Musar sobre Rut 4:18

[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.

Before revealing the reasons for all this we must still refer to Bereshit Rabbah 29,3, and we shall then see that all these statements are in accordance with what we have written above. The Midrash in question states: Rabbi Simon states that G–d made three "discoveries." He "found" Abraham, as we know from Nechemiah 9,8: "You found his (Abraham's) heart trustworthy before You." He "found" David since we read in Psalms 89,21: "I have found My servant David." He also "found" Israel as we know from Hoseah 9,10: "I found Israel like grapes in the desert." When his colleagues asked him why he did not include Noach in G–d's "discoveries," seeing the Torah says "Noach found favor in the eyes of G–d," Rabbi Simon responded that Noach did indeed "find," whereas G–d did not "find." There are several difficulties here. Why does Rabbi Simon not list G–d's "discoveries" in their chronological order, i.e. Abraham, Israel, David?

When we consider the death of the first two sons of Yehudah, Er and Onan, who were eventually replaced by two sons born by Tamar, i.e. Peretz and Zerach, and we reflect on the fact that the Torah reports those events immediately after the גלגולים that happened to Joseph, we must seek a reason for this. Bereshit Rabbah 12,6 draws our attention to the fact that the word תולדות, descendants, is always spelled without the letter ו after the ת, except when the Torah describes תולדות השמים והארץ in Genesis 2, 4, and when the descendants of Peretz are described in Ruth 4, 18. The reason is that when the Messiah arrives the world will be renewed. Progress was deficient in some way during all the years between Genesis 2, 4 and the arrival of the Messiah, a direct descendant of Peretz. The reason the Torah appends the report about Yehudah, his sons, etc to the sale of Joseph is to underline that both Joseph and Yehudah played a part in the resumption of the trend towards a more perfect world, towards realizing the Creator's objective in creating the universe.