Pyka Family

Parashat And Sidra Of Noach

Parashat Noach is the 2nd weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading.

קצים ק Verses 5 and 6 of chapter 9, which deal with murder, are the work of Nechama The Leibowitzes (b. 1905), an eminent scholar of the Scriptures, living in Israel.
For the first generations of mankind – Adam and his descendants – murder was not expressly forbidden, for from the fact that man was created in the image of G-d, the prohibition of murder followed clear enough.
Afterward, when the decline of the human race resulted in general violence, it fell to Noah and his to the sons, who alone survived the doom sent upon depraved mankind, of the express prohibition of murder and they were also punished for disobedience.
“Yet I will require the blood of your life, from every animal I will require it and from
(every) man, from every (man’s) brother I will demand a man’s life.”
This long verse deserves explanation in terms of both meaning and structure.
The beginning of the verse “but the blood of your life will I require” can apparently be understood as the general principle and the continuation then specifies two possibilities in detail: blood may be spilled animal or human.

This is how Ibn Ezra (1089-1164) explains our verse:
“I have permitted you to shed the blood of every living creature except the blood that gives life you.
I did not allow this blood to be shed because you are human. I will hold her accountable.
The meaning is the same as in ‘for shed blood (the Lord) calls to account (Hebrew doresh), he remembers her…” (Psalm 9:13).
Such is the general principle and the particulars are explained below.
‘And from (every) person’ – whether another is killed by many people or just one, I will call them for their blood to
responsibilities.
I will also call every animal to account – I will command another to kill them.
For beasts are permitted unto you, but beasts shall not kill man.”
The stated idea of punishing an animal that kills a human is considered by most commentators to be somewhat bizarre, because the system of permissions and prohibitions only makes sense when the being is gifted free will.
So it seems that our text is to be understood as a punishment for a person who does not kill his neighbor hand, but he uses an animal for it.
This view is held by Maimonides (1135-1204):
‘From every animal I will require it (blood)’ – this refers to a person who binds another and he throws it to a lion or other beast, which tears it apart and devours it (Mishna Torah § 2).
It remains for us to explain the exact meaning of the words “from (every) man, from every (man’s) brother” in our verse.
If we accept that repetitions have a place in the Torah to emphasize a certain idea, we rank to the opinion of S.D. Luzzatta (1800-1865): “These words are a kind of nipple that has no other purpose than to add emphasis to the statement.
G-d says that he will call a person to account for another person’s life, he will demand an account for the life of his brother, who is a human being like himself, and yet he had no mercy.”
However, our sages and after them Rashi (1040 – 1105) do not understand the verse in this way.
According to them, this is not about emotional emphasis; each part of the verse specifies a certain legal aspect: “‘Yet the blood of your life’ – though I have permitted you to take the life of an animal, I will
to call to account the one who sheds his own blood (who attempts suicide).
‘I will demand her… from (every) person’ – from a person who commits premeditated murder without witnesses.
(From the brother of every (man)’ – whom he loves as his own brother and whom he killed unintentionally, by omission.
I will call him to account if he does not reveal the truth and ask for forgiveness for his own error.
For even unintentional killing must be atoned for.
If no witnesses were present to make the murderer go into exile, or if he refuses to submit to punishment, G-d himself will call him to account.
This is how our sages interpreted in the Talmud (Makot 10b) the verse ‘If he loses his life, he will give his life for life’ (2.M 21,23):
G-d made them meet in the same inn…”
(It is about the meeting of a murderer who premeditated his crime and a man who killed unintentionally.
This man slipped and fell from the ladder onto the murderer and killed him.
He then had to go into exile himself. (Both men received the punishment they deserved.)

