These are the

generations; Noah walked with God. (Bereishit 6:9)

In all cases where the

Omnipresent busied Himself to raise up from anyone a nation or a chain of

descendants, He took care, as here, in recording the fact, to use the

expression generation. Accordingly you will find generations

mentioned twelve times in Scripture: These are the generations of the heaven

and of the earth (Bereishit 2:4). This

is the book of the generations of Adam (ib.

5:1). These are the generations of Noah (ib. 6:9). These are the generations of the sons of Noah (ib. 10:1). These are the generations of

Shem (11:10). These are the

generations of Terah (ib. 11:27). These

are the generations of lshmael (ib. 225:12),

of Isaac (ib. 19), of Esau (ib. 36:1), of Jacob (ib. 37:2). To these ten

"generations" the Holy One, blessed be He, devoted special attention,

for the purpose of creating the world and of raising up nations. In two cases

the Omnipresent recorded the generations of individuals [for other purposes];

in one for the purpose of establishing a line of royalty and in the other for

the purpose of establishing a line of priesthood. Now these are the

generations of Perez (Ruth 4:18) is

recorded in order to establish thereby the line of royalty; [and finally], These

are the generations of Aaron and Moses (Bamidbar

3:1), for the sake of the line of the priesthood.

(Bamidbar Rabbah 2:21, Soncino translation)

These are the generations of Noah – His manner

of behavior throughout his life. Noah was a righteous man he was perfect

– Righteous man – tzadik – means he [fulfilled his

obligations] between man and Heaven; "wicked man" means the contrary.

However, righteous man he was perfect [which can also be read, a

perfect righteous man] means that he was also righteous in connection to

who has a good life and the tzadik who suffers, that the former is a complete

tzadik [tzadik gamur] and the latter an incomplete tzadik; but the

difference between complete and incomplete is not explained. This matter can be

clarified by referring to the verse in Isaiah (3:10-11),

Praise the righteous man for he is good, for the

fruit of their deeds they shall eat. Woe to the wicked [who does] evil,

for the recompense of his hands shall be done to him. In reference to this

they said in Kiddushin 40: "But is there such a thing as a good tzadik and

a bad tzadik? Rather, one who is good both to Heaven and to people is a good

tzadik. [One who is] good to Heaven but bad to people is a tzadik who is not

good. Similarly, Woe to the wicked [who does] evil [or: Woe to the

evil wicked man] – is there an evil wicked man and one who is not

evil? Rather, one who is bad both to Heaven and to people is an evil wicked

man." We have learned that the verse for the

fruit of their deeds they shall eat applies to the tzadik who is

good both to Heaven and to people – that is, he will eat his fruit [his divine

reward] in this world.

(HaAmek Davar Bereishit 6:9)

And the Lord saw that

the evil of man was great in the earth –

and the Lord saw it was good

Amir Kadari

The stories of

Bereishit pull both heart and mind in opposing directions. First we read them

as stories plainly told; "Once upon a time…" And then both heart

and mind are pulled in another direction, towards the inner meaning of the

stories of Bereishit, towards their symbolism, towards the deep currents of our

culture found in them. This occurs in two ways. First, the stories reflect the

foundations and axioms of the world view from which our culture has grown. Secondly,

they inform and shape – whether consciously or unconsciously – the cultural

values that constitute our world. The stories, their heroes and lessons – and

even their phrasing – accompany us from generation to generation, from infancy

to old age. This is the source of their power to shape us.

So it is with the

central story of parashat Noah, the story of the Flood. The clear skies

fashioned by God in the six days of creation already started to become clouded

last Shabbat when we read in the maftir: And

became grieved in His heart.

The sins of man – and

not only of the first man, but of all mankind in its first generations – could

still be explained as completing the process of creation. Yes, sin, deviancy,

and punishable acts are all part of the process of creation, as is their

punishment. Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and the expulsion from

the Garden of Eden were necessary conditions for the growth of man's motivating

forces. They bring him to settle and develop the world. If that fruit had not

been eaten the world would have been doomed to Edenic boredom without eros and

without acquisitiveness – the drive to work the land and conquer it, despite,

and perhaps because, the earth is unkind to those who work it. God had

commanded Adam and Eve to conquer the land even before placing them in the

Garden of Eden. Their sin and their punishment of expulsion from Eden were necessary

conditions for the execution of God's fundamental command to His creatures.

