Musar sobre Génesis 6:2

Adam ruined this state of affairs by interfering with the סוד היין, the mystical properties of the grapes. [I suppose that this is based on the tree of knowledge having been a grape bearing tree. Ed.] He followed an evil path by squeezing a cluster of grapes (and consuming its juice). Had he not done so, that "wine" would have remained in the state of what our sages call the יין המשומר בענביו, "the wine that remained preserved within its grapes (compare Berachot 34).” In that event he would have been like "the cistern that does not lose a single drop” [hyperbole for total recall, see Avot 2,11. Ed.]. He would have retained all the holiness that had been his when he was created. When Adam sinned, he did not only lose some of his former glory, fall from a "high roof" (to the ground), but he fell into a "very deep pit" (below the ground). This was a בור רק, an empty pit [allusion to the pit Joseph had been thrown in. Genesis 37,24], since it did not even contain the ingredients for the survival of the species. The species was wiped out at the time of the deluge as a direct consequence of Adam having polluted that "drop of sacred semen," and made it "evil smelling." Due to G–d's personal intervention, Noach was saved seeing he was righteous, and the righteous are the foundation of the universe. The present universe was founded by him as a result.

This was also the reason they told about the ילידי ענק ראינו שם, "we have seen the Anakites there" (13,28). These were some of the נפילים, disgraced angels, who had dropped from the heavens, and who still continued to live, having survived the deluge, a tribute to their virtues which they must have brought with them from the Celestial Regions. These people were still perceived to be part angels, since their parentage was partially angels. (Compare Genesis 6,2, and the statement of Rabbi Yossi in the Zohar on this verse, identifying them as two specific angels called Azza and Azza'el respectively.) Concerning this phenomenon the spies described the land as ארץ אוכלת יושביה היא, a land that consumes its inhabitants, meaning that it does not tolerate morally inferior inhabitants, which explained why the survivors in that land were the ones that possess superior virtues. They tried to prove this by saying that though they had been observed spying, giving the inhabitants every legal right to kill or otherwise punish them, these had not bothered to do so out of the goodness of their hearts, though they had ample provocation and could have treated them like hostile grasshoppers (compare 13,33).