Comentário sobre Gênesis 7:1

ראיתי צדיק [THEE] HAVE I SEEN RIGHTEOUS — It does not say “righteous and wholehearted” (as it does at the beginning of the Sedrah); hence we may infer that only a part of a man’s good qualities should be enumerated in his presence (since here God is speaking to Noah and calls him only “righteous”), but that in his absence the whole of his good qualities may be told (since when the Torah speaks about him in the earlier passage it calls him “righteous and wholehearted”) (Eruvin 18b).

AND THE ETERNAL SAID TO NOAH. G-d informed Noah that with the attribute of mercy [as indicated by the use of the Tetragrammaton, “the Eternal,”] He will save him and his family and that He will give life to their seed for all generations. This is the meaning of the phrase, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.⁷¹Verse 3. At first He said, to keep them alive with thee;⁷²Above, 6:19. but now with the attribute of mercy He hinted to him concerning the sacrifice to inform him that he will have regard for his offering and that by the merit of his offering, the world will exist, never again to be cut off by the waters of the flood.⁷³See further, 9:11. This is why the Tetragrammaton is mentioned here for in all matters concerning the sacrifices, Scripture does not mention Elokim (G-d), as I will elucidate when I reach there⁷⁴See Ramban, Leviticus 1:9. with the help of G-d.

ויאמד…בא אל התיבה. G'd said…."enter the ark!." Why did G'd have to repeat here that He had seen that Noach was a righteous man in his generation? G'd may have feared that Noach would misinterpret the command to enter the ark together with all his immediate family. He might have thought a) that every family member would be saved due to his or her individual merit; in that case the Torah should not have addressed the command to build the ark to Noach in the singular; b) he might have thought that his wife, children, and their respective wives were being saved because they had not yet reached the age of accountability. If Noach had thought this he might have been tempted to invite all those of his friends who were young enough to share the ark with him in order to survive. Even if he had not done so on his own initiative, he might have wondered why all these youngsters were doomed to perish.

ויאמר ה' לנח, He told him to enter the ark before the onset of the deluge.

כי אותך ראיתי צדיק, not your family, therefore, אתה וכל ביתך, I will let them escape only on account of your merit.

ויאמר ה' אל נח, “The Lord said to Noach, etc.” the use of the tetragram indicated to Noach that he was being saved as a manifestation of Gd’s attribute of Mercy, at work on his behalf and that of his offspring.

[We learn] from this that we tell... This raises a question: Now that the Torah taught us the proper conduct of telling only מקצת, i.e., part of a man’s good qualities, the man will understand on his own that his good qualities are double this, [thus defeating the purpose]! It seems the answer is: Telling מקצת does not necessarily mean half. It could be a small amount: a tenth or a hundredth. Thus, the man will not know the extent of his good qualities. (Nachalas Yaakov)

Bis dahin war alles im Namen אלקי׳ erzählt; erzählt, wie Gott, als Schöpfer, Gesetzgeber und Richter der Welt, mitten aus der entarteten Gesamtheit den einen Menschen und diejenigen Tiere zur Rettung aussonderte, die nicht an der allgemeinen Entartung teilgenommen hatten. Sie hatten die Erhaltung verdient und wurden erhalten. Das angestrebte erste Ziel heißt: להחיות, sie am Leben zu erhalten. Das folgende wird mit dem Namen ה׳ eingeleitet, jenem Namen, der dem, die Menschheit zu ihrem Ziele barmherzig erziehenden, jeden kommenden Moment mit Rücksicht auf dieses Ziel gestaltenden Gotteswerke angehört, und damit diese Rettung als Grundstein für die neue Menschenzukunft bezeichnet. Dieser fernere Zweck der Rettung wird daher Raw Hirsch on Genesis 7: 3 nicht להחיות, sondern להיות זרע genannt, Samen der Zukunft auf Erden zu beleben.

ויאמר ה׳, “The Lord said:” The previous time G-d had been reported as speaking to Noach, (6,13) it was His attribute of Justice speaking, whereas here it refers to His attribute of Mercy addressing him.

COME THOU AND ALL THY HOUSE INTO THE ARK. Noah constructed the ark many days before the flood, and when the time of the flood arrived on the tenth day of the second month, He again commanded him that he and all his household come into the ark. This is why He said to him at first: thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.⁷⁵Above, 6:18. He thereby informed him that on account of his merit alone they will be saved since He did not say, “Ye [in the plural] I have seen righteous before Me.” And He commanded that he take and bring of the clean beasts and clean fowl seven and seven, and then He informed him of the day of the flood, at which time he was to come into the ark. And Noah did so for in the selfsame day came Noah… into the ark.⁷⁶Verse 13. This refers to the day when the rains began, namely, the seventeenth day of the second month. This is the meaning of [the verse: And Noah came in… into the ark] because of the waters of the flood.⁷⁷Verse 7. But Rashi wrote: “Noah also was one of those who have little faith, and he did not enter the ark until the waters forced him to do so.” In the words of Bereshith Rabbah:⁷⁸32:9. “Noah was lacking in faith. Had the waters not reached his ankles he would not have entered the ark.” But if so, let him say that Noah did not enter there until the waters greatly increased and covered the whole face of the earth and he saw that he was drowning!

