Parasha: Noach · Aliyah: Second (Gevurah)

ויאמד…בא אל התיבה. G'd said…."enter the ark!." Why did G'd have to repeat here that He had seen that Noach was a righteous man in his generation? G'd may have feared that Noach would misinterpret the command to enter the ark together with all his immediate family. He might have thought a) that every family member would be saved due to his or her individual merit; in that case the Torah should not have addressed the command to build the ark to Noach in the singular; b) he might have thought that his wife, children, and their respective wives were being saved because they had not yet reached the age of accountability. If Noach had thought this he might have been tempted to invite all those of his friends who were young enough to share the ark with him in order to survive. Even if he had not done so on his own initiative, he might have wondered why all these youngsters were doomed to perish.

G'd told Noach once more that He had found only him as a righteous person at that time in order to lay to rest any of the other ideas Noach might have had on the subject. He now understood that any youngster who did not have a righteous father was caught in the sins of his father who was punished to die without issue.

The statement of our sages that Jewish minors have a share in the world to come, whereas Gentile minors do not (Kohelet Rabbah 4,1 and Avot de Rabbi Nathan 36,1), may be based on our verse. In Noach's generation everyone was considered an idolator and it was reasonable to assume that the children would take after their fathers. Noach, on the other hand, took a more optimistic view of the possible development of the minors. G'd therefore had to tell him that he could not save any youngsters barrring his own.

מכל הבהמה הטהורה תקח לך שבעה. "Take with you for yourself seven (pairs) each of the pure mammals." The expression תקח לך has a dual meaning. 1) He should make the effort to secure these animals as his eventual "payment" [expression of his gratitude to G'd for being saved. Ed.]. The words "for your own self" are therefore justified. If not for this verse we might have asked who had given Noach permission to simply kill these animals? After all, Noach had been commanded to keep the species alive, not to slaughter them! Noach would have reasoned that inasmuch as these categories of beasts are urgently needed for man G'd had commanded to take 7 pairs instead of just a single pair. G'd therefore had to indicate to Noach that the greater number was for his own good, not for the general good. Had Noach simply wanted to slaughter these animals and to eat their meat this too would have been in order.

ויעש נח ככל אשר צוהו השם. Noach did in accordance with all that G'd commanded him. Rashi comments that this refers to his entering the ark. If that were the meaning there was no need for the Torah's comment as the Torah spells this out in 7,7 as well as 7,13.

I believe that the Torah meant tell us that Noach did indeed take seven pairs each from all the respective categories of pure mammals and pure birds, although the report in 7,8-7,9 does not mention that seven pairs came to the ark of their own accord.

שנים שנים באו אל נח. They came to Noach in pairs. The Torah points out that these animals came of their own volition; Noach did not have to search for them or catch them. One of the reasons the Torah does not mention seven pairs of pure animals here is that only the number of animals that came to the ark to maintain their species are mentioned here. G'd guided them to the ark and Noach admitted them. The additional animals that served as תשלום, payment, Noach had to provide himself. You find this confirmed in verse 15 when the animals that came to the ark are specifically described as being only pairs.

וימח את כל היקום. He dissolved all life. Not only did all living creatures of the earth (dry land) die, as pointed out in verse 21, but their remains dissolved completely due to the heat of the waters. No trace of them was left. This verse also enables us to understand the comment of Rabbi Ami in Eyruvin 18 on Psalms 139,5: אחור וקדם צרתני, ותשת עלי כפכה, "You have made me before and behind; You lay Your hand upon me." Rabbi Ami understood this to mean that Adam was created at the end of the whole process of creation whereas the word קדם refers to "prior to the curse." Rabbi Ami meant that man disintegrated before the curse, i.e. before all the animals' bodies dissolved. He referred to man dying ahead of the animals during the deluge. Who needed Rabbi Ami to tell us something that the Torah has already spelled out in 7,23? Actually, when you look at verse 21 you notice that the death of the creatures is reported in the reverse order, i.e. first the animals, then the human beings. According to our interpretation there is no contradiction here. Whereas verse 21 discusses the timing of the deaths, verse 23 discusses the dissolution of the remains of the dead creatures. Man's remains dissolved first though he had died last.

ויזכר אלוקים את נח. G'd remembered Noach. The reason the Torah was not content to mention that G'd remembered Noach but added that He remembered all the beasts that were in the ark with him may have been that the animals by themselves already warranted that G'd should remember them.

Another reason is that the Torah includes in that statement that G'd considered all the hard and menial work Noach was subjected to in looking after all the animals under his care. G'd had pity on Noach. The Torah wanted to emphasise that G'd's major concern was Noach and not the animals.

ויעבד אלוקים רוח על הארץ וישבו המים. G'd made a wind pass over the earth and the waters subsided. The Torah here wishes to tell us that G'd had commanded the waters to become tumultuous just as He had commanded the waters during the six days of creation to swarm with fish, etc. Here G'd commanded the waters to conduct themselves with their full power; as a result of that the remains of the creatures which had died disintegrated completely. Had it not been for this fact there would have been no point in verse 24 telling us that the waters swelled on earth for 150 days. After all, the remains of all creatures had already disintegrated previously. Until G'd remembered Noach (our verse) the waters had no reason to act differently than the instructions they had received from G'd.

ויסכדו מעינות תהום. The wells of the deep closed up. The Torah here hints that the waters beneath the earth had risen in proportion to the rain descending from the heavens. These two phenomena go hand in hand. Our verse alludes to this fact by mentioning the withdrawal of the waters beneath the earth as occurring simultaneously with the cessation of the rain from the heavens. We have pointed out previously that these two types of waters complement each other, enabling growth to occur (Taanit 28).