The already mentioned Maimonides also views the quoted 5th verse of the 9th chapter in a legal context:
“‘However, I will require the blood of your life’ – this applies to a person who kills himself with his own hand.
‘From every (man’s) brother I will require a man’s life’ – refers to one who hires assassins, to kill his neighbor.
Here (and in Maimonides’ statement quoted above) the expression darash, i.e. to ask, is used three times in total to demand, to call to account, to be informed that the judgment of the guilty passes to G-d justice.”
Whether we take a more literary or legal point of view, it is clear that the text speaks of G-d’s punishment.
This is the meaning of the word edrosh (future tense from darash).
The following verse 6, on the other hand, refers to human righteousness:
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of G-d he created him (G-d) of man.” (According to Maimonides, this is a case where the murderer kills himself, not through someone else.)
Together with Benno Jacob (1862-1945), we can mention the sense of horror induced by the lapidary announcing the punishment for the murderer.
We can also notice the bifurcation that characterizes the first part of the verse (contexts: who sheds – will be shed, blood – his blood, man – by man; face to face with the person who committed the crime crime, stands the man who carries out the punishment. The counterpart of spilled blood is the blood of the murderer). It finally is it is necessary to draw attention to consonance, repetition of almost identical sounds – dam (i.e. blood), adam (i.e. man), which multiplies the impressiveness of the verse. Of primary importance, however, is the reason the justifying law: “For in the image of G-d He (G-d) created man.”
Commentators wonder to whom the word “man” with which our verse ends directly refers. Opinions differ.
According to some, this is a murderer. They explain that life is a gift from G-d, and so man with it cannot load at will. He is charged with a mission. If, instead of joining God’s creative work and building, he destroys where did he share the image of G-d? Such an idea is developed in the first of his two commentaries by David Kimchi (1160-1235):
“Even as regards beings inferior to oneself, one had no right to kill them until such time
G-d did not command.
In order for Adam and Eve to be able to eat plants – creatures lower than animals – they had to be G-d declare as a meal holiday:
‘Behold, I have given you every herb on the whole earth…’ (Genesis 1:29).
In the same way, G-d established in His Law given to Moses that it is possible to shed blood a man who deserves the death penalty for his sin, for in this case it is a man who he began to destroy G-d’s image (of the human race) when he transgressed G-d’s command.”
Other commentators, among them again Kimchi, on the other hand, judge that “man made in the image G-d’s” denotes a sacrifice.
According to this interpretation, if the murderer’s blood must be shed, it is because he himself has shed it. To the verse of Sidra Noach – here the sons of the daughter of G-d saw people that they were beautiful and took them as wives whichever they chose (6.2) Rashi states that the heavenly beings – sons of princes and judges – fulfilled
on Earth G-d’s mission.
Ibn Ezra and other exegetes add that the sons of G-d were descendants of Seth, while the daughters of men they belonged to the tribe of Cain.
The heavenly messengers earned their title of G-d because Seth’s tribe kept G-d’s seal (see 5:3).
However, this family failed to save humanity from destruction because it did not preserve itself your purity.
It joined with the descendants of Cain, who gave rise to a g-dless civilization; however they made progress in the field of arts and technical discoveries, found their end in the destruction of the flood.
However, even the descendants of Seth did not escape the deadly ortel, because through their marriages they fell to the level of this one pernicious generation.
From the emphasis on the beauty of women it is clear that the sons of G-d looked only at their external, physical aspect, and took no note of either their origin or their future capacity for dignity raise children.
In the very act of election, Rashi sees proof of the perversion of men who married married women, and he imagines that the choice also fell on other men and cattle, that adultery, homosexuality and intercourse with animals led to the extinction of mankind.
When G-d saw that the sons of G-d’s generation were marrying without giving any thought to their marriages importance, he predicted that his spirit, that is, G-d’s light, would not be in control for much longer the physicality of people, that this light is in danger of “becoming flesh” itself.
Subjection to the flesh will cause the flood of sensual passions to overwhelm the spiritual forces – such is it the meaning of the verse and the Hashem said: my spirit will not decide in man forever, because he is meat after all; let his age last one hundred and twenty years (6:3).
Chaim Luzzatto focused mainly on the last sentence of the quoted verse. After Adam’s fall, he writes, G-d wished that men could once again reach perfection by attraction
only by the ideal of holiness without being subjected to new laws. In order for a person to have enough time to independently achieve such a degree of wisdom that would
he raised him to holiness and allowed him to again belong to G-d, the Creator provided people a very long life.
G-d gave men a period of ten generations to realize this ideal. Noah could be the true Savior who would bring the torch of light and salvation to mankind. He was too weak, however, to ask to stem the tide of immorality that swept over his contemporaries, and failed to prevent disaster.
After this failure of the “noble path” leading to perfection through the ideal of holiness, G-d decided to teach mankind the “low way”.
It includes numerous prohibitions and commands that should lead a person to moral perfection.
G-d first declared the laws intended for the “sons of Noah” and then the provisions that make up the content of the Torah. At the same time, he limited the length of human life, because man, who continued to be guided by G-d’s laws, already he didn’t need to seek the truth himself. 120 years should have been enough for him to reach the highest goal of being. The example of Moses, who died at the age of 120, proves that this period is sufficient. (Talmudic tractate Chulin 139b alludes to this in our verse, when the Hebrew conjunction b’ shagam, i.
“nevertheless”, he interprets precisely with reference to Moses, because the numerical value of this expression is equal to the numerical value of the name Moshe.)
The number 120 alone represents the length of one day on G-d’s scale. But this day may last a thousand years (a thousand years are in Your eyes as yesterday that has passed, as
one night watch – Psalm 90:4) and it was the days of this order that the first generations enjoyed.

