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From: Yeshivat Har Etzion's
Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash
To: yhe-intparsha@vbm-torah.org
Subject: INTPARSHA61 -02: Parashat Noach
YESHIVAT
HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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INTRODUCTION
TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
Parashat Noach - The Prohibition of
Murder
By
Rabbi Michael Hattin
Introduction
Parashat Noach tells the story of the Flood.
Morally
bankrupt humanity is swept away, and all of animal life with
them, and only one righteous individual, his wife and family
are preserved. Bidden to construct an ark, Noach is to save
not only himself, but to take with him the possibility of a
new beginning for all life. The rains fall, the floodwaters
rage, and the earth and its vileness are washed away. The
ark bobs unsteadily on the waters, traversing a featureless
ocean that stretches off to eternity. Finally, after many
monotonous months, the waters begin to recede; the interred
ark-dwellers are awakened from their timeless rocking by the
jarring sound of the boat's underside striking land. More
time passes, now interminably, until the heavens shed their
oppressive grayness and the first treetops appear.
The ark now firmly grounded on the slopes
of Mount
Ararat and the surface of the devastated earth finally dry,
God commands Noach, his family and the animals to disembark.
Noach, perhaps experiencing an unsettling mixture
of
trepidation and joy, does so. A destroyed world lays before
him, bereft of any life save his small circle of family and
the animals that huddle expectantly at the portal of the
listing craft. His feet finally planted on terra firma,
Noach immediately erects an altar and offers sacrifice to
God. His powerful expression of resignation and gratitude,
of recognition of God as the Sustainer of life and its
Master is met by a Divine pledge to never again obliterate
all life. "For as long as the earth
endures, the times of planting and harvest, the seasons of fall and spring, summer and winter, and the cycles of day and night will not cease" (Bereishit 8:22).
The Divine Proclamation
"God blessed Noach and his children and He
said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and
replenish the earth. Fear of you and dread will be upon all of
the animals of the earth and upon all of the birds of the sky; everything that creeps upon the ground as well as the fish of the sea are given into your
hand. Any creature that lives shall be your food, for
I have
given you all of them without restraint, as freely as the plant vegetation. But nevertheless, do not consume the flesh of a creature while it is
still alive. Moreover, I will require of you an accounting of your blood that is your soul, from every
beast I will require an accounting; and from humanity, even from a man's own brother, will I require an accounting of the
soul of the person. He that sheds the
blood of a person shall have his own blood shed by other people, for man was wrought in God's image. As for
you, be fruitful and multiply, swarm upon
the earth and increase" (Bereishit 9:1-8).
Exhorting the progenitors of a restored
humanity to propagate and to repair the world, God indicates to them
that they will be sovereign over all other forms of life.
The animals of the earth, the birds of the sky and the fish
of the sea will all be subservient to humanity and fearful
of their rule. In addition, God grants humanity permission
to consume other creatures with impunity, with one critical
qualification: man is not permitted to eat part of an animal
while it is still alive. Finally, the
prohibition of
bloodshed is spelled out, for the stability of the post-
diluvial world will be predicated upon an acknowledgement of
the inviolability of human life. He that intentionally
takes the life of another human being will forfeit his own
life; such is the natural consequence that must follow a
wanton disregard for the 'Godly image' that invests the life
of all people with inherent value. The section concludes
again with a directive to Noach and his descendents to
procreate and to secure their rightful place in the world.
Analyzing the passage in terms of its component parts, we
note the following features:
1) a blessing of Noach and his descendents,
2) a directive to them to be fruitful and to multiply,
3) a decree that all other forms of life will be fearful of human authority and subject to human dominion,
4) a granting of permission to consume all other
life forms with the single provision that such consumption not involve unnecessary brutality,
5) an emphatic prohibition concerning the taking of human life,
6) a concluding command recalling the opening directive to procreate.
