A.
G-d informs Noach of His intent to wipe the earth’s surface clean of life and start over again. The only survivors are to be Noach, his family, and the animals which they manage to preserve.
To this end, He instructs Noach to built a téva, a great box of gofer wood, in which to ride out the events. In the course of specifying the téva, G-d orders: צהר תעשה לתבה ואל אמה תכלנה למעלה ופתח התבה בצדה תשים תחתים שנים ושלשים תעשה: (“A tzohar shall you make for the téva, and to an amma shall you complete it above, and the door of the téva shall you place in its side; second and third lower decks shall you make”; VI, 16).
The question arises as to what, precisely, a tzohar is. As Onqelos translates it into Aramaic nahor, “light,” one might be justified in calling it a window. Indeed, Rashi tells us: יש אומרים חלון ויש אומרים אבן טובה המאירה להם (“There are those who say [it is a] window, and there are those who say [it is a] precious stone which gave off light for them”); his source is the midrash (בראשית רבה פל"א סי' י"ב ).
But if a window (challon, as Rashi writes) is intended, the obvious question is why this perfectly good Biblical word is not used in the verse. Furthermore, if a window is intended, the specifications are very vague: There is no mention of its size or position on the téva, just a statement that it is to be one amma “up”, which seems insufficiently clear for a window meant to admit light.
To this can be added the objection that, since the Mabbul began with a massive cloudburst, flooding the earth, it seems unlikely there would be much natural light to be had through the lowering clouds (indeed, the Talmud tells us that the sun and the moon were not in service during the Mabbul; whatever the precise meaning of that statement, it would seem to imply that they were not illuminating the earth’s surface (עיי' סנהדרין ק"ח:, הגהות יעב"ץ שם ).
All of which seems to conduce towards the second explanation, the even tova or precious stone.
B.
The Torah Tëmima offers another suggestion as to why a tzohar is probably not a window. He first calls our attention to the fact that, in addition to the midrash, the Talmud also comments on this passage: א"ר יוחנן א"ל הקב"ה לנח קבע בה אבנים טובות ומרגליות כדי שיהיו מאירין לכם כצהריים (“Said Rabbi Yochanan, 'Said the Holy One, Blessed is He to Noach, "Establish in [the téva] precious stones and pearls, so that they will shine for you like noon [ka-tzohorayim]"'”; סנהדרין שם). The etymological relationship between tzohar and tzohorayim seems clear enough.
He then points to the beginning of our parasha, where we learn that Noach איש צדיק תמים הי' בדורותיו (“Noach was a perfectly righteous man in his generations”), on which the Talmud also comments, a page earlier: א"ר יוחנן בדורותיו ולא בדורות אברהם (“Said Rabbi Yochanan, 'In his gene-rations, and not in Avraham’s generations'”). Rabbi Yochanan, in other words, understood that Noach was a tzaddiq only relative to his uniquely evil and depraved contemporaries; had he lived in Avraham’s time, he would have been nothing special.
With this in mind, the Torah Tëmima cites another midrash, this one commenting on Genesis XIX, 17, in which the mal’ach sent to rescue Lot from Sdom tells him אל תבט אחריך (“Do not look back”) and the midrash explains that the mal’ach meant: שאינך כדאי להנצל ולראות במפלתן של רשעים (“for you are not fit to be saved and witness the evil-doers’ downfall”). Thanks to Avraham, Lot was rescued, but was not to witness the comeuppance of the rësha‘im amongst whom he had been living.
Rabbi Yochanan, he says, thought much the same of Noach: A window both lets in light, and also allows the occupants to see what is going on outside. Noach had sufficient merit, as the most righteous member of a depraved generation, to be rescued, but to witness the end of his erstwhile neighbours in the maelström which led off the Mabbul. Hence, there was no window.
The dërasha seems apt, but is marred, it seems to me, by one inconvenient circumstance: If we read on a bit farther in our parasha, we learn, VIII, 6, that the téva indeed had a window, and the verse calls it a challon.
So it appears that we must dig a little deeper to resolve the mystery of the tzohar.
C.