However, just as the days can be long or short depending on the season, so can G-d’s
a day can contain as little as 120 years, while this figure itself is approximately the same as 12 hours in a day, part of which is swallowed up by night.
After limiting the length of human life, the day given to man is “short and the work is many”, as they say rabbi Tarfon in the Talmudic tractate Avot 2.20.
However, even this day, however limited, is enough to fulfill human existence on earth, as it were emphasizes Rashi in the commentary on Deuteronomy 7:11. When the hundred and twenty years repeated fifty times are fulfilled human existence – in the fifty-year cycle of the jubilee year repeated seven times seven – the world will enter its seventh millennium (Tract Avoda zara 9a), the messianic era.
This period will fulfill on a universal level the historical significance of the Jubilee year, about which the Torah says: And you shall sanctify the fiftieth year and proclaim release (to freedom) in the land to all its inhabitants (Leviticus 25:10).
The lowness to which humanity has fallen, the wickedness of man (6:5) led the Hashem to regret that had made man on the earth and was grieved in his heart (6:6).
Maimonides suggests in his Guide to the Lost (1:29) that G-d did not send the unworthy generation of no prophet, but cherished sorrow in his heart as later mercy (see 8:21) until he revealed his innermost thoughts to Moses.
Rav Ami created a parable about a king who conducted his affairs through a messenger.
However, the king suffered financial losses.
To whom should he complain, if not to the messenger (Midrash raba 26)1 In the same way, God entrusted the Earth, to give birth to man and nourish him. However, this mission was not fulfilled, the Earth fell into decay. That is why G-d became bitter towards her. That is how our verse is to be understood, which does not literally say grieved in his heart, but concerning his heart.
At the same time, the expression of his heart refers to the Earth, because it is to whom the central place in the work belongs Creation.
The earth represents a treasure, which G-d’s love has covered with unprecedented wealth and splendor, a treasure located in the “heart of the building universe”. This work is the object of G-d’s joy. G-d gave him his heart; and he feels, humanly speaking, obliged to renounce the object of his joy.
This concept imposes part of the responsibility for the human on the earth – on the earthly influence on man misconduct. Thus one can understand why the Torah repeats the expression ha-odam ba-arec twice in a row, literally man in the earth, not al ha-arec, on earth. G-d knew that man’s destruction (inflicted upon the earth) was increasing… G-d regretted that he had made man created from earth. The mention of this benevolent magnanimity justifies the use of G-d of the name represented by the tetragrammaton (Hebrew letters yod, he, vav, he), which means regret, in verses announcing punishment, though later, when implacable justice intervenes, it will be this
G-d’s name replaced by Elokim, which expresses judgment.

Chassidic Parashat

Faith Is Not Blind

The role of the Tzaddikim and teachers in every generation is to instruct people how to increase their faith and trust in Hashem.