Even Cain's sin – the

murder of his brother, whose blood cried out from the soil – may have been a

necessary sin and its consequence a necessary punishment. His was the sin of

the most terrible jealousy, jealousy so powerful that the very existence of the

one who symbolizes success, the one whose offering was accepted with God's

blessing – becomes unbearable. When his blind rage broke through, he killed Abel.

As a result, Cain was doomed to wander and be an exile, to live on the

margins of a society that sought to regain the feeling of Eden, its tranquility

and security. Thus, Cain's sin may also have been necessary, for without this

sinner and without the wanderer who threatens society's tranquility, hidden

lands would never have been discovered. New societies would not have been

founded. Eden would have returned and taken over the world.

The clouds that darken

last week's maftir, however, were of a different and more sinister cast.

This Shabbat they developed into the flood which destroyed the world. And the Lord saw that the evil of man was great in the

His heart.

The earlier sins did

not involve grief and sadness. They involved the curiosity of the Tree of

Knowledge; the boldness to break through limits; jealousy as strong as death

and endless rage. God – who saw all and foresaw all – reacted with strength and

might: he determined the verdict and passed the sentence. However, these sins

did not involve grief. God's grief. The omnipotent God, Creator of the world and

of man, is now saddened.

God is sad because the evil of man was great… and every imagination of his

heart was only evil all the time. The humanity He had created had

lost its balance. True, sin, competition, the drive for acquisition,

undermining of consensus, and even focused hatred are important forces in the

world – without them it cannot exist. But do all of these lead to a manner of

settling the world which also destroys it, so that every

imagination of his heart was only evil all the time? Is it evil

which motivates the individual to settle the world? That is why God wanted to

destroy everything. This fault could not be repaired; He had to start over

again.

There is another side

to sorrow. Sadness is the first step towards acceptance of a bitter reality that

has been forced upon those who cannot change it. Anyone acquainted with

mourning – and who isn't? – knows the process. First denial takes over, and

then anger. Anger is followed by great sadness, and that sadness contains the

seeds of acceptance, an acceptance that sometimes brings consolation, and if

not it certainly brings the knowledge that one is facing an unchangeable

reality.

Indeed, despite our

first impressions of the Flood story and despite God's announcement that He

will destroy everything on the face of the earth, He does not destroy

everything. The world does not return to the formless and void state of the

moment of Creation. God preserves seeds of continuation taken from that which already

exists: Noah, males and females of every species of beast, fowl, and

crawling thing of the earth are saved in the ark.

One might say this

happened because Noah found favor in God's eyes. That is to say: there was one

small consolation, and therefore God did not have to destroy everything. As with

Sodom and Gomorrah, God saves the righteous man. However, one might also say

that despite the decision to wipe everything off the face of the earth and to

bring a flood to destroy the world – God's sorrow already contained a certain

element of acceptance; acceptance of the fact that man, who is capable of

creating, of developing and settling the earth does indeed possess a heart

inclined to evil, and that there is no other option. That is why God – and the

world – and within the world, man himself – were fated to make their peace with

this duality.

…and after forty days

of terrible flooding, and after all the additional days and weeks and months

that water covered the land, more than a year after Noah and his wife and his

sons and daughters-in-law and the beasts and birds and creeping things entered

the ark, their legs stepped once again on dry land. Smelling

the pleasant aroma of the altar, the Lord said to Himself, "I will no

evil from his youth." God placed his bow in the cloud as a sign and

made a covenant, a unilateral and unconditional covenant that never again

flood to destroy the earth.

Only at that point does the process of God's creation of

the world reach its completion. It was completed when God

made His peace with His creation, with all of its aspects – including the worst

of them – and when He made a covenant which makes permanent the struggle in

man's heart between his creative and destructive drives. There will be no more

floods that allow the world to start over from the beginning. The earth is

given to humanity to conquer it, to work it, to preserve it. Man can be good – even

when sin lies in wait for him – and so long as the

and night shall not cease. There will be no more apocalypses to destroy the

world or to save it. Man and man alone remains responsible for whatever happens

– to build or to destroy.

And the Lord saw it was good

Amir Kadri is a lawyer

And these are the

generations of the sons of Noah: We are all the children of one man

Every narrative in the Torah

serves a certain purpose in connection with religious teaching. It either helps

to establish a principle of faith, or to regulate our actions, and to prevent

wrong and injustice among men; and I will show this in each case.

