How did Chazal know that Noah was raped (or sodomized)

Michelangelo's version; I assume Canaan is the one outside

How did the Sages know what they "knew"? Often via close examination of the text. Here's BT Sanhedrim 70a on the crime committed against Noah:

And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. [Until here is a quote from Gen 9 20-24' [With respect to what was done] Rab and Samuel [differ,] one maintaining that he castrated him, whilst the other says that he sexually abused him. He who maintains that he castrated him, [reasons thus;] Since he cursed him by his fourth son, he must have injured him with respect to a fourth son But he who says that he sexually abused him, draws an analogy between 'and he saw' written twice. Here it is written, And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father; whilst elsewhere it is written, And when Shechem the son of Hamor saw her [he took her and lay with her and defiled her].Now, on the view that he emasculated him, it is right that he cursed him by his fourth son; but on the view that he abused him, why did he curse his fourth son; he should have cursed him himself? — Both indignities were perpetrated. [Soncino translation]

To summarize:

Everyone agrees something bad happened, because we're told Noah "knew" what was done to him. This makes it clear that the crime was something other than being gazed upon.

Rav is directed to castration [blue above] because of the Mida Kneged Mida, suggesting that Noah was prevented from having a fourth child so he avenged himself on the perpetrator's fourth child.

Shmuel [red above] thinks rape is more likely because we're told that Ham SAW his father and there are many more places where the victim of a rape or sexual abuse is "seen" prior to the attack. Along with the example given of Shechem seeing Dina, the Sons of God in Genesis 6 see the Daughters of Man; Sara is seen by Pharoh; and Potiphar's wife sees Josef.

Additionally there are at least 5 other clues that the crime was something sexual:

1) It says Vayedah Noach, and Noah knew. All over the bible vayedah is used as a euphamism for sex
2) Quite unecessarily, we are told the brothers carried the blanket on their shoulders, וַיָּשִׂימוּ עַל-שְׁכֶם שְׁנֵיהֶם. The seemingly gratuitous mention of Shchem reminds us of the crime committed their against Dina.
3) Canan is everywhere in Scripture used as a representative for wantan immorality. The fact that he is singled out here suggests that the crime he committed was from that category of offenses.
4)  There are many, many parallels between the story of Lot and the story of Noah.  To make the paralel complete, we must assume that Noah's episode of excessive drinking was followed by an act of immorality, just as Lot's episode of excessive drinking led to an illicit act.
5) Noah was given an express command to procreate. He was also told to leave the ark with his wife (Gen 8:16) but instead leaves with his sons (Gen 8:18) in defiance of the order. Rather than make babies, he made wine, and lounged around in his birthday suit showing open contempt for his obligation. Casteration is the appropriate mida kneged mida,

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Word Play, Parallels and Irony in Noach

Regarding Noah, the Bible quotes his father Lemach as saying:

 זֶה יְנַחֲמֵנוּ מִמַּעֲשֵׂנוּ וּמֵעִצְּבוֹן יָדֵינוּ מִן הָאֲדָמָה אֲשֶׁר אֵרְרָהּ יְ־הֹוָ־ה: = This one will give us comfort from our work, and from the toil of our hands from the ground that God has cursed.

From this, the Sages guessed that Noah invented the plow, through which the curse of Adam was partially undone. No longer would men have to toil with their hands to grow food. With the plow, the work was made easier. (How his father knew this at the time of his son's naming is not explained.) 

There's some word play later, when speaking of mankind God says:

כִּי נִחַמְתִּי כִּי עֲשִׂיתִם: I regret that I made them

The suggestion seems to be that Noach was meant to be an antidote to God's regret. God regrets  (nahem) that he made man, but the comfort (nehama) is standing by in the person of Noach.

This is born out by an additional example. The verse says

וְנֹחַ מָצָא חֵן בְּעֵינֵי יְ־הֹוָ־ה Noah found favor in Gods eyes.

The word Noah and Chen are a palindrome. The suggestion seems to be that Noah himself is the potential source of favor.

Perhaps Noach is meant to undo the curse of Adam and to become the vehicle through which the shortcomings in the first creation are corrected.

As noted, the Sages say he started this process through his invention of the plow. Additionally some  parallels exist between Noah and Adam.

Both are given a command to populate the world. Both have three sons, one of whom was a black sheep who committed a serious crime. And as per BT Sanhedrin 70a both were undone by wine. Those Sages who imagine the forbidden fruit was a grape criticize Noah for failing to learn  from Adam's mistake.

Ironically, wine is also a source of comfort, and also something that eases a worker's toil. Perhaps what the verses mean is that Noah had the potential to bring great comfort, to correct the world, and cancel Adam's curse. Instead he imitated Adam's error, and  introduced to the world a paler, more destructive form of comfort. When he named his son, Noach's father envisioned great things; what his son delivered was an accurate fulfillment of the father's wish, but not what was specifically intended.

