Комментарий к Берешит 1:29

ולכל חית הארץ AND TO EVERY BEAST OF THE EARTH — Scripture places cattle and beasts on a level with them (human beings: that is, it places all alike in the same category) with regard to food, and did not permit Adam to kill any creature and eat its flesh, but all alike were to eat herbs. But when the era of the “Sons of Noah” began He permitted them to eat meat, for it is said, (Genesis 9:3) “every moving thing that lives should be for food for yourselves … “even as the herb” that I permitted to the first man, so do “I give to you everything” (Sanhedrin 59b).

הנה נתתי לכם, “I am now giving you.” This is an example of a past construction really meaning the present tense. We find examples of this in Genesis 14,22 when Avraham says הרימותי ידי, literally “I have raised my hand,” but meaning: “I am raising my hand, swearing an oath.. We find another example of this in Genesis 23,13 where Avraham refers to the payment to Efron for the cave of Machpelah, saying נתתי כסף השדה, literally “I have given the money for the field.” This could not be a past tense, as he had not known the price charged until this very moment.

הנה נתתי לכם, as food to be consumed by man.

"That seeds (bears) seed:" Like (verse 11) "that gives off seed."

BEHOLD, I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERY HERB YIELDING SEED. He did not permit Adam and his wife to kill any creature and eat its meat, but all alike were to eat herbs. But when the era of “the sons of Noah” came, He permitted them to eat meat, as it is said, Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all;²¹⁷Genesis 9:3. even as the green herb that I permitted to the first man, so do I permit you everything. Thus is the language of Rashi. And so did the Rabbi²¹⁸Rashi. explain it in Tractate Sanhedrin:²¹⁹59b. “And to every beast of the earth²²⁰Verse 30. — to you and to the beasts I have given the herbs and the fruits of the trees, and every green herb for food.”²²⁰Verse 30.
But if so, then we must explain the expression, every green herb for food,²²⁰Verse 30. to mean “and every green herb.”²²¹The intent of Ramban’s remark is as follows: if, as according to Rashi, man and beast were made alike with respect to their permitted food, then Verse 29, which specifies the food for man, and Verse 30, which begins with and to every beast of the earth and concludes with every green herb for food, are to be understood as one command since both man and beast were permitted the same food. In that case, Verse 30 should read: “and every green herb,” that is, in addition to every herb yielding seed… and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed mentioned in Verse 29, they could also eat every green herb. But this is not so. Rather, He gave to man and his wife every herb yielding seed and all fruit of the trees [as mentioned in Verse 29], and to the beasts of the earth and the fowl of the heaven He gave all green herb [as mentioned in Verse 30] but neither the fruit of the tree nor the seeds. The food of all of them was thus not the same. However, meat was not permitted to them until the time of the “sons of Noah,”²²²After the flood all people of all time were commanded to observe as a minimum the following seven precepts: (a) to establish courts of justice; (b) to abstain from idolatry; (c) incest; (d) murder; (e) robbery; (f) blasphemy; and (g) eating flesh cut from living animals. These are the laws of Noachids, or “sons of Noah.” (See further Ramban 34:13.) At that time permission was given them to eat meat, the reason for which is explained in the text. as is the opinion of our Rabbis. And this is the plain meaning of the verse.
The reason for this [prohibition of eating meat] was that creatures possessing a moving soul have a certain superiority as regards their soul, resembling in a way those who possess the rational soul: they have the power of choice affecting their welfare and their food, and they flee from pain and death. And Scripture says: Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goes downward to the earth?²²³Ecclesiastes 3:21.
But when they sinned, and all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth,²²⁴Genesis 6:12. and it was decreed that they die in the flood, and for the sake of Noah He saved some of them to preserve the species, He gave the sons of Noah permission to slaughter and eat them since their existence was for his sake.²²⁵That is, Noah’s sake. The Tur’s version reads “their sake,” a reference to all three sons of Noah who were also righteous. See Ramban further, 2:3, where he discusses the profounder meanings of the elements created on the second day, and he writes that they symbolize Noah and his sons as all having been tzadikim (righteous men). Yet with all this, He did not give them permission regarding the soul thereof, and He prohibited them from eating a limb cut off from a living animal, and in addition He gave us [the children of Israel] the commandment prohibiting the eating of all blood because it is the basis of the soul, as it is written: For the life of all flesh, the blood thereof is all one with the life thereof; therefore I said to the children of Israel: Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh; for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof.²²⁶Leviticus 17:14. Thus He has permitted the eating of the body of dumb animals after death, but not the soul itself.
This indeed is the reason for the commandment of killing [animals in the prescribed manner before eating their flesh], and for the saying of the Rabbis:²²⁷Shabbath 128b. “The duty of relieving the suffering of beasts is a Biblical requirement.” And this is the meaning behind the benediction which we make before killing animals: “[Blessed art Thou, O Eternal our G-d, king of the universe] Who hast sanctified us by His commandments and commanded us concerning the killing [of animals].” I will yet discuss the purport of the commandment prohibiting the eating of blood when I reach thereto,²²⁸Leviticus 17:14. if G-d will reward me.
The meaning of the expression, every herb yielding seed… and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food, is that they should eat the seeds of herbs, such as the grains of wheat, barley, beans, and the like, and that they should eat all fruits of the tree; but the tree itself was not given to them for food, nor was the herb itself until man was cursed and he was told, And thou shalt eat the herb of the field.²²⁹Genesis 3:18.