“These are the generations (offspring) of Noach, Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generation. Noach walked with Hashem. Noach had three sons, Shem, Cham and Yafes. The world was corrupt before Hashem, and the land was filled with crime and violence ” (Bereishis 6:9-11) Reb Levi Yiztchok of Berditchev, the Kedushas Levi, explains that there are two types of Tzaddikim (righteous) in the world.
The first serves Hashem just for himself but doesn’t get involved with the people to guide them back to the service of Hashem. The example is Noach.
The second serves Hashem and tries to guide others along to do Teshuva and to serve Hashem. The example is Avraham Avinu.
R’ Yitzchok Luria, the Holy Arizal from Sfas, revealed that this was the reason for Noach’s punishment (the ordeal of the flood). Because of the fact that Noach was interested in serving Hashem alone but not in teaching and reproving people of his generation, he was reincarnated as Moshe Rabbenu. This indeed was Moshe’s principal job throughout his years of leading the Jewish people; to constantly reprove and judge the people.
The Gemarra (Sanhedrin 99b) states, “One who teaches Torah to the son of his fellow is considered as if he had given birth to him.” This refers to Avraham whose name can be read as an acrostic, “Av Hamon Goyim”, the father of the masses from every nation, (whom he instructed in the tenets of monotheism) .
Nevertheless regarding Noach the verse states, “These are the offspring (both physical and spiritual) of Noach, . . . Noach had three sons, Shem, Cham and Yafes.” The meaning is “these” and only “these”. They are his three sons. This is in marked contrast to Avraham as mentioned before.
“Noach walked with Hashem.” He did exactly that, he walked with Hashem; but
with Hashem only, and not with the people of his generation. He didn’t try to bring them closer to Hashem’s Service.
In the Bircas Hamzon after a meal, in the paragraph beginning “BaMarom”, we ask to “find grace and good understanding in the eyes of Hashem and of (our) fellow men”. The last verse in Parshas Bereishis says, “And Noach found grace in the eyes of Hashem.” (Bereishis 6:8) In the eyes of Hashem, but not in the eyes of his generation. Since he didn’t work to bring them back to the service of Hashem, he was ultimately scorned by them.
This points out the meaning of what Rashi brings (Bereishis 7:7) that Noach was a
man of limited faith. How could it be that one of whom is called a “. . .righteous man, perfect in his generation”, didn’t pray on behalf of his generation to have the decree of the flood rescinded?

It is as explained by R’ Levi Yitzchok above that there are two types of Tzaddikim. Noach didn’t reprove his generation. His service was purely personal. “Who am I to reprove them and pray for them”, he said to himself.
In light of the above, the answer of the R’ Yisroel of Ruzhin to a famous question from this Parsha can be understood. The verse states, “These are the generations of Noach, Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generation. Noach walked with Hashem.” On the words, “. . .Noach was a righteous man, perfect in his generation”, Rashi comments, “Some of our sages interpret these words as
praise for Noach. If he was a Tzaddik in a generation of corruption, how much greater a Tzaddik would he have been would he have lived in a generation of righteous people.”
“Yet some of our sages interpret these words as being derogatory. In his generation Noach was considered a Tzaddik, would he have lived in the times of Avraham he would not be considered righteous at all.” Virtually all of the Chassidic Torah commentaries ask, if it is possible to understand that the Torah is praising Noach, why do we need to mention the derogatory interpretation?
R’ Yisrael of Ruzhin says that the purpose of a Tzaddik in this world is to instill and encourage Emunas (faith and trust in) Hashem in the people of the generation. Noach, says Rashi (Bereishis 7:7), was a man of limited faith, therefore he didn’t endeavor to instill faith in the people of his generation.
Avraham Avinu on the other hand, made it his life’s work to bring Emunah in Hashem to as many people as possible, as it says, (Bereishis 15:6) “And Avraham caused others to believe in Hashem. . .”. If we are to lean towards praising Noach, it can be said that he didn’t teach and instill Emunah in his generation since they were basically beyond hope. Were he from the generation of Avraham, surely he would also have made it his life’s work.
Nevertheless the Sages needed to learn the interpretation which is derogatory to Noach to extract an important lesson. Since Noach was a righteous person himself, he shined in his generation even though he didn’t try to teach them Emunah. Were he from the generation of Avraham, a generation open and willing to hear about Hashem, and to grow in their Emunah, he would not be considered a Tzaddik or teacher. Since he wasn’t working to instill Emunah in the generation, he was not fulfilling the role of a Tzaddik. I believe that the Rizhiner Rebbe is hinting here at something very important.
Every generation requires it’s teachers, masters and Tzaddikim. Every individual also needs his personal Rebbe to provide spiritual guidance. How is it possible to
know who are the proper teachers, who is leading students on a true path, and who is misleading them or only building an empire for himself?