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A Suggested Blessing for Shem (A neat emendation)

The great ParshaBlog suggests a very interesting emendation that no one religious should see or know about. His kfiradika post is here. My summary follows:

After Noach realizes what his sons did to him, he makes a pronouncement that some have interpreted as a blessing (Notably SRH reads it not as a blessing, but a a statement of fact about the individuals themselves)  The passage reads as follows:

וַיֹּאמֶר, אָרוּר כְּנָעַן עֶבֶד עֲבָדִים, יִהְיֶה לְאֶחָיו. :	25 And he said: Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
כו וַיֹּאמֶר, בָּרוּךְ ה אֱלֹהֵי שֵׁם; וִיהִי כְנַעַן, עֶבֶד לָמוֹ.	26 And he said: Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be their servant.
כז יַפְתְּ אֱלֹהִים לְיֶפֶת, וְיִשְׁכֹּן בְּאָהֳלֵי-שֵׁם; וִיהִי כְנַעַן, עֶבֶד לָמוֹ.	27 God enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be their servant.

As you can see, no curse or blessing for Shem (verse 26) is pronounced, and no statement of fact is made about him. At Shem's turn, Noach blesses God instead, and oddly enough refers to YKVK as a Shem's personal deity. It's almost as if no one else in the family recognized Him. Strange, when you consider the flood, and the miracles the family had just experienced.

ParshaBlogs suggestion is that the word אֱלֹהֵי [=God of]  in verse 26 should be אָהֳלֵי [=tent of]. Along with solving all of the problems indicated in the preceding paragraph, this suggestion introduces a very sensible parallel: In verse 26 Noach asks God to bless Shem's tent; in verse 27 the tent of Shem, which has just been blessed,  is mentioned again as a place where Japeth might dwell.

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Ibn Ezra, James Kugel and Multiple Authors

This post was written by Rabbi Sedley. It appears here, and was taken without permission.  My response is at the end.
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One of the stories that is on all the media at the moment is the new software which has been developed by a team in Israel which traces the different voices and 'authors' of the Bible. It was even picked up by Stuff, which is a New Zealand newspaper.

For me the key thing in the article is the last couple of paragraphs:

What the algorithm won't answer, say the researchers who created it, is the question of whether the Bible is human or divine. Three of the four scholars, including Koppel, are religious Jews who subscribe in some form to the belief that the Torah was dictated to Moses in its entirety by a single author: God.

The question is - how can people who see different voices and authors in the text continue to beleive that the entire text was dictated by a single G-d to a single prophet (Moses)? Do they have to compartmentalise in their brains, or is their a resolution of these two apparent contradictions (I think there is - see below).

Another question which has been bothering me for a while is the parallels between the story of the flood (and particularly Noach's sacrifices after the flood) in the Torah and in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Lawrence Kelemen uses this as evidence for the truth of the Torah. In "Permission to Receive" on pp. 88-89 he writes:

In 1872, Dr. george Smith of the British Museum identified the first nonbiblical, written record of such a deluge. Scanning cuneiform tablets discovered in the Palace of Sennacherib at Kuyunjik, Simith found a reference to "a ship touching ground on a mountain called Nisir," followed by these lines:

When the seventh day arrived,
I sent forth and set free a dove.
The dove went forth, but came back;
Since no resting place for it was visible, she turned around.

At first this seems like very strong historical evidence for the truth of the events that are described in the Torah. However, James Kugel, in his book "How to Read the Bible" (pp. 75-6) points out that the similarities are too great, and it would seem to invalidate the authenticity of the Torah as the primariy source for this story.

The discovery of the Mesopotamian flood texts proved torubling for traditional Christian and Jewish belief. The reason may not be immediately apparent. After all, if such a great flood had indeed taken place in ancient times, there ought ot be nothing disturbing in the fact that some account of it survived outside of the Bible - on the contrary, the existence of other accounts would only seem to confirm the veracity of biblical history. But hte fact that the biblical and Mesopotamian accounts agreed in so many details suggested to scholars that there was actaully a literaryconnection between them: that is, the different accounts did not seem simply to agree on the events that had occurred, but on how those events should be retold, inlcuding things that could not have been based solely on historical observation. To mention one detail: why should the Bible have bothered to say that G-d "smelled the pleasing odor" of Noah's sacrifice? Certainly such a vivid anthropomorphism was a bit odd in the Bible, and the text could have as easily said that G-d "was pleased" with the sacrifice - or said nothing at all. More to the point, however: how could any on-site observer of the flood and its aftermath know that G-d/the gods had smelled anything? Surely this was not an observable event but an author's asertion; and the fact that the same asertion, indeed, the very same expression, is found in both Gilgamesh and the Bible seemed to sugest that one text was dependent on the other, or that both derived from a still earlier source. The problem was the even the friendliest dating eliminates any possibility that the Mesopotamian accounts derive from the biblical story; the oldest fragments go back to early in the second millennium BCE, perhaps even earlier - long before the time of Moses nad the traditinoal setting for the giving of the Torah and its account of the flood. As a consequence, most modern scholars today see in the biblical flood story a direct dependence on the Mesopotamian literary tradition.

