MY RAINBOW I HAVE PLACED IN THE CLOUD, AND IT SHALL BE FOR A SIGN OF A

COVENANT BETWEEN MYSELF AND THE EARTH.

(Bereishit 9:13)

My rainbow I have placed in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of

a covenant between My utterances and the earth.

(Keter Yonatan

Bereishit 9:13)

The sign and its meaning are told us, about that there can be no doubt.

It only remains to consider the connection between the sign and its

signification. This has been attempted in various ways. The sign is a reversed

weapon, a bow with the string towards the earth, so that it would shoot away

from the earth, accordingly a sign of peace, no more arrows from heaven. Its

appearance is that of an arc joining the earth to heaven, accordingly a bond

between heaven and earth. The phenomenon itself is woven from light and water.

In the midst of overcast threatening clouds it announces the presence of light,

is accordingly a reminder that in the midst of God's threatened wrath His preserving

grace is still there. But perhaps still the light of the colors of the rainbow

is in closer relation than all these ideas. By it our attention would

repeatedly be directed to the fact that, in spite of all differences in the

degree of human development, God would never again decree the downfall of the

whole human race, but that its future education to its godly purpose was to be

founded just on these differences and varieties of humanity. For is the rainbow

anything else but the pure complete ray of light, broken up into seven degrees

of seven colors, from the red rays nearest to the light to the violet, most

distant from the light, losing itself into the darkness; and from the one to

the other are they not all rays of light, and combined together, do they not

form the one complete pure white ray?

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch,

Bereishit 9:15, Levy translation)

Noah's "Righteousness" and

Abraham's "Faith"

Efrayim Hamiel

Humanity's corruption reached intolerable

depths and God decided to destroy it and begin anew. Noah, the generation's

lone tzaddik [righteous person] was chosen to father the next stage of

the human race. Twice the Torah describes him as a tzaddik in his generation. Noah

was a righteous man he was perfect in his generations (6:9), and for it is you that I have seen as

a righteous man before Me in this generation (7:1).

The emphasis on Noah's "generation" generated a disagreement amongst

the classical exegetes: No one can remain untouched by the influence of his

generation. Does the fact that Noah was a tzaddik in the context of a generation

so morally corrupt that it deserved extermination improve or degrade his

standing? On the one hand, Noah deserves praise for managing to preserve his

inner divine image and raising himself up above the terrible standards of his

generation. On the other hand, Noah may have been a rather ordinary person

whose relative righteousness only became noticeable against the lurid backdrop

of his corrupt generation. If he had lived in a righteous era, no one would

have taken notice of him. Those who downgrade Noah compare him to Abraham. Regarding

Noah, it is written: Noah walked with God (6:9),

while regarding Abraham it is written: Walk before Me and be perfect (17:1). One who walks before God and

lights the way for all with his deeds and the power of his personality is

greater than one who walks at God's side, being led and activated from outside.

Two facts reflect this difference between Noah and Abraham:

1) God maintain a steady dialogue with

Abraham across years in which Abraham takes an active part, while Noah only

hears a divine monologue; he remains passive and does not actually participate

in a conversation.

2) When Noah hears that God plans the total

destruction of His creation – save two representatives, a male and a female of

each species – he does not respond. Following in the footsteps of his

predecessors, Adam and Cain, he takes no responsibility upon himself; he does

not attempt to challenge the terrible decree. When Abraham, in contrast, hears

that God plans to annihilate the populations of Sodom and Gomorrah, he takes on

responsibility and tries to have the decree annulled. He does not hesitate to

stand before God's presence and suggest that Divine justice may have erred. It

is only when Abraham faces a personal trial with the binding of Isaac that he

demonstrates full trust in Divine justice and forwards no appeal. This reflects

the difference between Noah and Enoch (5:22)

on the one hand and the Patriarchs on the other, as Jacob puts it: The God

before Whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked (28:15).