An Earlier Precedent
This passage, uttered to the remnant of humanity
and
its only hope for a brighter future, is
clearly an
expression of God's expectations and demands concerning
man's place and role in the world. As such, it calls to
mind another section, stated by the Creator to the first
ancestors of humanity, under very different conditions but
with similar sanguinity:
"God created the human being in His image, in the image of god He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and dominate it.
Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, and over all life that walks upon the earth.' God further said: 'Behold I give to you all seed-bearing vegetation that is upon the earth, as well as all fruits of fruit-bearing trees. They shall be your food. As for all of the beasts of the earth, the birds of the sky, and the living creatures that crawl upon the earth I have given all manner of green vegetation for their food,' and it was so. God saw all that He had fashioned and behold, it was very good, and it was
evening and it was
morning, the sixth day" (Bereishit 1:28-31).
Breaking down God's above pronouncement
into its
constituent elements, we immediately notice its relationship
to the passage from our parasha. God fashions the first
human beings and ushers them into a pristine world with a 1)
blessing. This is followed by 2) a directive to be fruitful
and to multiply, and 3) an imperative to rule over all other
creatures. 4) Humanity's diet is spelled out, and
the
passage then concludes with a gratifying pronouncement that
'it was very good.' Clearly, the implication of
these
correspondences is that Noach, his wife,
and their
descendents are the successors to the first human beings,
and are mandated by God to rectify their failures and to
succeed in repairing the world by fulfilling His commands.
Their emergence from the floodwaters represents a
new
creation, for initially also the primordial earth
was
covered by the waters of the deep. Adam and Chava had been
the 'crown' of Creation, occupying the apex of a pyramid
composed of simpler life forms brought into
being in
ascending order. Noach and his family also stand at the
zenith of their microcosm, for the ark is the world in
miniature and its confined denizens are the representatives
of all of its faunal variety.
The Distinctions Between The Two Decrees
More telling than the comparisons, however, are
the
contrasts, for there a number of glaring differences between
the two passages. The most striking of these distinctions
concerns the matter of bloodshed, for whereas Adam and Chava
were never admonished by God to shun murder, Noach and his
descendents most emphatically were. This pronouncement is
accentuated by the recurring usage of the terms 'blood'
('DuM') that occurs no less than four times in the passage
and is alliteratively linked to 'ADaM' or 'man' occurring
five times, 'life' ('NeFeSh') occurring three times, and
'accounting' ('DaRaSh'), also occurring three times.
Conversely, Adam and Chava were not permitted to kill
other creatures in order to consume them and were instead
restricted to a vegetarian diet, in contrast to Noach who is
permitted to ingest all other creatures, as long as they are
no longer alive when eaten. Of lesser magnitude but still
significant, Adam and Chava were told to exercise rule and
mastery over all other creatures, but Noach and
his
descendents will inspire them with dread. Finally, Noach
and his family are given a second directive to 'be fruitful
amultiply,' but Adam and Chava were so enjoined but once.
How are we to make sense of these anomalies?
Bloodshed in the Garden of Eden
The initial state of humanity had been one of
great
potential and expectation. Last week we investigated the
unique vocabulary that the Torah employed in the account of
the creation of humanity, for that passage is charged with
unbounded exhilaration. Adam and Chava were fashioned in
'God's image,' in possession of a supernal soul that was
nourished by its attachment to the Divine. In that pristine
state of promise and perfect harmony, the prospect
of
consuming other creatures for physical sustenance
was
inconceivable. In a perfect,
'Messianic' context,
vegetarianism, or the unselfish concern for lower creatures
is within man's moral reach. The morally refined person
cannot remain indifferent to the killing of any creature.
This is not because animal life and human life are of equal
value, as some proponents of a vegetarian lifestyle would
have us believe. Rather, in the ideal state of Eden where
one basks in the intense glow of God's overarching presence,
the inestimable value of all sentient life, even an animal
life devoid of any higher spiritual capacity, is axiomatic.