So, in summary:

How is it possible to see apparent evidence of multiple authors in the Bible, and yet still believe that it was given by G-d to Moshe?

And how should we deal with the literary similarity between the Torah and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which imply that the Torah borrowed the story from an earlier source?

I would like to answer both questions based on Ibn Ezra in Parshas Chukas. Actually, both Ramban and Chizkuni give similar explanations, but Ibn Ezra is the clearest. In chapter 21 verses 13-14the Torah says:

From thence they journeyed, and pitched on the other side of the Arnon, which is in the wilderness, that cometh out of the border of the Amorites.--For Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites; wherefore it is said in the book of the Wars of the LORD: Vaheb in Suphah, and the valleys of Arnon.

Ibn Ezra (and Ramban and Chizkuni) ask what this "Book of the Wars of the Lord" is. His answer:

“In the Book of Wars of the Lord"– this was a separate book on its own, in which are written the wars of God for those who fear Him. It makes sense that this is from the time of Avraham, because many books were lost, and we no longer have them, such as The Words of Natan, The Book of Ido, Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Songs of Shlomo and his Proverbs.

Ibn Ezra (and the other Rishonim) claim that the Torah text we have includes within it fragments from earlier texts (which presumably were also dictated by G-d to Moshe - either G-d gave him a copy of the book or said it word for word). This also explains why the language of these verses is not in classic Hebrew, and the commentators struggle to explain some of the words.

Rashi gives a different explanation, but it seems to me that he is not giving 'pshat' - let me know what you think.

So does it not make sense that when G-d was retelling Moshe the stories from Bereishis, including the flood, that He also quoted earlier texts, even though the Torah does not explicitly quote the source of the words (I don't think G-d has to worry about plagiarism). This would answer Kugel's apparent difficulty with the biblical text.

Perhaps this can also explain why there appear to be different strands of authorship in the Bible. Moshe was combining earlier texts into the Torah that we have today - all based on the word of G-d.

I think that some people may have difficulty with such an answer, but when three major Rishonim all explain that Moshe is copying from other texts, is it really a problematic answer?

Your thoughts please.

DB: A nice post Rabbi Sedley, but a little heavy on the apologetics, no? Your solution fails because it introduces something unsupported by evidence, something you have introduced only for the sake of justifying a pre-existing belief. The evidence suggests parts of the Torah are based on older works. This you admit. The evidence also suggests that the Torah combines various narrative view points, ideologies and agendas. This you also admit. But rather then stopping there, you go on to insist that all of this was dictated to Moses by God. Maybe. But what aside from the lessons you ingested as a school child, and the way of life you've built upon it, compels you to say the story of that dictation is true? I expect what I've just said sounds harsh, and as a fellow believe in TMS I apologize, but let's be straightforward with one another. The evidence does not support the dictation story. It just doesn't.  The Ibn Ezra you cite tells us only that the Ibn Ezra, and other Rishonim, observed some of the same anomalies that we observe, and were troubled by them for the same reasons that we are troubled by them. However, is suggested solution - God dictated the contents of old books to Moshe - is a kvetch. Why would God borrow from someone else's work? Why, in the case of the moshlim in Chukas, would He use an old folk song to "prove" that Sihon first belonged to Moab. This is not the Torah's usual way of making historical claims. Why do it here? the ibn Ezra's solution isn't something he knew from history, its something he invented to preserve a cherished idea. I recognize his motivation, and respect the nobility of the attempt, but lets call a spade a spade.

Noah and the Dinosaurs

So, as you may have heard, they recently outlawed books in Kentucky, and arrested someone for smuggling them into the state.

Only he got off.

Wanna know why?

No one in Kentucky could prove they were books.

In that vein we give you this report:

Gov. Steve Beshear said Wednesday that a creationism theme park, expected to open in Northern Kentucky in 2014, would have a $250 million annual impact on the state’s economy.

Ark Encounter, which will feature a 500-foot-long wooden replica of Noah’s Ark containing live animals such as juvenile giraffes, is projected to cost $150 million and create 900 jobs, Beshear announced at a Capitol press conference.

“Make no mistake about it, this is a huge deal,” he said.

Best of all the park's ark will contain dinosaurs!!



SONKA: Will there be dinosaurs on the Ark?