וישובו המים מעל הארץ. The waters retreated from the earth's surface. The waters which had flooded the earth kept retreating towards the oceans. They decreased naturally, starting 150 days after the onset of the deluge.

והמים הלוך וחסור. The waters kept ebbing away. Part of the water retreated whereas part still flooded the earth until the tenth month.

ויהי מקץ ארבעים יום. It was at the end of a period of forty days. How did Noach know when the time had come to safely open the window? Was he not scared the surrounding waters would flood the ark? Perhaps G'd had told him that the deluge would not last longer than twelve months and he had prepared a food supply to last for that period of time.

וישלח את העורב. He sent away the raven. Why did Noach sent away the raven? If it was to examine if the waters had receded sufficiently, why does the Torah not mention this? If the Torah assumed that we could figure this out for ourseleves, why did the Torah mention the reason for Noach sending out the dove? What exactly is the meaning of: "it went to and fro until the water on the earth dried out?" If the meaning is that the raven could not find a place to rest outside the ark and that therefore it kept re-entering the ark and leaving anew, why was there a need to send out a dove altogether? Did not the raven's behaviour indicate that the waters had not yet eased sufficiently? What exactly does the Torah mean by the words עד יבשת המים? Furthermore, did Noach not have sufficient information once he sent out the dove? Why does the Torah not mention that Noach extended his hand to bring the raven back, just as it does in connection with the dove in verse 9?

The entire verse must be understood in light of the aggadah (Sanhedrin 108) that the raven mated while in the ark and that Noach knew about it. This is why he expelled the raven from the ark as soon as he opened its window. This is why the Torah does not mention that the raven was despatched in order to examine the extent to which the waters had receded. The raven was forced to remain outside the ark though it tried to return to it. This situation continued until the waters on the earth had dried out. When Noach wanted to know how far the waters had receded he sent out the dove. He had not been able to find this out from the raven which he had expelled. The dove was willing to undertake the mission of relaying information to Noach. Initially, the dove reported that it had not been able to find a place to rest. As soon as Noach heard this he took the dove back into the ark with him. The detailed wording of verse 9 suggests that Noach made a special place in the ark for the dove. Later on Noach sent out the same dove a second time.

Our sages derived another lesson from the wording of this verse when they stated (Sanhedrin 108) that the raven used an ironclad argument when it accused both G'd and Noach of hating it. It said: "G'd hates me because only a single pair of my species has been allowed into the ark whereas the "pure" birds are represented by seven pairs. You hate me because you endangered me instead of one of the birds of which there are seven pairs." The raven went on to suspect Noach of personal motives in sending it on a mission so that Noach could have relations with its mate. Noach was very angry, telling the raven that since he refrained from having inter-course with is own wife in the ark he most certainly would not dream of mating with a species that was forbidden to him. According to this aggadah the raven refused to undertake the mission Noach wanted to assign to it for fear of its species becoming extinct should anything happen to it outside the ark. As a result, Noach had to send the dove on the mission originally planned for the raven. The raven's very fear and constant circling of the ark told Noach that the waters were still covering most of the earth. What Noach did not know was whether the water level on earth was already substantially lower. He sent out the dove to find out this information.

The deeper meaning of the aggadah depicting the raven's confrontation with Noach can be understood in terms of Psalms 69,27: "For they persecute those whom You have struck." Normally, those who have been persecuted can expect to encounter mercy and pity. The people who persecute Jews in exile heap more suffering on those already in unfortunate circumstances. This was basically the raven's argument against Noach when it said: "is it not enough that Your Master hates me, must you hate me also?" The raven continued: "if you are not motivated by hatred of me, do you have designs on my mate and wish me out of the way?" The raven implied that precisely because Noach was not allowed to have sexual relations with his wife in the ark, he might have reasoned that he could have relations with other species. There is no reason to question why the raven's mate should be different from any other female animal. The raven's argument applied to all female animals, but seeing the others remained under their mates' supervision Noach would not be able to carry out such a design unseen. Only the female raven would be unprotected during its mate's absence from the ark.

The raven may also have extrapolated from the very fact that it had been guilty of mating in the ark. It reasoned that the fact that Noach had seen this take place had aroused his instincts. Our sages have always claimed that watching something arouses one's greed and lust to possess the object one has watched. This is why the sages have been so careful to forbid looking at parts of the body. Noach was angry at the raven for having referred to G'd only as Noach's "Master," not it's own. This is why he called the raven "wicked." Concerning the suspicion that Noach had designs on the raven's mate, Noach retorted that seeing he had been able to restrain himself from sleeping with his own wife, something which was only a simple prohibition, he could certainly restrain himself from sleeping with the raven's mate, something that involved violating two prohibitions.

Another reason that prompted Noach to call the raven "wicked" in that aggadah is that Noach applied the principle כל הפוסל במומו פוסל, that "when someone accuses others of moral shortcomings, he usually accuses the outsider of a moral defect that he himself is guilty of" (Kidushin 70). Noach told the raven it could never have suspected him of what it did unless it was guilty of such misdemeanours itself. The reason the Talmud describes the raven's argument as ניצחת, ironclad, is that Noach could not answer why he had picked for this mission a bird of which there was only a single pair.

Another reason why Noach called the raven wicked could be that seeing it had impregnated its mate already, the species would not die out even if some accident were to befall the male raven on its mission. Its very wickedness therefore had made the raven the only expendable bird.

וישלח ידו ויקחה ויבא אותה אל התבה. He extended his hand, took her (the dove) and brought her to him into the ark. The verse tells us that the dove was exhausted from its mission, not having found a place to land. Noach was worried that the dove did not have strength enough to enter the ark on her own and would fall into the water and drown.