Musar su Genesi 9:20

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.

We have discussed elsewhere that the צדיק is linked to the emanation יסוד, and that this emanation is linked to מלכות through the covenant of circumcision. Noach's position in the world was demonstrated by the fact that he was born circumcised, i.e. without foreskin, according to Avot de Rabbi Nathan 2,8. Our sages say that "he guarded the covenant," and that though he did not succeed in reversing the decline of mankind to the extent of restoring man's stature to what it had been prior to Adam's sin, i.e. to have man clothed in garments of light so that individual immortality would be restored, at least he succeeded in restoring the immortality of the species. The reason that Noach did not succeed beyond this is that he drank afterwards from the vineyard he had planted, something not unlike Adam who had squeezed the juice from the grapes of the tree of knowledge. Actually, when he planted the vineyard (the tree that G–d Himself had planted in גן עדן), Noach had intended to repair the damage done by Adam, but he sinned by indulging in too much wine. Proverbs 25,27: "It is not good to eat too much honey” alludes to that incident^{Author's comment}The author mentions in an annotation that Pardes Rimonim describes the whole subject matter of the vineyard, wine, etc as something that can either be a fountain of spirituality or a source of debauchery, drunkenness. Although Noach strove to regain the יין המשומר, the reservoir of spirituality which Adam had lost by imbibing from what had been forbidden to him, Noach debased himself when he planted that vineyard; the fruit of its wine did not become his כוס ישועות, cup of salvations, but turned out to be the גפן סדום, the vineyard of Sodom, and its grapes turned out to be ענבי רוש and אשכלות מררת למו, "the grapes for them are poison, a bitter growth their clusters" (Deut. 32,32). In short, Noach had drunk the wrong kind of wine..

Rabbi Berechyah means to tell us that from the moment Moses had become an איש, he was headed towards his ultimate achievement. His early youth foreshadowed his career. This is true in spite of the fact that at one point the Midrash Shemot Rabbah 45,5 comments that when Moses began to prophesy he was a relative child, i.e. immature in the ways of prophecy, since he had asked to be shown G–d's glory. Moses progressed constantly, until at the end of his life the Torah testifies that no one ever again attained his stature as a prophet and a man of G–d. The reason that he is described as איש, a title denoting that he was someone of stature already when he was a young man, is to indicate that sparks of G–dliness already came forth from him, such as when -as an act of jealousy on behalf of G–d- he killed the Egyptian who had tortured a Jew. He displayed his close attachment to G–d already at that time. Our sages expressed this thought when they said that Moses slew the Egyptian by uttering the Ineffable Name of G–d when cursing the Egyptian (Midrash Hagadol Exodus 2,20). We observe that even when engaged in an act at the beginning of his spiritual development, Moses is already described in a complimentary fashion, –

I have explained a Midrash in Bereshit Rabbah on Noach where Moses and Noach are contrasted. It says that Moses was more beloved than Noach, since the latter is first described as איש צדיק, a righteous man (Genesis 6,9), whereas later he is called איש האדמה, man of the earth (Genesis 9,20). Moses, on the other hand, is first called איש מצרי and later on he is called איש האלוקים.

Adam squeezed out a cluster of grapes and became a heretic at that very moment, as our Rabbis have stated in Sanhedrin 38b. Our sages have expressed this as והיה נעשה אחר, "he turned into someone else." Noach planted a vineyard (Genesis 9,20) and when drunk became spiritually hurt, lost his sanity. Abraham planted an orchard and emerged unscathed. This is the mystical dimension of being the מרכבה, the carrier of the שכינה. The two sons of Aaron, Nadav and Avihu, also had a glimpse of these mysteries but they died in the process. The Talmud described the experiences of the four scholars as being identical with the four people who had tried to probe these mysteries before them. As far as the death of the two sons of Aaron is concerned, it occurred because they had penetrated so deeply into these mystical matters, i.e. they came so close to the purely spiritual dimensions of G–d that their bodies could not keep up the pace. It is significant that the Torah speaks about their coming close to G–d i.e. בקרבתם, not about בהקריבם, their bringing close, i.e. sacrificing something else (Leviticus 16,1). This means that their very death was their coming close to G–d. They had brought themselves to such closeness. They sanctified G–d by their very death because they had achieved an exceptionally high spiritual level. Moses explained this to his brother Aaron in 10,3: בקרובי אקדש ועל פני כל העם אכבד, "Through those near Me I will show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people." G–d Himself testified to the stature of these two sons of Aaron and to the fact that He felt honoured by their attempt to draw close to Him. These two sons of Aaron rehabilitated their forebear Adam. We have a tradition going back to the Arizal that these two sons of Aaron were the re-incarnation of the soul, נפש, of Adam. These re-incarnations can occur on three levels, נפש, רוח, or נשמה respectively. Nadav and Avihu were re-incarnates of the נפש of Adam as is hinted at in Numbers 9,6: ויהי אנשים אשר היו טמאים לנפש אדם, "There were two men who were impure due to the soul of Adam." Rabbi Akiva believed that the men referred to were Mishael and Eltzafan who carried the bodies of Nadav and Avihu out of the Sanctuary. He appears to have understood the word נפש in our verse as referring to that of first man, Adam (Sukkah 25b). This is supported by Leviticus 10,5 in which Mishael and Eltzafan are described as וישאום בכתנותם, as having carried them in "their tunics," the latter word referring to the כתנות אור, the tunics made of light worn by Adam prior to his sin.