ANSWERS IN GENESIS OFFICIAL: [off-mike] Well you know the position of Answers in Genesis so you can probably answer that yourself. We’ll have appropriate animals on the ark based on — [on mike] I’m sure we’ll have representative kinds of animals on the ark, to include dinosaurs.

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What was the significance of the dove's olive leaf?

There's a not-nearly-well-known-enough opinion in the Talmud that says the flood waters didn't reach Israel. Some take this to mean that the world was flooded, but an invisible wall kept the water away from the Holy Land; others see this as suggesting that Israel was the flood's southern, or western boundary, and that nothing to the south or west of Israel was flooded.

A supporting opinion in the Talmud says the leaf the dove brought back came from Israel - which fits: if the world was flooded, with everything destroyed, where else might the dove have discovered vegetation(1)? It had to have come from Israel, the only land that wasn't touched by the flood. The problem, then, is why did Noah find the leaf significant? Israel hadn't been flooded, and the leaf came from Israel so what, as they say, was the raya the the waters had receded? They hadn't reached Israel in the first place.

The passages reads:

When he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.

Note that we are told "the dove could find no place to rest its feet." Why? Perhaps because the dove was traveling from the ark in Turkey to Israel. On the first trip it came back empty-beaked, because it couldn't get to Israel. The journey was too far for the dove to complete without resting; the waters hadn't receded so there was "no place to rest its feet." By the time the dove was sent a week later, the waters had receded enough to provide it with resting spots, and it was able to reach Israel where there was vegetation.

According to this understanding, the leaf the dove brought back was proof that it had finally been able to reach Israel, and not evidence that plants in the rest of the world had started to bloom.

Heard 15 years ago in yeshiva.

NOTE
(1) One understanding is that everything was destroyed, including the seeds. Just as the earth had to be repopulated by Noah and the animals on his ark, it had to be replanted as well with seeds Noah took along. Also, trees and plants take months to germinate and bloom. On the dove's first trip there was nothing - not even a place to rest its feet. How could there have been plant life just a a week later?

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Noach is the most difficult parsha: Answers

What should we do with Noach? In the post that follows I explain. But be advised. This isn't some new fangled modern approach, but an appeal to the wisdom and clarity of the past. As you'll see, I think our approach to Torah verses should be more like the approach demonstrated and recommended by the Tannaim, Rishonim and Geonim.

Believing Jews - and here I mean the fundamentalist, hard-core, Ultras - get very upset when you start asking questions about Noach, as I did in my previous post. For a taste, follow me on Twitter. The wild conversation provoked by my post and by some floater ideas I tweeted as I wrote, still isn't over.

I think the Ultras react this way because they don't understand the stakes. They fear that giving up one particular set of interpretations about Parshas Noach means giving up the belief in Torah, Moshe and mesorah. But this is nonsense. There's nothing sacred about an interpretation. They go in and out of style, and when they appear to be unfounded they are (informally) discarded.

For proof, page through any old book of midrash agada - be it Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer, Midrash Raba, Tanchuma, or any other. You'll find countless interpretations hardly anyone still knows or remembers. Old interpretations are dropped for any number of reasons, including when new facts are discovered that make an old interpretation suddenly untenable. Examples of this abound. Once upon a time we accepted interpretations of verses that supported strange beliefs - about the shape of the universe, the arrangement of the planets, the size of the stars, the role of the sun, the function of the heart, the reproductive habits of mice and lice, and so on. Once upon a time an interpretations of a verse in Psalms seemed to foreclose any possibility man could ever explore space or walk on the moon. Today such interpretations are, as they should be, completely out of favor and they are no longer considered authoritative.

The fact that this happens - and make no mistake that it does -  troubles the Ultras but it shouldn't. Chzal never asked us to put their interpretations on a pedestal, or to treat them as forever binding; in fact, the Geonim and Rishonim did the very opposite. They told us many times over that it is ok to discard interpretations that no longer seemed true, and, moreover, that these interpretations should not be considered part of the Torah. [See this.]

The Rabbis also told us when we should feel free to offer our own interpretations and when it is appropriate  to reject the plain meaning of a verse.  Over 1000 years ago, one of the great champions of rabbinic Judaism, Sa'adya Gaon, taught [Emunot v'Deyot 7:2] that there are four conditions under which the Torah is not to be taken according to its literal meaning (1) When the plain meaning is rejected by common experience, or your senses; (2) When it is repudiated by obvious logic; (3) When it is contradicted by scripture; or (4) When it is opposed by tradition. There's no doubt the Rishonim took this wise advice and reinterpreted verses that didn't fit the known facts.  This is why Ramabm, alone, teaches that the encounters between Abraham and the Three Man-angles, and between Jacob and the Night-stranger were visions, and not observable events. This is why Ramban rejects his predecessors and the plain meaning of the verse, and teaches that rainbows existed before the flood. And there are many other examples.