Fruit of the tree (pri etz): There are two [places this appears] according to the tradition: [here, where it states,] that has within it the fruit of the tree;" [and] "fruit of a beautiful tree" (pri etz hadar) [in Leviticus 23:40]. This is a hint for the opinion that holds that the tree that Adam ate from here was a citron (etrog) [since that is what the verse in Leviticus refers to].

And God said to them, "behold I have given you, etc.": The structure of the verse is in the following way: Given that He already stated, "and fill the earth and conquer it and have dominion, etc,." by which He made man master and governor over all the creation, now He came to state the benefit of the giving, which is the eating; and with this He permitted them to eat from the plants. And from the derivation of the matter, you know that that which [God] gave them the fish of the sea and the birds of the skies and the animals is only to rule over them, not to eat them; since He specified one of the ruled [creatures] that it should be for eating, not all of them.

ויאמר אלוקים הנה נתתי לכם, the words נתתי לכם are similar to Genesis 23,13 נתתי כסף השדה, “I had given the money for the field.” Alternately, it could be G’d saying that as soon as He had created them He had assigned these plants as food for man who had not yet been created. This would justify the distant past mode of the word נתתי. “I had given.” The advanced kinds of plants had been assigned as food for man, the fruit of the trees, etc., whereas the more primitive plants, herbs and grass, had been assigned as food for the animals.

ואת כל העץ אשר בו פרי עץ, “and every tree which contains fruit of the tree” the Torah permitted the eating of the seeds of grain producing plants such as kernels of wheat etc, and the eating of the fruit of the tree, but not the eating of the trunk itself, just as also the stalks of the herbs were not allowed to be eaten [in order to ensure that the species would not become defunct. Ed.] After the first sin, eating of the stalks of the herbs themselves was permitted, as we read ואכלת את עשב השדה, ”you will eat the grass of the field,” (Genesis 3,18) The eating of meat had not been permitted at all, as the animals due to their mobility have a life force, נפש, which is superior to the “life-force” of plants. This is manifest in their freedom to choose the kind of food they want to eat as well as in their ability to choose where to make their habitat. They are intelligent enough to flee from locations causing them pain, or from death threatening situations. Once the animals became corrupt, as detailed in Genesis 6,12, they forfeited this legal protection from man the predator, and man was given permission to eat meat provided the animal was dead first. After all, the very existence of the animals was for the sake of and convenience of man. Even after this permission to eat the meat of the animals was granted, it was forbidden to eat heir life-force, נפש. (Genesis 9,4) This is basically why slaughtering of the animals prior to eating their flesh was decreed by the Torah for the Jewish people. This is also the meaning of the sages stating that causing pain to animals is a Biblical prohibition. (Nachmanides on our verse)

He equates. This means that since the Torah equated them concerning food, and we know that animals may eat only vegetation, but may not eat man. For it is written above, “And [man shall] dominate the fish of the sea etc,” implying that man shall dominate them but they shall not dominate man. Thus, since man and animals are equated, [we learn that] man may eat only vegetation and may not kill an animal. It follows that man’s permission to dominate the animals refers to using them for work, not for food. (Re’m) See Sanhedrin 59b.

. הנה נתתי לכם, “here I have given to you, etc.” The line is to be understood as if written in the present tense, “I am giving to you’” there are numerous such verses which though written in the past tense, actually were meant to be understood as being in the present tense. The author quotes a few examples, including: Genesis 14,22; 23,13.