The Talmudic tradition asserts that "the First Man was
not permitted to kill any creature and to consume its flesh"
(Tractate Sanhedrin 59b). The Ramban (13th century, Spain)
elaborates: "the diet of the first humans differed from that
of all other animals, for Adam and his wife were given 'all
seed-bearing vegetation that is upon the earth, as well as
all fruits of fruit-bearing trees' as their food, whereas
the other creatures were to eat 'all manner of
green
vegetation,' but not the fruit or the grains. Humanity was
prohibited from consuming meat until the time of Noach's
descendents, as our Sages assert, and this
is the
straightforward reading of the Biblical texts" (commentary
to Bereishit 1:29). Thus, according to Ramban's reading, a
clear hierarchy existed even within the noble vegetarian
state, for the food of man was not the same as the food of
the lower creatures, any more than his higher moral purpose
or definitive spiritual caliber could be equated to theirs.
Nevertheless, existence in that Garden was conditioned by an
enhanced awareness, a heightened sensitivity to life's worth
and preciousness. As Ramban explains: "animate creatures
also have a sentient capacity that is similar to
the
intelligent soul of man. They also exercise a form
of
choice by seeking their own benefit and sustenance, and they
too avoid pain and death."
It goes without saying that a Divine command to abstain
from bloodshed, the premeditated taking of another human
life, was superfluous in the realm of the Garden of Eden.
It is only in the aftermath of abrogating God's command and
taking from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that the
offspring of Adam and Eve begin their precipitous descent
towards killing. To eat from the tree in violation of God's
authority was to stake out an independent moral path and to
suffer the consequences. The fratricide that soon unfolded
was its extreme consequence, and that vile act was to become
a shocking paradigm for humanity to follow.
Man's Decreased Moral Capacity After the Flood
The floodwaters swept away the accumulated
deeds of
humanity's viciousness, and with it, the Divine optimism and
anticipation that had accompanied their initial creation.
The hopes that man would forge a world of perfect harmony
and respect for all life had to be modified accordingly.
Henceforward, humanity would have to learn the painful
lesson on their own that in the absence
of their
attentiveness to the commands of an Absolute Moral Being,
life could become brutal. Thus, when God addresses Noach as
he leaves the ark and stands to rebuild the world,
He
communicates to him an idea that is no longer as obvious as
it should have been: "I will require of you an accounting of
your blood that is your soul, from every beast I
will
require an accounting; and from humanity, even from a man's
own brother, will I require an accounting of the soul of the
person. He that sheds the blood of a person shall have his
own blood shed by other people, for man was wrought in God's
image." The phrase 'even from a man's own brother' is a not-so-veiled allusion to Kayin's murder of his brother Hevel,
for he had been the first to introduce the novel idea of
murder into the world.
It is perhaps in this connection
that the Divine
permission granted to Noach's descendents to consume the
flesh of other creatures, is to be understood. The Ramban
and others tend to understand the dispensation
as an
emphatic statement of animal life's debt to Noach the human
for having guaranteed their survival through either his
moral merit or else his ark-building efforts (see Ramban's
commentary to 1:29, and Radak's comments on 9:4).
The
context, however, seems to be suggesting another dimension.
Recall that God's address to Noach contains two
new
injunctions that were not directly communicated to Adam and
Chava, namely the permission to consume meat and
the
prohibition against bloodshed. Recall also that the two are
associated by a similar vocabulary that pivots around the
words 'blood' and 'life-force.' The implication of this
fact is that both of these commandments are integrally
linked.
Understanding the Permission to Consume Other C5reatures
In the post-diluvial atmosphere, man could no longer be
expected by God to easily recreate the ideal state of Eden,
a state of moral perfection and heightened sensitivity to
spiritual life-affirming truths. That expectation did not
dissipate, but was pushed off to an indefinite future time
to become the vision of a Messianic Age. In the meantime,
of primary concern was to guide humanity towards a deeper
appreciation of human life, to impress upon them the most
basic demand of not killing each other! Permission was thus
granted to man to kill and to consume other creatures as a
recognition of his underdeveloped moral awareness,
an
awareness that could not yet conceive of the more exalted
vision that had been initially held
out to him.