It is one of the

fundamental principles of the Torah that the Universe has been created ex

nihilo, and that of the human race, one individual being, Adam, was

created. As the time which elapsed from Adam to Moses was not more than about

two thousand five hundred years, people would have doubted the truth of that statement

if no other information had been added, seeing that the human race was spread

over all parts of the earth in different families and with different languages,

very unlike the one to the other. In order to remove this doubt the Torah gives

the genealogy of the nations (Bereishit 5 and 6),

and the manner how they branched off from a common root. It names those of them

who were well known, and tells who their fathers were, how long and where they

lived. It describes also the cause that led to the dispersion of men over all

parts of the earth, and to the formation of their different languages, after

they had lived for a long time in one place, and spoken one language (ibid. 11.), as would be natural for

descendants of one person.

(The Guide of the Perplexed III:50, based on Friedländer

translation)

Therefore was man created

singly – to teach you that whoever destroys a single soul, is considered by

Scripture to have destroyed a complete world. And whoever maintains a single

soul, is considered by Scripture to have maintained an entire world. And

that one should not say to his fellow: My father is greater than your

father. And that the heretics not say “there are many rulers in heaven. And

to proclaim the greatness of The Holy One, Blessed Be He – that man mints a

number of coins with a single seal, and all are identical. But The Holy One,

Blessed Be He, imprinted every man with the seal of the first man – yet not one

is identical with his fellow.

(Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

The renowned French king said, After

me the deluge,

And Noah, the righteous, said, before

me the deluge

And when he left the ark he said the

deluge is behind me,

And I say, I am in the midst of the

deluge

I am the ark, and I am the unclean

animals and the clean animals

And I am two, male and female…

And I carry on my shoulders a strange

and empty ark

Holding remnants of love and memory of

prayers, and a little hope.

(Yehudah Amichai, from Patuah, Sagur, Patuah p.

29)

For in the image of

God He made man

How were the Ten

Commandments given?

Five on one tablet, five

on the other. It is written, I am the Lord your God – and across from it, You shall not

murder – Scripture tells us that whoever sheds blood, is considered by

Scripture as if he had detracted from the Divine image.

This may be compared to a

king of flesh and blood, who entered the country and erected icons, and had

statues made and coins minted. After a while, the icons were overturned, the

statues were broken and the coins invalidated, and they detracted from the

image of the king. So it is with one who has shed blood, scripture considers as

if he had detracted from the image, as is written, Whosoever spills the

blood of man etc., and it is written, for in the image of God He made

man.

(Yalkut Shimoni, Shemot 20, 299)

And all the world

a name, lest we be scattered over the face of all the earth.

Great is Peace – Despicable is

Discord

No remnant remained of

the Generation of the Deluge, but there were survivors of the Generation of the

Scattering. The Generation of the Deluge was awash with larceny, as is written,

People remove boundary stones; they carry off flocks and pasture them (Job 24:2), therefore none of them

survived. But of these [the Generation of the Scattering], because they loved

each other – as is written, And all the world was of one language and

one set of words – there remained survivors.

Rebbi said: Great is

peace, for even when Israel worships idolatrously, if there is peace among

them, the Omnipresent says: I, as it were, cannot control them, because there

is peace between them, as is written, Ephraim is bound up with idolators – let

him be (Hosea 4:16) – but when

there is division among them, what does He say? Now that his boughs are

broken up, He feels his guilt (ibid. 10:2).

Thus we learn: Great is peace, despicable is discord.

(Bereishit Rabbah 38)

Tribal Morality

Contradicts Absolute Morality

If they complete the

tower, they will come to think that they must forcibly prevent people who

disagree with this opinion, and that involves murder, robbery which will

completely corrupt society. The fact that they are currently in agreement will

not help. Thus the Prophet Jeremiah cried out, how skillfully you plan your

poor – you did not catch them breaking in (2:33-4),

which means that they were unified in his day and would boast that they enjoyed

love and peace more than any other people, but the prophet disagreed, for on

their garments was found the blood of innocents – not because they had

committed any theft or such, but because they did not belong to their group. So

the groups came to murder, and there is no boast of peace in that, rather only

if they had been careful to do evil against those not in their group.

 (Ha-Amek

Davar and Harhev Davar,

Bereishit 11:6)

A Tower with its Head

in the Heavens as a Project that Ignores Human Beings

There were seven steps to

the tower from the east, and seven from the west. The bricks were brought up on

one side, and [the workers] descended on the other.

If a man fell and died, no

one paid attention to him, but if a single brick fell, they would sit down and

weep, saying, "Woe unto us! When will another one be brought up in its

stead?"

(Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, 24)

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