Given this, why should someone who reinterprets Noach in light of the known facts be considered a non-believer? What exactly has he done wrong? How has he disrespected the teachings and interpretive practices of the Rishonim? The Sages (according to many) accepted the knowledge of their times, and used it to inform their understanding of Torah -- in fact, it can be shown to have influenced some of their interpretations. Why should we do otherwise? Given the great stock some of  the Sages put in their own local wisdom, is there any doubt that some of them would, today, be interpreting verses in light of Einstein and Darwin? So why is such an approach out of bounds? And finally, why is deciding that the archeological and geological evidence militate against a global flood thought to be an attack on the Torah, when really the only  victim is a bad idea, i.e., an unfounded, untenable interpretation? Ultras may believe that its all or nothing - that dropping one set of interpretations means dropping all the interpretations and all the commandments, too - but Jewish experience shows otherwise. In every generation, we've discarded and created interpretations without losing shabbos and the rest. I see no reason why we can't continue to do this.

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Noach is the most difficult parsha: Questions

What is a believing Jew to do with Noach? The questions seem impossible to answer. In brief, they are:

(1) How did all the animals fit on the boat?

(2) Why does the story contradict itself? Was it seven animals or two? Did the windows of the sky open, or did the fountains of the deep erupt? And if it was both, why is it written like two different tales have been woven together?

(3) Why does the world show no geological or archeological evidence of a global flood?

(4) How did three men repopulate the world so quickly? And if evolution is false, why do the descendants of those three men have such different phenotypes?

(5) How did the kangaroo and platypus return to Australia?

(6) A verse in Noach seems to replicate a verse found in the much earlier Epic of Gilgamesh. In both flood stories, the hero sacrifices; afterwards, we're told that God/the gods smelled the sweet odor. The same information, indeed the same expression, appears in both works. The fact that God/the gods smelling a sacrifice is not an observable event suggests very strongly that the two  books depend on each other for the information. If Noach was the older story, we might say that God, for some reason, chose to use this vivid anthropomorphism to describe himself, and that the author of Gilgamesh copied it. Unfortunately, the dating does not support this interpretation.

(7) Submitted by a reader

...the answers... can be summed up in a word: Miracles. My question, however, cannot be answered by miracles, and it goes as follows: The earth was created in the year 3761 BCE. Noah, bless his soul, was born in the year 1056 BCE. At the age of 600 yrs, Noah and his entourage entered the ark and the flood began, wiping out all living things, as quoteth from the holy book. They all descended the following year, which would be the year 2104 BCE. According to the holy book, all life should have been annihilated globally at that moment. This was also the time of the First Intermediate Period, a well-documented era at the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. It was also the time when the 3000 yr old Sumerian culture was waning and the Akkadian kingdom was at it's peak, for just 50 yrs later would be the Third dynasty of Ur, or the "Sumerian Renaissance". Somehow, the news of the flood also failed to reach the Indus Valley in India where the Harappan Civilization was in the height of its mature phase. My final example, although there are more, is the Xia dynasty in China, which was the first dynasty in China to be established in historical documents. All of these civilizations are well documented and all show absolutely no evidence of a sudden cessation that could be attributed to a flood. In fact they all show excellent continuity with kingdoms and rulers who followed. The existence and continuity of these civilizations show there never was a global flood. Anyone who would try to explain this historical discrepancy to the biblical flood story by resorting to the word Miracle would have to be classified as 'delusional'.

Some answers later.

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Last word (yeah right) on the local flood

Was Noah's flood local or global? Did it cover the whole world, or merely the world known to Noah? Last week, I discussed the problems with the universal flood, and now Rabbi Josh "the only blogger I call Rabbi" Waxman has has provided a mild rebuttal to any suggestion the flood was local.

Of course, he's right that the text seems to be speaking clearly of a universal flood. However in many other instances we're not shy about ignoring the plain meaning of verses. "An eye for an eye" is a famous example of Chazal telling us that a verse does not mean what it appears to mean, and though no one from Chazal offered a re-interpretation of Noach, no one from Chazal was aware of the difficulties with the universal flood, or the evidence against it. However, there are instances of their successors, the rishonim and achronim,  providing new interpretations to psukim after new scientific evidence came to light. For example, after science brought counterarguments, psukim that had previously been used to support the flat earth and the geocentric universe were given new explanations.

Based on what we know today about geology and genetics, I think we have no choice but to follow their example and reinterpret Noach, as well.

BONUS
Here's some terribly weak textual evidence in support of the local flood. As noted by many, the story of the destruction of Sodom parrallels the Noah story in some interesting ways:

- The word himtir appears in both places; both destructions are via precipitation
- In each case, moral perversion is the reason given for the destruction
- In each case, one family is marked for survival
- In each case, the hero becomes drunk immediately afterwards, and is involved in an illicit act.

