AND ALL THE WORLD WAS OF ONE LANGUAGE AND ONE SET OF WORDS . . . THEY SAID: COME NOW! LET US BUILD OURSELVES A CITY AND A TOWER, ITS TOP IN THE HEAVENS, AND LET US MAKE OURSELVES 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, (Job 24:2) “People remove boundary stones; they carry off flocks and pasture them”, 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, (Hoshea 4:16) “Efrayim is bound up with idolators – let him be” – but when there is division among them, what does He say? (ibid. 10:2) “Now that his boughs are broken up, He feels his guilt”. Thus we learn: Great is peace, despicable is discord.

 (Bereishit Rabba, Chap. 38)

 

 

“DAMNED BE CANAAN!”

Michel ben Shoshan

          Only after reading the entire parasha, do we finally hear the voice of Noah speaking (Bereishit 9:25-27). Only apres la deluge, do we hear the three sole sentences uttered by the hero who saved mankind from total destruction, sentences which the Torah deems important to quote.

          Up until this point, Noah is distinguished by certain behavior, by good deeds, (Rashi), but not by speech. It is possible, so it would seems, to find favor in the eyes of God even without talk.

          The incident which occured nine generations earlier – fratricide – which apparently led to the deterioration of man’s condition, is also presented by the Bible without talk. The passage (Bereishit 4:8) does, indeed, mention speech, but the words spoken are not recorded – at least not in the Bible. “And Kayin said to Hevel his brother, and when they were in the field, and Kayin rose up against Hevel his brother and killed him.”

          What did Kayin say? If he did say something, why is the content of his speech not recorded? And if he did not speak, why is it written that he did? A tremendous failure. Two brothers - totally different one from the other – meet, and tragedy strikes; one kills the other.

          The main purpose of Creation – Man – nullifies with his own hands the purpose of Creation – Man.

          Not through suicide – but through nullification of the other, the different, despite the fact that he is his brother.

          How could they have co-existed without one killing the other?

          The Midrash, in Pirkei D’Rabi Eliezer, hints at the solution which the Creator will later on provide: the prohibition against the wearing of shaatnez. The concept of separation; separation between wool of the sheep – Hevel’s offering–and flax of the earth – Kayin’s gift. In order to facilitate life, there must first be separation between opposites.

          This is exactly what Noah will do: in the form of “kinim” – compartments; he constructs the ark with separating cells. The ark itself is isolated from the outside. It floats, alone, in an isolated bubble.

          Noah makes no attempt to call a meeting, to meet, to speak, to convince – things which “greater personages” than himself might do – as did Avraham (according to those who detect in the text a deprecatory attitude towards Noah).

          But he does make possible the continuation of life. His begettings, his children, these are his good deeds.

          Noah’s sons – already they number three.

          We have overcome the problem of the murder by separation, and we move from two brothers to three.

          These brothers, of course, differ one from the other.

          How do we progress in dealing with the ancient problem of intercommunication, of life together?

          This, perhaps, is what leads Noah to speak.

          After the story of the “teyva” [which means both ‘ark’ and ‘word’], it becomes possible to build “whole sentences.”

          Noah blesses his progeny.

          The ‘beracha’ – the blessing – is speech par excellence, speech which has as its goal assisting the other, with words appropriate and with timing suitable to the other.

          If the Torah is the “Book of the Begettings of Man”, the book which explains how a generation copes with the favors and the problems bequeathed him by his predecessors, Noah –with the help which he can give his three sons -- has a special role: After he has given them life, his blessing is intended to enable them to understand their task, each through his own uniqueness, and to live together, in the hope that they will be able to further the Creator’s plan.

 

Who are his three sons?

The Torah reveals very little about them – other than their names. We are

informed of only one incident, very short, but loaded enough so as to enable the midrashim help us decipher the complex problems of each of the sons. Their father’s blessing will come immediately, as an answer to the problems described, so that we understand how the blessing helps, and in what way it is suited to each one.

          Ham, the firstborn, sees his father’s shame, and apprises his brothers.