Parshas Noach contains the touchstone. If the Tzaddik teacher is promoting Emunah and guiding and inspiring students to develop a firmer belief and trust in Hashem, it is a confirmation that the Tzaddik/teacher is indeed genuine.

The World Of Speech

There are lessons in sanctifying speech to be learned from the Ark of Noach.
Make yourself an ark (Teva) of gofer wood, divide it into compartments and smear it with pitch inside and out. This is how you shall construct it. The ark’s length shall be 300 cubits, its width 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a skylight for the ark, the top of the ark shall be a cubit wide (with the sides slanted down).
Place the opening of the ark on its side. Make three floors in the ark.” (Bereishis
6:14-16)
In Hebrew, the term for Ark, Teva also means “word”.
The Kedushas Levi finds in the measurements of the Ark a lesson in proper
speech. One must weigh his words carefully before speaking. When one builds his Ark/Teva, he must measure out its height. Height hints at considering the greatness and loftiness of the Creator.
One then measures the width. Width hints at the area between to opposite sides. These are the two opposite but complementary aspects of Divine Service, Ahava and Yirah (Love and Awe or Fear). This is also a result of considering the greatness and loftiness of the Creator.
Then one measures out the length. This is the Divine endowment or bounty which comes into the world as a result of carefully guarded and measured speech which is in the service of Hashem.
R’ Shlomo of Radomsk, the Tiferes Shlomo says, “. . . place the opening of the ark on its side. . . “, refers to the opening of the portal of Divine endowment and bounty into the physical world. This opening shall be on the side. It is not Hashem’s intention that a person should place his primary focus on his material needs and desires, rather, they should be on the side or secondary.
Moreover says the Tiferes Shlomo, when a person will put his full intention into every word (teva) of his prayers, making that his primary concern, then the material needs will come automatically, from the side so to speak, and the world will be full of Divine bounty.
The Tzaddik Works on Behalf of His People
A secular Jew in Israel from a Chassidic background once related the following
story.

His son, a commander of a Tank Artillery division had become vehemently anti religious. He even went so far as to complain about a photograph of his grandfather which hung on the wall in his father’s house. The photograph of the grandfather, in traditional Chassidic garb with peyos and a long beard, was particularly offensive to the young soldier. “That man is a barbarian. Take the picture down”, he would shriek.
One day, the soldier became religious! What happened?
It was June 1967, the Six Day War, in the Sinai Desert. The tanks were all spread out. If attacked, they would have to regroup and fight together. Suddenly, Egyptian tanks approached. The commander turned his tank around and raced back to the platoon. The fastest way was straight across an open stretch. Suddenly, he saw an old man davening, enwrapped in tallis and tefillin, right in his path. “Doesn’t the fool have any place better to pray than in the middle of the
desert”, he screamed. “I’m going to run him over.” But at the last minute he swerved to avoid the old man. The Egyptian tank in hot pursuit behind him didn’t have any such tinge of sympathy. As it ran over the old Jew it exploded into a fiery inferno as it tripped a landmine underneath. When the soldier visited his father after the war, the photo was still on the wall. Although he had seen it hundreds of times before, the face familiar in a strange way. He recognized the face of the old Jew who was praying in the desert.
“I realized that he was praying for me that I should live”, explained the newly religious soldier, and I want to be like him.”