כי אותך ראיתי צדיק לפני, you and your family are therefore entitled to escape the deluge in order to form the nucleus of a new world order afterwards.

בא אתה וכל ביתך אל התיבה, “enter the ark, you and your whole family.” Seeing that Noach had spent many years building the ark, now that the time for the deluge had drawn near, G’d instructed him to make his home forthwith inside the ark together with his family. Seeing that originally, G’d had described what would happen to him with the words: אתה ובניך ואשתך ונשי בניך אתך, “you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you,” it was made clear now by not listing his wife and children individually, that they were being saved due to Noach’s merit, not due to their own merit. The absence of the word אתך on this occasion makes plain that they were not considered on a moral par with their father/husband or father-in-law. Had they been, the Torah would have written אתכם ראיתי צדיקים, “I have viewed you (pl.) as righteous people, etc.” G’d continued to order him to take the extra “pure” domestic animals and birds, as well as telling him the date on which the deluge would commence.

G'd told Noach once more that He had found only him as a righteous person at that time in order to lay to rest any of the other ideas Noach might have had on the subject. He now understood that any youngster who did not have a righteous father was caught in the sins of his father who was punished to die without issue.

צדיק. Was oben in צדיק und תמים auseinander gelegt war, wird hier in צריק zusammengefasst. Denn im allgemeinen ist die gesamte Pflichttreue nichts als Gerechtwerden. Nicht bloß die Pflicht gegen den Nebenmenschen, auch die Sittlichkeit ists. Kein Fünkchen Geist und Leben, kein Splitter Kraft ist uns eigen. Alles ist uns anvertrautes Gut, dem wir gerecht werden sollen. Der Unsittliche, der Gott gehörende Kräfte vergeudet und von Gott gezogene Schranken durchbricht, ist ein Schelm vor Gott, wie der Dieb vor den Menschen. — לפני, vor mir; mancher kann vor den Menschen gerecht erscheinen und ist es nicht vor Gott, und umgekehrt. Es sind auch die Begriffe, die die Menschen mit den Worten verbinden, nicht immer die wahren und rechten, am allerwenigsten in Zeiten so allgemeiner Entartung. Die Worte Tugend, Gerechtigkeit usw. werden in jeder Zeit im Kours bleiben. Der Inhalt dieser Worte jedoch wird gestohlen, man stellt ihnen seine Zwecke und Meinungen unter. Selbst der Name, "Gott" kann von Munde zu Munde gehen und durch die Verirrung der Zeit seinen wahren Inhalt verloren haben. Darum sicherlich nicht überflüssig: צדיק לפני, gerecht vor mir, nach meinem Sinn. — בדור הזה. Wir haben schon bemerkt, wie den Wurzeln, ,טור דור ,תפר ,דבר ,תור der Begriff des Aneinanderreihens mehrerer Objekte an denselben Faden zu Grunde liege, sei der Faden die Zeit, oder etwas anderes. Keiner kann sich allen Einflüssen seiner Zeit entziehen; der Faden der Gleichzeitigkeit wirkt tief, und es ist wahrlich nichts leichtes, in einer pflichtvergessenen Zeit ein pflichttreuer Mensch vor Gott zu sein. Indem aber Gott dies als ׳ה zu Noa spricht, so dürfte darin zugleich der Ausspruch liegen, Gott habe ihn für die Zwecke seiner Menschenzukunft tauglich erfunden, er trage mit seiner in solcher Zeit erprobt gebliebenen Pflichttreue den rechten Kern für die von Gott beabsichtigte Zukunft in sich.

And your household. Noach was permitted to take with him his servants and animals, not to contribute to the repopulating of the earth but to help him in his labors. Note that until this point the name Elokim has been used, indicating strict judgment, whereas in this verse the four-letter Name indicating the attribute of mercy appears.

The statement of our sages that Jewish minors have a share in the world to come, whereas Gentile minors do not (Kohelet Rabbah 4,1 and Avot de Rabbi Nathan 36,1), may be based on our verse. In Noach's generation everyone was considered an idolator and it was reasonable to assume that the children would take after their fathers. Noach, on the other hand, took a more optimistic view of the possible development of the minors. G'd therefore had to tell him that he could not save any youngsters barrring his own.