Noach- Speak Softly

 Noach  2 Responses »
Oct 282011
 
“Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean (Anenu tahora) animal, a male and its mate”. (7:2)

Why did the Torah use the language of Anenu Tahora when the simpler “Tameh” could have been used*? [The Torah usually prefers terse language.]

This shows us that we should use only the most pristine of language. (Gemara in Pesachim 3a) The answer is that saying the word Tameh sounds slightly more ‘vulgar’ than Anenu Tahora and the torah also prefers only the most pristine type of language.

Asks the Dubna Maggid: “It says Tameh many times in the Torah! Take a look at Parshas Shmini and you will find many uses of the word Tameh! So what point is the Torah and Gemara making here in Parshas Noach, when in reality the word Tameh is used many times (later) in the Torah!?”

He answers with a parable. There was once a guy who was known by a derogatory name and rightfully so. The man was uncouth. A master once criticized his servant for flippantly referring to this person by a derogatory name, but later on the master used that very name himself in regards to marriage proposal with this third person. What was the discrepancy, the servant wanted to know? The master answered that the servant used the name for no apparent purpose. That is simply wrong. However, the master used the name in regards to a marriage proposal. There the master had a real purpose in stating to the Shadchan exactly the types of behaviors this person exemplified.

The same reasoning applies here, as well. In the Parshiyos later on when the Torah uses “Tameh”, there is a real need to do so. For example, the Torah has a real purpose in saying that a Nidda is Tameh. It is in order to demonstrate exactly we are dealing with, namely, a prohibition of closeness to someone in a certain situation. Therefore, the Torah used the word Tameh. However, by Noach, there is no definitive purpose in stating exactly what condition the animals were in – there were no rules riding on this episode. There is no need to say Tameh, so the Torah uses Anenu Tahora.

The lesson is that we should be careful with our speech. Even words that are not terribly offensive, but have a tinge of ‘dirtiness’ to them should be avoided, except in situations which call for it.

Good Shabbos from the Heights,
Yaakov

*The truth is that in English both words are translated as “impure”, sadly producing no real difference between the distinct Hebrew terms. But you could say it is like saying unclean vs. dirty. It is more pristine to say unclean. Clean and unclean here refer to kosher vs. non-kosher

 Posted by jlasson at 8:32 am  Tagged with: , , ,

What the Destruction of the World Can Teach Us About Human Relations

 Noach  No Responses »
Oct 252010
 

The passuk at the beginning of parashat Noach tells us:

ויאמר אלהים לנח, קץ כל בשר בא לפני — כי מלאה הארץ חמס, מפניהם והנני משחיתם, את-הארץ. (בראשית ו:יג)

And the Lord said to Noach, “The end of all flesh comes before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold I will destroy them with the earth.” (Bereshit 6:13)

God made the decision to finally put an end to it all. “Mankind had a nice run,” He tells us, “but with their base mortal ways they have gone too far, and it’s over. It has come time to remake the whole world and try again. And this time, I’ll let them have hamburgers.”

There’s a looming question we have to confront though, and that is the following: what did they do? What could mankind have possible done to force God to make this sort of decision? We are students of history, and we have seen periods of human history where humanity hit severely low points. But nothing has ever driven Hashem to reconsider human existence! (Except, of course, for the contents of our parasha) So we must ask, what were they doing?

There is a response from the commentators, and one answer will serve as our focus. On our passuk, Rashi teaches us:

לא נחתם גזר דינם אלא על הגזל

The decree was not sealed except for theft.

This is a little startling. Rashi himself let us know that murder and sexual impropriety were rampant as well! The immorality of the Generation of the Flood must have been boundless; who knows what else was going on down there? And this is where God draws the line? Thievery??

There is a small flurry amongst the super commentators on Rashi to answer our question. The Hannukat HaTorah comes to explain what Rashi meant: “the Generation of the Flood would only steal amounts less than a shaveh prutah, the value of a prutah.” All mitzvot have a shiur, a measurement, attached to them. In order to fulfill the mitzvah of eating matzah there is a minimum threshold you must eat in order to qualify. Similarly, in order to violate a mitzvah (on a Torah level) you must overcome the threshold.1 The shiur for stealing is a shaveh prutah. So what’s that exactly? The prutah was the smallest coin in the Ancient world (some nations didn’t even mint single prutot). On today’s copper market, a prutah would trade for about 29% of one cent. Given that knowledge, it sounds like the Generation of the Flood didn’t do anything wrong!