It is worth mentioning that

"righteousness" and "faith" [emunah] have a

different meaning in Scripture than they do in the language of the Sages. A

tzaddik is not someone who retires from this world and spends his days in the

worship of God and in efforts to cleave to God; rather, he is a person who is

found blameless before God's judgment. He is someone who walks the straight

path through the world. "Faith" does not refer to a deep but

rationally unsupported belief in the existence of God. Rather, the person of

faith is certain that God will keep his promises, or he is a faithful man,

someone honest who does justice. As is the case with all of the Bible's

tzaddikim, Noah's righteousness and perfection [temimut] refer to his

morality and honesty towards others in the context of a generation plagued with

corruption, violence, and theft; it does not refer to the degree of his

religious connection with God. The Torah's description of Abraham – And he

believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him as righteousness (15:6) – must also be properly understood. It

tells us that despite his old age and the old age of Sarah, Abraham trusted in

God's promise of children, and that God counted that faith to his merit. Walk

before Me and be perfect (17:1) – walk in the straight path. Will You

also kill a righteous people? (20:4)

– will God kill blameless peoples who are not found guilty by divine judgment? And

they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses (Shemot 14:31) – Israel was sure that the promises made by God

and His servant Moses would be fulfilled; we are not told that they believed in

the very existence of God and Moses, since they saw Moses alive and in action

before their own eyes! So he was with his hands in faith until sunset (Shemot 17:12) – Moses hands were straight and

erect. A tzaddik lives in his faith – (Habakkuk

2:4) – not as in the Christian interpretation, that the tzaddik lives by

merit of his faith (in Jesus' divinity) and by his tenacity in that faith, but

rather that the tzaddik will live thanks to his being a man who trusts God, who

is faithful, honest, and just.¹

Modern interpretations view the first two

parshiyot of Bereishit as describing a series of divine "attempts"

whose purpose is to teach the reader a moral lesson. The first attempt in the

Garden of Eden failed. The second attempt to grant humanity an opportunity to

come to recognize the one God by its own efforts and to establish the kind of

moral life necessary for the survival of society – also failed. People strayed

after their low, sensual, and material aspect, ending with the Flood and their

total annihilation. The third attempt, that of the "Generation of the

Dispersal" which followed Noah, also failed. They tried to develop

humanity without Divine instruction by canceling the value of the individual

and the harnessing of all energies to societal despotism in order to promote

national honor through ideological and linguistic homogeneity. Man had chosen

to develop his unique qualities in an arrogant and despotic fashion, viewing

the state and the nation as ends in themselves, rather than as instruments for

the welfare of individuals. In reaction, God dispersed the people of that

generation and confused their language, thus ending their race after collective

glory. God prevented homogeneity and totalitarian centralism and allowed for

subjectivity and differentiation which require the existence of a diversity of

opinion, struggles and efforts which lend meaning to human existence from which

truth arises in extended dialectical processes.² The colors of the

rainbow symbolize the diversity which ensures human development and from this

point forward it serves as a sign of how diversity protects life on earth from

a further deluge. Descriptions of these first three attempts come to teach the

reader the biblical point of view according to which man is the source of evil.

Man was born with the freedom to choose good or evil actions; he is free to

err, to be neglectful, or to scheme as he wishes. He can be lazy, stupid, or

wicked. All these can occur when he becomes trapped in the nets of pride,

avarice, or lust. Evil exists in the created world in order that good be

distinguishable from it; this is the best of all possible worlds. A world

without evil or suffering is a world without challenges, without lessons or

reward; it is an empty world. All through human history and unto our own days

is has become clear that man requires God's direction towards the good,

otherwise he will have difficulty recognizing it; it will be hard for him to

aspire to the good, to persist in goodness and to succeed in it. From this

point on it is Scripture's purpose to guide the reader towards the good in a

newly chosen path involving the establishment of a unique people who will

undertake this special mission to humanity. From here on begins the explanation

of the People Israel's place within human society and how it began on its

journey in the world on the behalf of all humanity.³

Post-modern Jewish interpretation is more

modest. From here on Scripture will give us the narrative of the People Israel,

how it began its way among the more similar and less similar narratives that

existed in the ancient Fertile Crescent region. These narratives developed

together in parallel with the course of history. This postmodern interpretation

views the various narratives from a pluralistic standpoint, allowing each to

tell the truth of its community, without necessarily undermining the holiness

of the biblical narrative for those whose consciousness developed under its

influence and who are committed to the norms that grew up within it.

1. See ShaDaL Ketavim Volume 1: Shiurim

Beteologiya Dogmatit, pp. 74-75.

2. See the Akedat Yitzhak and Rabbi S.R. Hirsch's

commentary on the sin of the Generation of the Dispersion. Also see Y.

Leibowitz, He'arot LeParshiyot HaShavua, pp. 15-16.

3. This is

the theory of Rabbi S.R. Hirsch in his commentary on the Torah. See, for

instance, 11:10 and many other loci.

