창세기 9:20의 Musar

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, –