What we have to know before understanding the Hannukat HaTorah is that a shaveh prutah is so small that values smaller than it do not follow the normal rules of ownership. Therefore, a theft of a value smaller than a shaveh prutah is not subject to legal proceedings. A court in halakhah cannot try such a thief; they cannot even review the case.

Given that information, we can now understand the true crime of the Generation of the Flood. They were not responsible for merely abrogating the legal system, but for entirely subverting it. They knew the minimum shiur so they stole less than that, and in that way they did not have to worry about being convicted. They didn’t even need to keep their act secret, since the victim could not even take legal action! This was a world not just lacking in morality, but totally abusing it. Therefore, some translate hamas instead of “violence” as “lawlessness.” (go figure) Man thought if they subverted the law they would pass unscathed, but they didn’t realize that their immoral actions were still meaningful to God.

What’s the take away for us? In most of our relationships there is a tit for tat. I do this favor for you, I expect this and that in return. You’ve taken this from me, you owe me this and that in recompense. And if something happens beneath the minimum shiur it goes unnoticed.

But sometimes we have closer relationships where there is no minimum shiur. The best of friends, parents and children, husband and wife. And in this type of relationship, a damage beneath the minimum shiur is still painful. And conversely, a favor done still beneath the minimum shiur is meaningful, and on the flip, must be recognized. We should all be fortunate enough to recognize the acts in our lives that are less than a shaveh prutah.

[cross-posted on divreidavid]

  1. Thank you to Shaul Seidler-Feller for noting that we pasken that hatzi-shiur is still assur even on a Torah level, albeit in a qualitatively different way. Please note that employing shiurim is a terrible way to get out of intentionally performing issurim for a number of reasons, one of which is included in the continuation of this dvar torah.
 Posted by David Pardo at 3:21 pm  Tagged with: ,

Tower and Technology

 Noach  1 Response »
Oct 222009
 

The episode of the tower of Babel is a curious one.  It’s one of the 4 major stories preceding Abraham, together with Adam and Chava’s sin, Kayin’s murder of Hevel and the Flood.  Nevertheless, the entire story is very short – only 9 pasukim recount the entire sequence of events from beginning to end – and  although it’s clear that the builders of the tower sinned, it’s not clear exactly what their sin was.

Indeed, the Midrash (Bereshis Rabbah) elaborates on Ber. 11:1 “Now the entire earth was of one language and uniform words”, and explains that “uniform words”,  (וּדְבָרִים אֲחָדִים) should be instead understood as “words which are kept isolated (i.e., made inaccessible)”.  Whereas the Torah revealed the sin of the generation of the deluge, it did not spell out the sin of the generation of the tower.

To fill that gap, mepharshim bring many explanations and suggestions of what the sin was.  A particularly interesting set of explanations is given by Rabbeinu Bachya.  He posits that the builders were very advanced in matters of philosophy and technology, but decided to use their great abilities in a sinful manner.  They constructed the tower in order to protect themselves against a deluge of fire (since G-d has already promised not to bring a deluge of water).  Towards this end, they tried to isolate and tame the power of fire in order to neutralize it so that if could not engulf their city.  This is the reason they made the tower with bricks which are made through baking in a kiln (See Ber. 11:3) and is fire-resistant.  In addition, although they were very powerful (See Ber 11:6), they knew that they were destined to die.  Therefore, they planned to scale heaven while alive in order to overcome the impediment of mortality that was imposed upon them.  Their aim was to overcome the decree issued against Adam.  In order to prevent this from happening, G-d confused their language and scattered them.

At a more spiritual level, Rabbeinu Bachya explains that in building the tower, man had tried to separate the role of the attribute of Judgment, as exemplified by the divine name of El-kim from the role of the attribute of Mercy, as exemplified by יְ־הֹוָ־ה  , and they wanted only “nature”, as represented by the attribute of Judgment (El-kim).

What does it mean that the generation of the tower wanted only “nature”, divorced from the attribute of Mercy?  Perhaps it means that the builders of the tower did not want a personal relationship with G-d, and did not want their destiny dependent on whether or not their attitudes and actions met with divine approval.  Being in a relationship is difficult – one always has to think about what the other party wants, whether that other party is a human being or G-d.  The attribute of Mercy is what makes a relationship possible.  On the other hand, the attribute of Justice, divorced from Mercy, is totally mechanical and no relationship can be formed with it.  The builders wanted to divorce themselves from a relationship with God because they had such success with their achievements in wielding the predictable system of nature, which is inert and has no personality for man to form a relationship with.

