At the end of
the portion, as a precursor to the story of the Flood in the next portion, we
are told that “God saw that man's wickedness on earth was increasing. Every
impulse of his innermost thought was only for evil, all day long. God regretted
that He had made man on earth, and He was pained to His very
core.”
The word
“pained” in the above passage is “vayit’atzev”, which is the same word (root) as
the “anguish” used in God’s words to Eve: To the woman He said, 'I will greatly
increase your anguish …. It will be with anguish that you will give birth to
children [b’etzev teldi banim’]'[17]
.[18]
…………………
We are commanded “to walk in the ways of God”; as Tradition teaches: just as He is merciful, so too should you be merciful[21].
But of course God is also the source of pain and death [“yotzer ohr ….ra”: I create light and darkness, peace and evil”]; clearly we are meant not to imitate God in this way.
Noah was indeed a righteous man, but in his generation God viewed all humanity as deserving of death, and it was not necessary that Noah view them in this way. God grants us the privilege and perhaps the obligation of differing, as Abraham did in serving as defense attorney for the people of Sdom.
Hashem is the name for God in the divine manifestation to us as Merciful, whereas elokim is the equivalent for Justice. The Torah tells us “tamim tihye im hashem elokecha”: perhaps I may be permitted to translate this as “we should be tamim [tamim = straight, complete, pure, maybe even naïve?] with the Merciful aspect when God is revealed in the aspect of Justice”. Defending Humanity against the Divine Justice is our way of imitating God, of serving God, of actualizing our aspect as beings created in the image of God[22].
Noah was tamim, but he joined in God’s aspect of Justice, not mercy – et ha’elokim hithalech Noach – Noah walked with God in His aspect of Justice. Had Noah been up to seeing Humanity as Abraham did, he might have managed to prevent the Flood, or at least to serve God to the fullest, as did Abraham in his losing battle for the lives of the inhabitants of Sdom, but a spiritual battle which Abraham’s defense won for Humanity and for God nevertheless.
[In a very speculative and allegorical sense we might perhaps say: God relies on the beings He created in His image to set the reality of human destiny, as Man relies on his helpmeet (“etzem mi’atzomai”: “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh = in my image); this is our challenge.]
……………………
And, in this connection, I offer the following:
…………………..
The
Torah tells us that God decided to obliterate humanity, and all of the animal
kingdom as well.
The
usual translation of the passages relating this decision
is:
“God saw that man's wickedness on earth was increasing. Every impulse of his innermost thought was only for evil, all day long. God regretted that He had made man on earth, and He was pained to His very core. God said, 'I will obliterate humanity that I have created from the face of the earth - man, livestock, land animals, and birds of the sky. I regret that I created them.'
Question:
Is
“every impulse of our innermost thoughts only for evil”?
What
would it mean for God to be “pained to His very core”?
Answer:
Combining my adaptations of several Traditional ideas with some of my own readings, I offer a defense of Humanity:
God fashioned Man from the Earth which had previously rebelled, as hinted at in the creation account, and the rebellious nature of Humanity was therefore not Man’s fault. God realizes that Man’s heart had this fault in its design and is comforted. (The Flood was necessary, changing Man’s course in history was urgently called for, but man was a victim, not a criminal.)
We read not:
“every impulse of Man’s innermost thoughts only for evil” but “the fashioning of
Man’s heart was with evil”:
And
not:: “God regretted that He had made man on earth
and God was pained to His very core” but ““God was comforted with the
realization that He had made man with the earth
and so the evil of the earth had entered into the design of Man’s heart” (and
therefore this evil in his inner nature was not Man’s fault.
………………………………
The details of how we arrive at this reading are given below: recommended only for those who are familiar with the Hebrew original.
……………………………………………………………………………………..
It is interesting to note that several words follow in a chain throughout the beginning of Genesis:
· the words ‘adamah’ and ‘eretz’, dirt or earth;
· the word “etzev” which can mean sadness or pain, or can be read as “itzoov” (since the Torah is written without vowels) which means ‘design’;
· the word “yatzar” which means ‘fashioned’ (used in the creation account) or ‘yetzer’, used here for Man’s “inner nature” or “impulse of his innermost thought”.
Furthermore:
· According to the Rabbis, God’s complaint was that Humanity was leading all living beings into a rebellion against God. As a being created form the earth, Humans had the power to lead all earthly beings. God was upset, but consoling Himself that Man was not created from Heaven rather than earth – had that been the case Man would have led all heavenly beings in revolt as well!!
· The word “vayinachem” translated as “regretted” can also mean the opposite: comforted, and the word translated as “on” can also be “with”. Thus the Rabbis read the phrase “God regretted that He had made man on earth” as “God was comforted that He had made man with earth (so that he could make only the earthly beings rebel)”.
· The Torah tells us in the creation account that God ordered the Earth to produce “fruit-trees”, that is, trees which tasted like the fruit; however instead of “fruit-trees” the text tells us that the earth produced “trees with fruit”, trees as we know them. According to Tradition, with this the earth rebelled against God.
God fashioned Man from the Earth which had previously rebelled, and the rebellious nature of Humanity was therefore not Man’s fault. God realizes this and is comforted: it is God’s design that is the cause [as we find in tanach: “yadecha itzvooni”], not Man’s rebellion..
The wording of many passages can be read in this way:
The passage translated as “Every impulse of his innermost thought was only for evil” is more literally (you have to know Hebrew to see this!) “The ytzr of the heart of Man was evil”. Reading ytzr as “yitzoor” = fashioning rather than “yetzer” = inner nature we have:
“The fashioning of the heart of Man was evil”: that is, Man was fashioned from the Earth, which had rebelled early on, before Man was created from it; and so, the fashioning of Mankind from the Earth caused this evil to insinuate itself into human nature.
Instead of God being “grieved to his heart”, “vayit’atzev to His heart” we read the word “vayit’atzev” as “designed” and the reference is to Man’s heart, not God’s: Instead of referring to Man who was made on Earth, we read it as referring to the fact that Man was made FROM the Earth.
In
Summary:
Gen 6: 5 And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great DUE TO the earth, and the fashioning of the thoughts of his heart had been with evil all the time. 6 And it comforted the LORD to remember that He had made man WITH the earth, and that it DESIGNED his heart (and so the urge to rebel came form the Earth and was therefore not his fault)..
We
can easily see how this fits with our interpretation: “I will not again curse
the ground for having ‘poisoned’ the nature of Man, for causing Man’s nature to
be evil.”