elements, different elements predominate in different creatures. The fish are made mostly of water, the birds mostly of air; this is why they can fly and hardly need to rest on earth. The salamander is a creature in which the element of fire predominates. Man is the only creature in which the lowest of the element, dust, predominates. The Torah reported G'd as having fashioned man "dust from the earth" (2,7). This accounts for man's primary habitat being earth. Man cannot live permanently either in the air, the water, or in fire. G'd had numerous reasons for arranging things in this way, one of them being the concept of מדרגות וסולם, that the universe consists of different levels and a ladder. In order for man to rise from one level to another it is important that the ladder which is the means for that spiritual ascent be firmly planted on earth.

When G'd observed that man's wickedness kept increasing, He realised that the fact that man was based on the lowest of the four elements was one of the causes. Also, his habitat was on earth which consists largely of the element of dust. This is the meaning of G'd saying that He saw that man's wickedness on earth had increased greatly. This is why G'd "regretted" not having made man primarily of a more refined element. The Torah prefaced G'd's "regret" by stating that man's thoughts were only concerned with evil all day long, and He attributed this to the fact that man was not made predominantly of one of the more refined elements. G'd's "sadness" refers to the impediments that man's raw material posed to his attaining the objectives His Creator had planned for him. This is why the Torah did not say ויתעצב בלבו, but ויתעצב אל לבו. The word אל alludes to the ambitions G'd had harboured for man when He created him G'd did not want to change the ambitions He had entertained for man for reasons best known to Him; this is why He did not redesign man from one of the other three elements but rather allowed almost the whole species to perish in order to persevere with His original plan. Man's corruption did cause a severe setback to G'd's hopes and timetable. While it is perfectly true that the term "He regretted" is not appropriate for the Creator who has foreseen everything, the Torah is entitled to use the term because of the twin attribute of Mercy and Justice that G'd manifests. When man acts in accordance with the wishes of His Creator the attribute of Justice agrees to G'd giving predominance to His attribute of Mercy. When man rebels, the reverse is the case. Our verse describes that the attribute of Mercy preferred that man had never been made instead of agreeing that man should now be judged by the attribute of Justice. G'd was "saddened" as this was not sufficient reason to consider the whole universe as a failure, a wasted effort.

We may also understand the passage in connection with what Maimonides wrote in chapter 5 of his הלכות תשובה. "G'd and His knowledge are one and the same [not like man whose perceptive powers are outside his essence. Ed.]. We are unable to understand this properly, just as we lack comprehension of how G'd can know every detail of the future without such knowledge robbing man of his freedom of decision. All we know as a certainty is that G'd does not interfere with man's free choice. The ראב"ד, with characteristic lack of deference, adds that Maimonides is incorrect, that G'd's perceptions are similar to someone foretelling the future by means of a horoscope. Maimonides is surely closer to the truth as G'd's perceptions cannot be compared to man's. Who would dare suggest that G'd obtains knowledge from outside sources, through trial and error and all the other methods used by us to define the character of what we see, hear, or touch. G'd is able to deny, i.e. totally ignore and remain unaffected by knowledge He had previously acquired. It is this the רמב"ם had in mind when he wrote that man cannot comprehend the manner in which G'd perceives. When Bileam declared (Numbers 23,21) that G'd had not seen any iniquity in Jacob, he referred to exactly this ability of G'd to totally ignore something that He knew was going to occur in the future.

We can therefore say that at the time G'd created man He totally excluded from His conscious mind all and any sins that man would ever commit. He did so for two reasons. 1) G'd is good and does not dwell on evil. This reason does not suffice, however, because G'd needs to know what will happen and what will be the ultimate outcome of what happens now. 2) G'd excludes such future events from His consciousness so that the wicked cannot claim they had been programmed by G'd due to His omniscience, and that therefore they are not culpable for their evil deeds. The wicked believe in what we call "self-fulfilling prophecies," and they consider G'd's foreknowledge as belonging to that category. This concept is part of the verse (1,31): "G'd looked at all He had done and here it was very good." G'd "saw" i.e. foresaw, only what was good, i.e. the deeds of the righteous. Of course you will ask: "if so how could G'd punish someone for a deed that He had not seen?" The Torah tells us that at at this point in time G'd chose to look at the deeds of the wicked; what He saw caused Him to regret that He had for so long ignored these deeds in order that His knowledge would not become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

ויאמר השם אמחה את האדם. G'd said: I will wipe out man. G'd had to repeat here once more that He "regretted" having made man so that we would understand that G'd's regret expressed in the previous verse was not because of man's deeds, but concerned man's creation per se. Had G'd wanted to wipe out mankind only because of their deeds, anyone who had not committed a serious sin would not have been affected by the decree to wipe out man. This would comprise all the people under twenty years of age. If the decree was due to G'd's regret at having made man at all, everybody would be included in the decree. In view of the fact that the Torah tells us through the repeated use of the word נחמתי that every human being was included in the decree, the Torah had to continue immediately and tell us that there was one single exception, namely Noach. The Torah tells us that Noach "found favour in the eyes of G'd," i.e. not on account of his deeds. Once G'd had decided that He "regretted" having made man Noach's good deeds would have had no impact on his fate. He needed an act of grace by G'd to save him. The fact that G'd granted Noach grace does not mean that he did not deserve to survive based on his good deeds. There are certain categories of מצות, good deeds, which secure a person grace in the eyes of G'd. G'd has deliberately refrained from telling us which מצות fall into that category because otherwise everybody would merely concentrate on performing those commandments.