Nevertheless, a very faint memory of the nobler concept was
preserved, for humanity was forbidden to consume the flesh
of a creature while it was still alive. The license to kill
was not to be misunderstood as license to be cruel, brutish,
and crude.
But what was to become of the utopian
vision of a
perfected world in which killing of any sort would again be
unthinkable, and in which our unique capacity for God-awareness would finally be realized globally? Once more, we
turn to the commentary of the Ramban to explain: "The Torah
gave the People of Israel a commandment in addition to the
prohibition of consuming the limb of a living creature, for
it forbade us from consuming any blood, since blood is the
life-force. Thus the text proclaims: 'I have said to Bnei
Yisrael: Do not consume any blood, for blood is the life
force of the creature' (VaYikra 17:14). This is the reason
for ritual slaughter, in addition to its
efficacy at
limiting the pain caused to the animal. Thus, we bless God
for 'having commanded us concerning ritual
slaughter'"
(1:29). In his commentary to VaYikra, Ramban adds: "It is
inappropriate for one life-force to consume another, for all
life emanates from God, both human as well as
animal"
(VaYikra 17:11).
The Special Prohibition of Consuming the Blood
The Jewish people were given a special commandment to
not consume the blood of an animal. Ramban explains that
this is because blood is the vehicle that carries all life;
in its absence, life ebbs away and eventually ceases. The
act of ritual slaughter, in which all of the primary blood
vessels that nourish the brain are swiftly severed with a
perfectly sharp blade, therefore has two purposes. Firstly,
it is calculated to dispatch the creature as quickly and
painlessly as possible. This may seem to us to be a self-
evident objective, but for the Western World, the idea is a
quite new. Up until very recent times, abattoirs
paid
absolutely no concern to developing killing methods that were
humane.
Additionally, however, the act of ritual slaughter is
the most effective means of draining away the blood, the
life force of the creature that the Jew must not consume,
for the major blood vessels of the body are concentrated in
the neck. The blessing recited over the act of
ritual
slaughter thus becomes an expression of our recognition of a
higher ideal, for although we may consume the flesh of an
animal we are enjoined to not overstep our bounds by seeking
to exercise human control over its animal soul as well. By
assiduously avoiding the blood, we proclaim a limit to human
authority and an acknowledgement that God is the Author of
all life, and that animal life is not to be cheaply and
thoughtlessly traded as a commodity in the marketplace.
In other words, the children of Noach
representing
humanity at large, are asked by God to abstain from killing
other people and to eschew acts of gross cruelty towards
other life forms. That in and of itself is a sufficiently
grandiose undertaking. But the Jew is asked to go much
further, to consciously preserve the memory of another time,
a time when all killing was frowned upon and all life was
sacred. To not consume the blood is to strive for a time
when the extent of our moral development will once again
proclaim our desire to live in God's
presence as
compassionate stewards of a beautiful world, rather than as
rapacious plunderers of its dwindling bounty. As always,
the choice is exclusively ours.
Shabbat Shalom
Note: Without a doubt, Jewish tradition preserves many
sources that support a vegetarian lifestyle, but it is
beyond the scope of this article to investigate them here.
It is essential to bear in mind, however, that in Jewish
tradition, vegetarianism is inextricably bound up with
heightened moral awareness and sensitivity, as the above
analysis explores. It would therefore be self-contradictory
as well as self-defeating for a person to present a great
compassion for animal life but an undeveloped appreciation
for human life, as unfortunately some well-meaning activists
proclaim in word and demonstrate in deed.
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YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH
ALON SHEVUT, GUSH ETZION 90433
Copyright (c) 1999 Yeshivat Har Etzion
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