"That has in it fruit of the tree:" Because the word fruit (pri) is not specific to fruit of trees - as there are [also] fruit of the ground and fruit of the womb, and anything that comes out of something else is called a fruit of that thing - it states "that has in it fruit of the tree," which means to say the fruit specific to trees.

Male: has a numerical equivalent (gematria) of 'blessing.' Female has a numerical equivalent (gematria) of 'in a curse.'

זורע זרע, generating seed; the meaning is similar to the expression מזריע זרע in verse 11

To kill any creature. This implies that only killing an animal is forbidden, but if it died naturally, they may eat it. You might ask: How does Rashi know [that such meat is permitted, when on the contrary, regarding man’s food] it is written: “I have given you all seed-yielding herbs...”? The answer is: They were commanded not to eat a limb from a living animal, as explained in Sanhedrin 56b. This proves Rashi’s point, for if an animal that died naturally is forbidden, certainly a living animal is forbidden! But if an animal that died naturally is permitted, since man did not kill it, one might think that a limb from a living animal is also permitted, if man did not sever it and the animal does not die as a result. [Thus they were commanded not to eat it.]

And all of the trees that have fruit of the tree: Here it negates [the inclusion] of the tree of knowledge, since it is not in this category of only making fruit, but [rather] it, itself, is fruit. And the structure of the verse is in the following way: "and all of the trees," but not all of the trees are included: [only] those "that have fruit of the tree," but not one that is fruit itself - which is the tree of knowledge, that he was commanded about afterwards explicitly. Or it is saying that even the tree of knowledge was included [in the permission to eat] and even though we find that he was commanded about [not eating] it, they, of blessed memory, have already stated (Bereishit Rabbah 21:7) that if [Adam] had waited until the eve of Shabbat, he would have sanctified with wine [of that fruit] - so far [their words]; and from their words, you learn that [this] prohibition was not [to be] forbidden forever.

את כל עשב זורע זרע, “all the herbs that perpetuate themselves by shedding their seed.” Examples are grains and vegetables such as peas and beans, etc; as well as the fruit of the trees which contain stones or pips. All these were intended as food for the human race. The beasts of the field were assigned only simpler herbs, i.e. grass that did not perpetuate itself by shedding their seeds. As a result of man’s sin, G-d decreed that they would be limited to eating the same kind of food as did the animals. This is the deeper meaning of the verse in Genesis 3,18: קוץ ודרדר תצמיח לך ואכלת את עשב השדה, “the earth will grow thorns and thistles in (response to your efforts) so that you will be reduced to eating the grass of the field.” This is also reflected in Psalms 49,21: “he is like the beasts (that perish)”. If G-d had permitted man at that stage to eat meat, it would have been viewed as man being rewarded for having sinned.

לכם יהיה לאכלה, only the ones mentioned in this verse. Permission to eat meat would be granted only after the deluge, and we are not sure of the reason for this. Perhaps the reason is that G’d had already foreseen that during the generation of the deluge Noach would be the one who would be directly instrumental in saving the animals, and permission to eat meat became part of Noach’s reward for his labour feeding all the animals in the ark for a full year. Seeing that G’d does not withhold reward from any creature, He would certainly not withhold it from human beings when warranted. We have a parallel example of Nevuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, being rewarded by G’d for a good deed (Ezekiel 29,18) as a result of which G’d told the prophet that He would reward him by making him victorious over the leading military might in his day, over Egypt.

When the “sons of Noach” came... Rashi says this to prove that meat was prohibited to Adam HaRishon, for when the sons of Noach came [out of the Ark], Hashem needed to permit meat to them.

לכם יהיה לאכלה ולכל חית השדה, Rashi comments on this line that man had been reduced to eat the same kind of food as the beasts of the field. When we find the statement in Sanhedrin 59, that the angels in heaven were purifying wine for Adam and roasting meat for him while he was sitting in the garden (on the Sabbath), which appears to contradict the aforesaid, this refers to meat that had descended from heaven just as the manna descended from heaven for the Israelites in the desert. When G-d had told man that they would rule over the fish in the sea, etc.; this did not mean that he was allowed to eat them, but that they were to perform work on his behalf, as pointed out on the same folio in the Talmud. The Talmud explains that even birds could be trained to perform menial tasks for man. ובכל החיה הרומשת על הארץ, “and to all the living creatures that creep on the earth.” This is a reference to the serpent alluded to in verse 28. It can serve man as carrier of messages as spelled out in Sanhedrin 59.