          What does he tell them about his father? That he is ‘body’, like an animal, without clothing…

          Without impugning animals, it seems that the Torah demands of man a deeper perception of the ‘other’, not the least of one’s father.

          In Ham’s sight, his father is no more than a biological creature which brought him into the world.

          The midrashim intensify the narrative, saying that Ham made it impossible for Noah to father a fourth child.

 

Noah blesses Ham:

          How does one help a son who sees his father in such a light?

          Noah decrees that Ham is lost as a furtherer of his way, but Noah must save Ham’s children, especially one of them: Canaan.

          Why? Because he is the fourth son of Ham, and Ham, as a father, has nothing to pass on to him if he prevented his own father from bringing a fourth child into the world.

It seems that because of this, the Bible reminds us that Ham, as he perpetrates his offense, is “the father of Canaan”. (Verse 22).

          Therefore, Ham is not at all mentioned in Noah’s blessing; Noah speaks directly to Ham’s most problematic son in the context of “the begettings”: he speaks to the fatherless son, to Canaan.

          He warns him, he points out his problem, in order to help him.

          “Damned be Canaan” is not a curse in the magical sense of the world. There is no punishment here. On the contrary, there is a description of a problem which is deserving of attention, because the whole story of “the begettings” is dependant upon overcoming this problem.

          The story of “the begettings” is the story to which all mankind is tied, for which all mankind is responsible.

          Therefore Noah ties Canaan to his uncles, Shem and Yaphet. They alone can – and must - help him with this problem. The blessing to Shem and Yafet also binds the success of the story of their “begettings” to their concern for Canaan.

          Perhaps it is not for naught that God will ask of one of Shem’s descendants, Avraham - after a process of preparation and maturation – to come to the land of his cousin Canaan, in order to assist him in this mission.

          “And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you”, Avraham is told, “all”, including the “damned” families.

Avraham’s blessing passes through his dealing with the problem of Canaan, the damned.

And perhaps it is not for naught that Avraham will take along Lot, who experienced a similar problem – to be “without a father”. Lot is the son of Harran, and “Harran died in the living presence of Terah his father” – Harran died at a young age, leaving Lot fatherless.

          Will Avraham and his seed succeed in their mission? Who will be the fourth son? How will the story of the begettings continue to be woven by the Creator and his creation?

          The continuation of the story can be found in the following parasha.

          But perhaps the story has not yet reached denouement, and the questions which it raised continue until these days.

Michel ben Shoshan, a native of Morocco, studies and teaches Torah in various institutions in Yerushalayim.

 

 

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.

                         (Yehuda Amihai, from “Open, Closed, Open” p. 29)

 

 

“THESE ARE THE BEGETTINGS OF THE SONS OF NOAH” -- WE ARE ALL THE SONS OF ONE MAN

Know that all the stories that you will find mentioned in the Torah occur there for a necessary utility for the Law; either they give a correct notion of an opinion that is a pillar of the Law, or they rectify some action so that mutual wrongdoing and aggression should not occur between men… As it is a pillar of the Law that the world was produced in time, that at first a single individual of the human species, names, Adam, was created, that that approximately two thousand five hundred years elapsed between Adam and Moses our Master, men, if they were given this information only, would rapidly have begun to have doubts in those times. For people were to found scattered up to the ends of the whole earth; there were different tribes and different and very dissimilar languages. These doubts were put to an end through an exposition of the genealogy of all of them and of their branching by mentioning the names of the famous men among them – such and such, the son of such and such – and their ages and by giving the facts regarding their habitats and the reason that necessitated their being scattered up to the ends of the earth and their languages being different in spite of their having at first dwelt in one place and having had all of them one language, a fact that was a necessary consequence of their being the children of a single individual.

 (Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, III, 50)

 

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 [another reason why man was created singly] for the sake of peace between men, 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.                                                  

(Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:5)

 

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” – the Bible tells us that whoever sheds blood, is considered by scripture to have detracted from the 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)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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