Dr. Effi Hamiel worked for many years in

a senior post at Bank Leumi. He now devotes himself to the study of modern

religiosity in the nineteenth century (Rabbi S.R. Hirsch, ShaDaL, and MaHaRatz

Hayot) and engages in private financial counseling.

Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his son's wives, went into the

two each, male and female, came to Noah into the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

 (Bereishit 7:7-9)

They came to Noah, into the ark, two of all flesh in which there

was breath of life.

(Ibid. ibid. 15)

Two of each shall come to you to stay alive – He informed him

that they would come, two of each, on their own; he would not have to hunt them

in the mountains and on the islands. Then he would later bring them into the

ark. And He specified that they come male and female. This was the general

rule. Afterwards, He commanded that Noah take of every clean animal seven of

each; in this case He did not say that they would come on their own, but that

Noah should take them, for those who come to be saved and to preserve their

seed arrive on their own, but He did not decree that those who come in order to

be offered as sacrifices should arrive on their own to be slaughtered, but rather

Noah took them, for the command of seven of each was so that Noah be able to

use them for sacrifices.

(RaMBaN, Bereishit 6:20)

Noah… went into the ark because of the waters of the Flood –

Rabbi Yohanan said: Noah lacked perfect faith, for had the waters not reached

his ankles he would never have entered the ark.

Two of each came to Noah – Falsehood came and wanted to enter.

Noah said to him: You may not enter, unless you wed a spouse. Falsehood went

and sought a wife. He met Curse, and she said to him: From where do you come?

He told her: From Noah – I wanted to enter the ark, but he refused to admit me

unless I had a wife. She replied: And what will you give me? He said to her: I

stipulate with you that all which I accumulate you may take. She listened to

him, and the two entered the ark. When they exited the ark, Falsehood went out

and accumulated, and Curse kept taking each thing as it arrived. Falsehood came

and said to her: Where is everything that I accumulated? She replied: Was this

not our condition, that all which you accumulate, I take? He had no answer.

Therefore it is written He hatches evil, conceives mischief, and gives birth

to fraud (Psalms 7:15). The parable

says: Falsehood begets – but Curse takes all.

 (Yalkut Shimoni, Noah, 56)

The Raven Also has Rights

The dog that used to protect Abel's sheep guarded over his corpse

against all beasts of the field and from all birds of the skies, and Adam and

his helper sat and wept and mourned over him, and they knew not what to do, for

burial was not customary. A raven, whose companion had died, said: I will teach

this man what to do. What did he do? He took his companion and dug in the

earth, covered his eyes, and buried him. Adam said: I shall do as did this

raven. He took Abel's corpse, dug in the earth, and buried it, and the Holy

One, Blessed Be He, rewarded the ravens generously in this world. What was

their reward? They give birth to white offspring, and they flee from them,

thinking them to be offspring of serpents. Then The Holy One, Blessed Be He,

brings mosquitoes and provides their nourishment and they eat: Who provides

food for the raven. Yet more, they cry out for rain on the earth and The

Holy One, Blessed Be He, hears their voice and sends rain upon the face of the

earth, as is written: He gives bread to the beasts, to the raven which cries

out.

 (Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, 21)

One Language? One Set of Words?

When they expressed this intention (and let us make ourselves a name)

God fully understood it and knew well that their end would be the opposite of

what they thought. On the contrary, there exists the possibility of a unified

nation. When? When a people is dispersed and scattered, with no one having

dealings with his fellow – then can it be one people. But should they gather

together in one place in order to escape from international conflicts, they

will then fall into an even greater war, one man's sword against his fellow,

because assembly of the wicked is bad for them, and because they said, "Let

us make for ourselves a name", everyone will want to rule over his

fellow and be higher than him, for this is common among groups who do

everything for the sake self-aggrandizement, so therefore it is better to

disperse them and prevent them from this construction.

(Kli Yakar Bereishit

11:1)

…it appears to me that this decree (to scatter the Generation of the Dispersal)

was not a punishment, but rather a tremendous improvement on mankind's behalf.

The primary significance of the Tower of Babel narrative lies not in the

attempt to erect the tower, but in the preceding words: All the earth –

revived post Deluge mankind – was of one language and the same words. After

the construction failure, many languages evolved, and consequently, different words,

different ideas. It seems to me that the basis of the mistake, or sin, of the

Generation of the Dispersal, was not in the building of the city and the tower,

but in the movement to maintain, via these artificial means, the situation of one

language and one set of words – of centralization, which we, in modern

terms, call totalitarianism.

(Prof. Y. Leibowitz, He'arot

leParshiyot HaShavua, pp.14-15)

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