At the end of the Sodom story, the daughters of Lot are certain they are the only people left in the world, though what they suffered was very much a local catastrophe. Could they same be true of Noah's flood? (I know, I know: terribly weak)


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Various Noah Notes

Gen 6:19: וּמִכָּל-הָחַי מִכָּל-בָּשָׂר שְׁנַיִם מִכֹּל, תָּבִיא אֶל-הַתֵּבָה--לְהַחֲיֹת אִתָּךְ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, יִהְיוּ
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 

On the spot Rashi says that shadim, or demons, were included, too. Why? Perhaps, because the verse says וּמִכָּל-הָחַי מִכָּל-בָּשָׂר suggesting that things that were alive, but not flesh, were brought on board as well. Rashi's source for this is Beraysis Raba, and I am quick to note that not all of BR found its way into Rashi's commentary. He includes only what can be used to address a perceived textual anomaly.

Gen 7:17 : וַיְהִי הַמַּבּוּל אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, עַל-הָאָרֶץ; וַיִּרְבּוּ הַמַּיִם, וַיִּשְׂאוּ אֶת-הַתֵּבָה, וַתָּרָם, מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ.

The identical verb appears here, and earlier when God instructs the animals to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ) Says Alter (paraphrase): "The multiplying waters are made to destroy the living creatures who were enjoined to proliferate with the same verb.

Gen 7:11 tells us "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." 

This sounds like a reversal of the second day of creation, when "God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so."

Remarks about the first Rashi in Noach

 Here's Rashi's famous comment on the first verse in parshas Noach:

There are those from our Sages who interpret it [the word בְּדֹרֹתָיו] favorably: How much more so if he had lived in a generation of righteous people, he would have been even more righteous. Others interpret it derogatorily: In comparison with his generation he was righteous, but if he had been in Abraham’s generation, he would not have been considered of any importance

When I was in 9th grade, our teacher explained this comment as follows, "See how sly Rashi is? He says "our sages" [רבותינו] when speaking of those who praised Noach, but merely of "others" [ ויש שדורשים] when speaking of those who criticized him. From this we see that the derogatory view did not belong to our Sages, and Rashi, in this comment, is refuting those who read this verse that way."

Last night, I finally got around to checking Rashi's source. It's Bereshis Raba, where this disagreement about Noach's merits is cast as a debate between two sages, Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Nechemiah. Ah well. So much for that 9th grade teachers well meaning, but incorrect, deduction.

More interesting to me is something else: In the Midrash the two sages don't speculate about what Noach might have achieved had he lived in Abraham's time. Instead, they speak of the eras of Moshe and Samuel. Did Rashi have a different text of the midrash, or did he change it for some reason? *  And, what was so special about Abraham's era anyway? He (per other midrashim) was the only monotheist; everyone else was a pagan. Why would living among pagans have afforded Noah any spiritual advantage? Religiously speaking, Abraham's time was not much different from his own. The text of the midrash, as we have it, makes more sense, because it's easier to see the religious advantages of living during the time of Moses or Samuel.

Finally, having criticized my 9th grade teacher, allow me to praise my 11th grade teacher who shrewdly pointed out that Rashi's comment, as a whole, is a criticism of Noah: As Rashi has it, Noah is either a lightweight compared to Abraham, or someone who could have been Abraham's equal, but failed to reach his full potential.

*It may damage your hackles to hear that Rashi sometimes altered the text of midrashim for interpretive purposes, but this is well documented.

Search for more information about Noach at 4torah.com.

Chukas HaGoyim?

Browsing around the internets, I came across this interesting recollection in an article by Timothy Noah about how people react to summer camp:

"Some people really, really enjoy camp. I wish I could tell you that these people grow up to be really, really normal, but they don't. You know who I'm talking about. These are the ones who wept uncontrollably when the paper-mache numbers spelling out 1967 were set ablaze on a little raft that a camp counselor, under cover of darkness, towed stealthily to the middle of Lake Weecheewachee on the evening of the last group sing."

Group sing? Every Jewish camp -even the uber-Haredim- does something just like that after Eicha is read. To be honest, I never understood the point -- why burn the year? -- and the discovery that this ritual was copied from the WASP camps doesn't shed any light on it.

PS. At my camp, the numbers (letters actually: This was the hebrew year) were gasoline soaked tampons-- not paper mache.


Search for more information about camp at 4torah.com.

Parsha Notes (Noach)

Here we go with a new DovBear series (remember this one?) in which I will attempt to briefly summarize all that is odd and interesting about the current Parsha. [Others]

Noach

Things everyone should know:

(1) There are two flood stories, that appear to be woven together, that themselves are uncomfortably similar to the Gilgamesh epic. [Mis-nagid had a post on this a few years back, that made the facts as clear as day.] Sure, the Divine Author may have done this, but the differences between the Bible's two stories, and the parallels to the other source call out for commentary.