The Maharal mi-Prag is also bothered by this question, raising the objections to defining tzohar as a synonym for challon we have above. He offers another, deeper explanation for Rabbi Yochanan’s vision of precious stones and pearls (note the gëmara’s plurals): ויראה לי שהתורה עשתה בנין התיבה על דרך החכמה שיהי' דומה לגמרי לכלל העולם ולפיכך הי' לה תחתיים שניים ושלישים כמו שיש לכלל העולם שלשה עולמות וכדי שלא יהי' חסר מאור קבע בה אבן המאירה להם כו' והי' קבוע בה אבנים דומים לשמש ולירח ולכוכבי השמים וגו' (“and it appears to me that the Torah made the structure of the téva scientifically to be completely similar to the general universe, and therefore it had second and third lower decks, just as the universe has three [constituent] worlds; and so that it should not lack a luminary, he fixed in it a luminous gem for them... and there were fixed in it stones resembling the sun and the moon and the stars of the heavens....”; גור ארי' עה"פ). As the chachmei ha-emeth inform us, the universe consists of three realms, those of bëri’a, yëtzira, and ‘asiya. The téva was designed to emulate the cosmos as a whole (עיי' למשל לשם שבו ואחלמה שער ג' פ"א).
Why should that be? One must remember that the Mabbul was no mere flood, and to call it that is misleading in the extreme. The root from which the word mabbul is derived actually means “disarray, disorder, chaos, confusion.” Human beings were created as the pinnacle of Creation, the ultimate purpose for which the universe had come into being. If each stage of Creation was tov, “good,” it was only with the advent of the creature for whose sake the whole show came into existence that it was termed tov më’od, “very good.”
And now, the majestic adam had so abused and misused his abilities, so tarnished the bright potential with which he had been endowed, that there was no longer any point to that show. The only universe left, then, was that which housed the survivors, the seeds, as it were, of the second chance and the brave new world.
That is why the téva was made to emulate the cosmos, and therefore why these uniquely lumini-ferous precious stones were used to illuminate its interior, in imitation of the celestial bodies.
D.
The Birkath Tov also weighs in on the matter of the meaning of the tzohar, and finds in the word a fundamental quality and characteristic built into our universe. That it is possible by means of tëfilla to effect change in our circumstances.
At first blush, this seems very difficult to comprehend, given that Rambam categorically informs us that one of the things inherent in Divine is that He does not change, since any change would imply either that something was lacking earlier which has now been perfected, or that a previous state of perfection has now been downgraded (הל' יסודי התורה פ"א הלי"'א).
The Birkath Tov quotes the Ba‘al Shem Tov as explaining that “change” of the sort which can be effected by tëfilla is inherent in the warp and woof of the cosmos. This can be discerned from the Ba‘al Shem’s view of a verse in Tëhillim, לעולם ד' דברך נצב בשמים, which can be read: “For the sake of the universe (‘olam), Ha-Shem, Your word is established in the heavens”; Psalms CXIX, 89; וע"ע מדרש שוחר טוב עה"פ). The universe came into being, we learnt last week, through Divine utterances, “And G-d said....” The words of those utterances, in the letters of the Holy Language, sustain every object, eventuality, and phenomenon in the cosmos. Those letters themselves, the product of the Divine utterance, cannot be changed, as Rambam writes. But they can be re-arranged, and our parasha and the word tzohar tell us how.
Note, says the Birkath Tov, that the word tzohar, as we have already observed, means great brightness and clarity, sharply delineating the fine distinctions of din. But when the need is for even greater mercy in the world, remember that Noach was instructed to make “second and third” decks.
Tzohar is spelt tzadi-hé-réysh. From the identical letters is formed the word tzara, “trouble, woe”; in the Mabbul there was that aplenty. But if we can make צירופים תחתיים, “substitute combinations,” then moving the third letter to the front of the word yields ha-tzar, suggesting that the first stage to resolving the issue at hand was to obey the mitzva to shelter from the general destruction in a small, constrained place, a maqom tzar, that is, the téva itself.
If we then move the second letter to the fore, we obtain the word ratza, a verb expressing desire or will (ratzon), that our prayers and actions be acceptable, and the outcome be as we hope.
This, then, is the tzohar, the brilliant, bright insight provided by the Mabbul, of how it is that Divine Mercy comes to temper Divine Judgment, within the constraints of the halacha, and how we, too, should respond to the crises we face.
No comments:
Post a Comment