Pensée juive sur La Genèse 7:11

"The sons of G-d," describes people who lived an undisturbed long and good life, pampering themselves. The ready availability of women to cater to their needs, reinforced that mode of existence. The length of a lifetime in those days was necessary in order for people to begin to understand nature, based on long term observations of the phenomena, experiments etc. Later generations, having at their disposal the benefit of knowledge gathered by their ancestors, did not need such a lengthy lifespan. Moses in Psalms 90,10 already states that seventy years nowadays is enough for man to achieve the objectives G-d has set man. Since the descendants of Shet are properly called "the sons of the Divine," while the daughters of "Adam" are obviously descendants of Cain, their intermarrying was bound to lead to catastrophic consequences. When G-d reacts by saying (Genesis 6,3), "My spirit will not dwell within man ever," it means that He will not go on forever making excuses for them-- "seeing that they are made of flesh"-- as He had done in suspending sentence on their ancestor Cain. Since the people who now perpetrate all these evils are descended from a superior branch of mankind, their relapses are far less excusable. What could G-d expect from them in the future then? Therefore, G-d gave them a time limit of 120 years. This is the meaning of Psalm 82,6, "I had said that you are G-d like, but you will die like earth bound beings." The timing of the deluge was arranged so that the good people who, though not worth saving, were not as guilty as the others, would have died due to normal circumstances. The fact that the chain of descendants of Shet who are mentioned by name are all recorded as having died, is proof that their death left some void. The descendants of Noach, starting with Shem are not recorded as having died. Possibly, this is to distinguish those ten generations from the ones between Adam and Noach. The reference to the nephilim is (a) to insure that the men described as "sons of G-d" are not confused with beings that have been sired by G-d; (b) to account for the fact that we find some descendants of the generation of the deluge having survived till the era of Moses, such as the giant Og, for instance. These people encountered by Israel in the desert some 700 years later were understandably viewed as "sons of G-d" by dint of their genealogy. "When G-d saw that the evil perpetrated by man on the earth was great, and that all his thought processes were evil all day long, He regretted that He had made man" (Genesis 6,5-6). Philosophers distinguish between evil as merely an act, and evil which had been both planned and executed. The person who commits the former can reform easily, since his thought processes have remained unaffected and can be employed to help control his actions. Not so when the evil is the product of one's thought processes. What counterweight is there then for such a person to achieve rehabilitation? It is this latter evil G-d encountered in man, and which the verse in question comments upon. Although a complete comprehension of the line "G-d regretted" is impossible unless one subscribes to the theory that Torah on occasion employs a human mode of speech when describing anthropomorphous actions by G-d (Kidushin 17), we will try and explain the meaning of vayinachem here and elsewhere when G-d is the subject of that term. Hitnachmut, regrets, is not a change of viewpoint when the premise for that viewpoint has remained constant. Rather, it is a re-consideration of one's plans and attitudes based on a changed set of circumstances. If a person vows to do good to a friend because he has faith in that friend's loyalty, and the friend turns into an enemy, then the cancellation of his vow to do good does not constitute a change of mind, a breaking of one's promise. Rather, it is an admission that one had erred in one's assessment of the facts which one's promise had been based on. A changed attitude then becomes an act of wisdom, a rejection of foolishness. If, on the other hand, the eventual disloyalty of the friend to whom one had vowed assistance, is foreseen, and occurs in accordance with one's expectations, then the act of having to withhold one's assistance becomes an act of regret, reconsideration. This latter regret, i.e. going back on one's promise, is considered a major character defect in human society. Therefore, those guilty of such behavior prefer to explain their actions as being the result of their own stupidity, shortsightedness. A case in point is Bileam (Numbers 22,34). He said to the angel, "I have sinned since I have been unaware." Since one cannot presume lack of foreknowledge on the part of G-d, He chose to describe His resolution as an act of reconsideration rather than as an act resulting from lack of foreknowledge. When the Torah describes G-d as having reconsidered, it tells us that G-d continued to desire that He could carry out what He had originally planned, but what had now become impossible due to the conduct of the other half of the partnership between G-d and Man. In the same way G-d predicts in Deuteronomy 31, the Jewish people's corruption and the steps He would have to take to deal with that problem. In order to ensure the eventual production of the perfect tree, the planting of many trees is necessary, until eventually the perfect one will emerge. Should this not occur, refinement of the relatively best trees will lead to their eventually producing the perfect tree. G-d proceeded along similar lines with mankind. When no perfect specimen showed up after a lengthy period, the time had come to abandon earlier crops and retain only the relatively best and start the process of proliferation afresh with those specimen. This time only the seeds of the best trees which had been produced thus far were used. Although such contingencies had been part of His planning, the need to resort to them was a saddening experience.