(2) The Ibn Ezra says that those who believe Cham and/or Canaan were published with blackness have forgotten that Nimrod, the first king mentioned in the bible was from Kush and presumably Black. [More on why teachings about Cham are terrible]

Famous Argument

Rainbows: The Ibn Ezra says that rainbows never existed before the flood, and that we see them now because God made the sun stronger. The Kli Yakar says that rainbows never existed before the flood and we see them now because God dissipated the thick cloud cover that had existed from the time of creation. The Ramban says that rainbows always existed, nature didn't change. The Ranbam further says that we should rely on science, which would demolish the views of both the Kli Yakar and the Ibn Ezra together with lots of things lots of Rabbis say, and have said, about the world.

Irony

The man who brings the first recorded animal sacrifice is immediately killed. The man who brings the second recorded animal sacrifice is violated. Message: Divine acceptance of offering provides no protection. (This jaded view of Genesis toward sacrifice is observed by Alter.)

Word Play

(1) Gen 7:17 : וַיְהִי הַמַּבּוּל אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, עַל-הָאָרֶץ; וַיִּרְבּוּ הַמַּיִם, וַיִּשְׂאוּ אֶת-הַתֵּבָה, וַתָּרָם, מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ.
The identical verb appears here, and earlier when God instructs the animals to "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ) Says Alter (paraphrase): "The multiplying waters are made to destroy the living creatures who were enjoined to proliferate with the same verb."

(2) Gen 7:11 tells us "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
This sounds like a reversal of the second day of creation, when "God said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so."

(3) Gen 5:29 וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ נֹחַ, לֵאמֹר: זֶה יְנַחֲמֵנוּ מִמַּעֲשֵׂנוּ, וּמֵעִצְּבוֹן יָדֵינוּ, מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר אֵרְרָהּ יְהוָה.
"And he called his name Noah, saying: 'This same shall comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, which cometh from the ground which the LORD hath cursed.'"
How did Noah bring comfort? With the plow he invented, Rashi says. Before Noah man had to contend with the thorns and thistles mentioned in Adam's curse (Some support: the root 'zb appears here (וּמֵעִצְּבוֹן יָדֵינוּ) and at the curse (בְּעִצָּבוֹן תֹּאכְלֶנָּה)). But I wonder: Perhaps the comfort Noach brings the workingman is wine?

Mussar

God commands Noah to leave the Arks secure isolation and to engage the world with all its dangers and all its challenges.

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Buy my book. (please)

The famous rainbow post (repeat)

"'I do set my bow in the cloud."
Genesis 9: 9-15

After the flood, God demonstrates remorse and makes a deal with the creation, promising never to drown it again. He even puts the rainbow in the sky to remind himself of his promise. Now, whenever God gets angry, he looks at the rainbow and says: 'Oh, yeah.... That's right. I promised not to drown my creations again.' (It may seem like that last line was meant as a joke, but the idea that a rainbow is nothing but a giant post-it-note in the sky is pretty much Gen 9:15 verbatim)

The trouble with this verse is that rainbows occur naturally when light is refracted through water. They've existed for as long as light and water have existed. Are we to believe that there were no rainbows until after the flood? Did the flood change the very nature of light and water?

It won't surprise you to learn that traditional Judaism offers two answers, and, naturally, the nuttier one is more popular.

Nutty Torah-True Explanation: (more popular)
Before the deluge, some kind of vapor or cloud canopy surrounded the earth. 'Before the Flood, the clouds in the sky were thick and dense, obscuring the light of the sun. The Flood, which cleansed and purified the earth, also refined the clouds and made it possible for the rainbow to be observed, a phenomenon caused by the sun's rays' [Source] In other words, before the flood Earth's atmosphere with similar to the atmosphere of Venus. How did the people who lived before the flood survive the super high temperatures that are the physical result of such super-greenhouse conditions? The nutters don't say.

Rational Torah-True Explanation (less popular)
Samson Raphael Hirsch says, simply and specifically that the verses in Genesis shouldn't be construed to suggest that Noah's rainbow was the first rainbow in history. He bases himself on the Ramban, who writes: "As for us, we have no choice but to accept the opinion of the Greeks who maintain that the rainbow is an entirely natural phenomenon caused by the sun's rays striking the moist air after a rainfall. Any vessel of water that is placed in the sunlight will also produce a rainbow-like effect....The term "My rainbow" implies that it had existed earlier. Therefore, we explain the verses to mean that the rainbow that I placed in the clouds from the time of creation shall from this day forward constitute the sign of the covenant between Me and you, for when I shall see it I will recall that a covenant of peace exits between Me and you…(commentary to 9:12-17).]