This attitude is exemplified by the particular sins R’ Bachya identifies.  By making the fireproof tower, the builders sought to themselves impervious to another flood or any other divine punishment that might come their way.  Attempting to cut off oneself from the possibility of divine punishment could be imagined to be liberating, but in reality, that same attempt severs the possibility of having a relationship with G-d.  After all, divine punishment is but one conduit of divine communication.  In addition, the builders of the tower wanted to achieve immortality by entering heaven directly, through their own power and technological prowess.  However, this is not what G-d wanted of man.  G-d wanted the people to achieve immortality through attaching themselves to Him.

It appears that R’ Bachya, even in his day, was aware that technological prowess and philosophical sophistication can go hand-in-hand with an attempt to diminish the idea of a personal G-d, and he leads the reader through the story of the tower as a warning and a guide for man’s proper moral development.

 Posted by Hartman at 10:06 pm  Tagged with: ,

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

 Noach  No Responses »
Oct 222009
 

This week’s parsha starts with the famous description of Noah (Bereishit 6:9):

אֵלֶּה, תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ–נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה, בְּדֹרֹתָיו: אֶת-הָאֱלֹהִים, הִתְהַלֶּךְ-נֹחַ

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and whole-hearted; Noah walked with God.

Rashi notes that the word בְּדֹרֹתָיו (“in his generation”) at the end of the first clause does not seem to add anything important to the meaning of the verse.

בדורותיו: יש מרבותינו דורשים אותו לשבח, כל שכן שאלו היה בדור צדיקים היה צדיק יותר, ויש שדורשים אותו לגנאי, לפי דורו היה צדיק, ואלו היה בדורו של אברהם לא היה נחשב לכלום:

Some of our Sages interpret the word בְּדֹרֹתָיו in Noah’s favor and note how much more righteous he would have been if he had lived in a generation of righteous people. Other Sages interpret the phrase derogatorily by explaining that in comparison with Noah’s own generation he was considered righteous, but if he had lived in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance. [Sanh. 108a, Gen. Rabbah 30:9, Tan. Noach 5]

What is most interesting about Rashi’s comment is that even those Sages who explain בְּדֹרֹתָיו to be a statement of praise still admit that Noah was influenced by societal pressure. The Sages are saying “Look how great Noah managed to become while fighting off the influence of all the negativity surrounding him. Imagine how much greater he could have been in a holier generation!”

This idea is expressed and elaborated on in Pirkei Avot, 2:9 and 2:10:

איזו היא דרך טובה שידבק בה האדם…רבי יהושוע אומר, חבר טוב; רבי יוסי אומר, שכן טוב;

Go and see which what path a man should adhere to…Rabbi Yehoshua said, [seek out] a good friend. Rabbi Yosi said, [seek out] a good neighbor…

Rav Ovadia Bartenura explains the importance of Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Yosi’s advice. A good friend is one who constructively criticizes you when you do something wrong; real friends expect the best out of us and make us into better people because of their positive expectations.  Likewise, good neighbor pressure us to be better people by setting standards of honesty, kindness, and fair-dealing for our communities.  In Judaism, the idea of “living up to the Joneses” is a positive one when the Joneses are the sorts of people that lead exemplary lives.

Rabbi Pinhas Kehati, in his commentary on this same Mishna, explains the Rabbis words differently. He says that “good friend” means being a good friend while “good neighbor” means being a good neighbor.  He takes Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Yosi’s advice and turns it on its head to teach us a parallel lesson, equally true and equally relevant to our quest for betterment.  Rabbi Kehati teaches us that it is important to seek out good friends and neighbors to influence us positively, but we must not forget that we too must be positive influences on our world.  In this way we can succeed in constantly elevating both ourselves, our communities, and our surroundings.

The lesson of the ark, is now made clearer. There are times when things around us are so bad and so negative that we need to isolate ourselves from those outside influences. We need to recognize that now, like Noah’s retreat into the ark, we must close our doors in order to weather the storm. These are the times where outside influences are too strong for us to handle and we need to look after our own spiritual well being.

Yet, there are times when the converse is true and we need to send forward gestures of peace instead. We need to learn not from Noah’s retreat into the ark, but from the dove bearing the olive branch; thus we take the first step out of the ark and make sure that we are a positive influence to those around us while always ensuring that our friends and neighbors positively influence us as well.

 Posted by Liron Kopinsky at 9:12 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,
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