Musar zu Bereschit 9:25

[What had happened to Noach was similar to what happened to the colleague of Rabbi Akiva who investigated the mysteries of the link between G–d and man only to emerge with his mind deranged (Chagigah 14). One must not overestimate one's spiritual capacity, just as one must not underestimate it. Ed.]. In spite of all this, G–d swore not to cause the extinction of the human race again, as had occurred during the deluge. When G–d promised this, He alluded to His previous statement of קץ כל בשר, in Genesis 6,13; this suggests that the present condition of immortality of the species only will continue during the length of mankind's natural history. Only after the arrival of the Messiah will there be a change, and when "G–d will rejoice in His handiwork again" (Psalms 104,31), the state of the universe will revert to what it had been at the time Adam was created. We will return to this later. The "descendants" which are the true descendants G–d had wished to see will not occur till the Messiah; this is indicated in Ruth 4,12 ואלה תולדות פרץ, where we find the word תולדות, descendants, spelled with two letters ו, to indicate that such descendants will correspond to all that G–d has hoped for from mankind. Peretz, of course, is another name for the Messiah.

(Ibid. 5): "And Joseph dreamed a dream… (8) …Will you reign over us?": Scripture expatiates upon the dreams to rationalize somewhat the extreme hatred of the brothers to Joseph to the point of wanting to remove him from the world: They assumed that he desired to reign over them, for which reason he had brought "evil report" of them to their father, so that he should remove them from his presence [as Rashi explains (Ibid.): "for his dreams and for his words" — "for the evil report that he had brought to their father." And the robe that his father made him served as "supporting evidence" that he had accepted his report], and that perhaps, G-d forbid, he would agree with Joseph, so that he [Joseph] would be a "master" over them, as in Isaac's blessing to Jacob (Ibid. 27:29): "Be a master to you brothers, and your mother's sons will bow down to you." Or, [they thought,] G-d forbid, that he [Jacob] would banish them altogether, as Noach said (Ibid. 9:25): "Cursed is Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers." Therefore, they took counsel on how to rid themselves of him.

The reason that in the Bible the Holy Land is referred to as the land of Canaan quite often even after the Jewish people took possession of it, is that Canaan was the first "slave" (Genesis 9,25). The word כנען also is derived from the word כנען, submission. The message to Israel in all this is that as long as they submit to the will of G–d the land remains theirs. When the people rejected their status as servants of G–d, they became slaves of the nations instead.

Anyone who is privileged to live in the Holy Land must constantly bear in mind that he is in the "land of Canaan;" this will remind him of the need for servitude and submission When Noach said of his grandson כנען that ארור כנען עבד עבדים יהיה לאחיו, "Canaan is cursed he will be the slave of slaves to his brothers," we must ask ourselves why Noach did not say ארור יהיה כנען "Canaan will be cursed etc. (Genesis 9,25). Although a simple explanation would be that Canaan had already been cursed, i.e. he was polluted by the original serpent to whom G–d had said "you are cursed," we prefer to believe that Noach had something else in mind. In the future the name Canaan would be associated with those who submit to the will of G–d. This particular "Canaan" is distinguished by not being G–d's עבד, servant, but by being עבד עבדים, a servant of others who are themselves only servants. The servants Noach had in mind are the Jewish people. Canaan is destined to become a slave of the Jewish people.

The Gentile slave obtains his release in the event any of 24 types of his limbs have been destroyed (Kidushin 24, Baba Kama 75). This is to remind us that man was created in the image of G–d (Genesis 1,27). Our sages explain that man's 248 limbs correspond to the number of the Torah's positive commandments. These in turn are symbolic of the 248 joints in the אדם העליון, man's spiritual counterpart in the Celestial Regions, who sits on the throne. This is why the first of the patriarchs, Abraham, was called אבר מה (the letters in his name being re-arranged). The מה, corresponds to the numerical value of the word אדם, which in turn is equivalent to the four lettered name of G–d spelled in letter form. =ה-א ,13=ו-א-ו ,6=ה-א ,20=י-ו-ד6, total=45. Abraham did not want to be associated through marriage with אליעזר, who is ארור, cursed, having been a descendant of כנען, who was cursed by Noach to remain a slave permanently (Genesis 9,25). It is not possible for ברוך and ארור, the blessed and the cursed, to be paired successfully. Abraham of course, was blessed, and so were his descendants (Genesis 12,2). Kabbalists perceive of ראשי אברים as referring to man at his moral best, i.e. אדם הפנימי, as well as a corresponding type of ראשי אברים, of the אדם החיצוני, man at his moral worst, i.e. man under the influence of Noach's curse. By destroying the ראש אבר of a Gentile slave, one releases that person from the influence of that curse. Therefore, he no longer needs to be a slave (as per Genesis 9,25). As a result, such a person can join the ranks of the free, the ones subject to G–d's blessing.

Rebeccah concluded that there was no point in living a life that was measured by the yardstick of the undiluted מדת הדין, seeing that hardly anyone could survive if he were to be measured by that attribute alone. This is why she said: קצ-תי בחיי, i.e. what good is my life under such circumstances! (Genesis 27,46) Unless some relief is found for the rest of the world's population this is the end of meaningful life. She referred to the tribe of חת, a Canaanite tribe whose daughters Esau had married. Seeing that the Canaanites were cursed already and that Esau himself was an outgrowth of the סטרא אחרא, she considered the combination as lethal, bound to lead to the oblivion of their offspring. Because of such considerations, the name that should by rights have been קצחי was changed to יצחק, to introduce the element of joy into their lives. The immediate cause for this was Isaac giving tithes which resulted in G–d blessing his efforts, as related in 26,12. It is strange that when Malachi 3,10 describes the blessing that results from tithing, he uses the expression of ארובות השמים, "the windows of heaven." Since the Torah uses the same expression at the onset of the deluge in Genesis 7,11, we wonder why the prophet would use an expression to symbolize blessing when that same expression had symbolized a curse on mankind in its prior usage in the Bible.