The Ramban, you'll notice, is not adverse to reinterpreting a verse based on the teachings of science. Unlike too many of my ridiculous commenters, he does not ask us to accept teachings which conflict with empirical evidence.

Noah: Oldies, goodies

Here, brought to you by the ghost of DovBear past, are some classic posts on the parsha every skeptic likes to hate.

Noah gathers the animals for the ark

The curse of Ham

On Noah

On his flood

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech: What was it?

Answering Acher

Safe Skeptism

An example of idiocy (by Ed)

Final points on Noah

Ok, I hope this is my last post on Noah and his !*#*$ flood for another year...

Here's my argument, boiled down:

a - Nothing the Torah says can be false.

b - The idea that the whole world was once destroyed by a flood is false (we know this from the evidence).

c - Therefore, the Torah can't possibly be saying that the world was destroyed by a flood.

I fail to see why so many of you find this conclusion so threatening. It's aleph bais that the Torah is true; if it's also true that there was no flood, we must go back and find out what the Torah is really saying.

Reinterpreting verses to fit new facts is an old tradition, and one supported by men like Rav Saadya. For generations, Jews pointed to the story of Joshua and used it to argue that the sun revolves around the earth. When insurmountable evidence was produced which showed that it was the other way around, the verse in Joshua was reinterpreted. According to Marc Shapiro, legions of Jews -including Tannaim and Rishonim - once thought God had corpreal qualities. Now that the Rambam's argument for an incorporeal God have won the day, all of the verses about God's arm and his hand have been reinterpreted.

The approach to Noah that I am proposing in this post is no more radical. In fact, if you honestly beleive that the torah is true, you have no other choice: The verses must fit the evidence. To allow them to do otherwise, is to concede that the Torah is false.

For the record

I realize my last few posts on Noah may have confused those of you who wish to be confused, so allow me to set the record straight: I believe in God, and I believe there was a divine revelation at Sinai.

Safe Skeptism

Over shabbos, I locked myself away with Moshe Dovid Cassuto's From Adam to Noah: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, I-VI. Cassuto, of course, was an Orthodox Rabbi who was able to combine loyalty to the mesorah with a willingness to follow the evidence.

In particular, he argues (quite convincingly) that the story the Torah tells about Noah is an homogeneous whole, and not two competing stories that were knitted together. His evidence for this includes the fidelity of the Torah's story to fragments found in Mesopotamia, and also the fact that many key words appear in the story 7 times (or multiples of 7.) Though Cassuto does theorize that the Torah's story is based on an older epic poem (this explains the use of strange words like Tzohar and Kinim) this theory isn't a challange to the idea of divine revelation. We all agree that God used words and ideas that were previously known to the people. Why couldn't He have also drawn on pre-existing themes or poems?

Best of all, Cassuto points to evidence in the text that suggests Noah's flood was a regional flood, by which we mean one that affected Mesopotamia, and not other parts of the globe.

This opinion is appealing because it preserves Noah, and the mesorah, without insulting our intelligence. If we hold that the flood was regional, the absence of geological evidence of a flood in places like China or Europe is no longer troubling. (The theory is further bolstered by the presence of flood evidence in Mesopotamia.) Nor must we explain, if we follow Cassuto, how all the races of the world descended from the 8 people who were on-board Noah's ark. Per Cassuto, most of the world was unaffected.

YouTube: Noah gathers the animals for the ark

Me and the Mabul

By now, I suppose all of you think that I hold Noah and his flood are a fiction. Not quite. Despite what you might think, I am not ready to pronounce the story entirely false. In my mind, there may have been a man named Noah, and he may have made a boat of some kind for the purpose of escaping some kind of flood. He might even have taken some animals with him.

Here, though, are the pronouncments I am prepared to make:

1 - Judaism and the Torah do not rest on Noah. If we go back in a time machine, and find Noah and his boat, gam zu l'tovah. If not, so what? If Noah is proven not to have existed, it does not follow from this that the torah is false, and the the mitzvos are a hoax. The story may have been included, by God, in the bible for instructional purposes. Or it may have been grafted on to the original revelation by first temple Jews (they were mostly idol worshippers, remember?) Or perhaps, this story, like Shir HaSHirim, is meant to be taken figurativly. We're Jews, and Jews aren't literalists.

2 - People who know how and where to look are agreed: There's no evidence of a global flood.

3 - The boat described in the bible isn't big enough to contain "...every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth."

4 - The story the bible tells appears to be two different stories knitted together (Note: I am not saying that it IS two different stories, only that it looks that way to anyone prepared to engage the text on its own terms.)

5 - Doubt and discussion are always a good thing. The conversatioon we've had this week about Noah hasn't damaged Judaism, because Judaism doesn't depend on Noah.