Hashem makes mistakes too.

We learned that G-d destroyed the world, but the interesting part is that he regretted it and vowed to never again destroy the world on account of an individual. Just like us, humans, make mistakes, so does the almighty G-d. I think this is an important lesson for us. Sometime we make mistake, but the important part of making mistakes, as we all know is to learn from them. G-d learned from them which is, in my opinion something he unintentionally or even more so indirectly wanted us to pick up on and actually participate in. So the lesson that I took out of the vow Hashem made to never destroy the world again on account of an individual is that even amazing, holy, almighty, all powerful people make mistakes but they always learn from them, as should we.

The Only Option

In Parshat Noach G-d decides to destroy the entire world with a flood and repopulate the world through Noach and his family. This decision confuses me. If a kid makes a model of something for school and found something wrong with it and wanted to just destrop it and start over, a mother would usually say 'no, don't mess it up, we can fix it!" I'm not trying to compare G-d to a child, but the decision making is similar. Why should G-d feel the need to destroy a world when He could fix it. Punish the people maybe or find a way to show them that He is G-d and if they don't obide by his rules, they will be wiped out. There must be other options other than just destoying the whole world, right?

So, I don't know the exact answer, but this is what I came up with:

Adam and Chava. The first people to be created. Also, the first people to commit a sin. So, what was G-d's decision there? Punishment. You would think after these harsh punishments, everyone would follow G-d's commandments and not sin. But, it's only one generation later that Kayin kills his G-d fearing brother, Havel, and decides not to do Teshuva and is punished. Already, out of the first four people on this Earth, three have been punished, and the fourth was killed by his immoral brother. The world is not turning out the way G-d had planned. Now, there are many immoral, unethical people commiting sins, mating with animals, and not fearing G-d. Shet (Adam and Chava's third son) has a son named Noach. Noach is not on the same level as Avraham or Moshe, but in his times he is the most moral and G-d fearing man. This is when G-d makes his decision. Get rid of the bad people and repopulate the world through the only G0d fearing, ethical man, Noach. G-d knows by now that punishment might help a little in one generation, but will not help in the long run as we see with Adam and Chava and their immoral son Kayin. By now G-d has realized that yes, man is inclined to sin. Man cannot be expected to know how to act. Therefore, G-d must give them written instructions on how to act in a moral and ethical way. But, it is now too late. The people are already too corrupt to follow any set of instructions G-d will give them. Noach, unlike Avraham does not try to teach the people about G-d. There seems to be no chance to turn these people around. The only option left is to start new. Wipe these people out, repopulate, and give them the 7 Mitzvot Bnei Noach.

Man's True Nature

As we learned in class, the generation of the flood was violent and lacked recognition of the natural order of things. Since they were violating the natural plan established for them in Perek 1, Hashem decided to destroy the world and start again from Noach's family. Along with this action, Hashem recognized that man has a יצר הרע and will sin. Despite this, Hashem vowed never to destroy the entire world again on account of man's misdeeds (ברית). Because the assumed morality obviously didn't work, Hashem made a ברית with all of humanity and created the "שבע מצוות בני נח" as guidelines for man's behavior. Man's role is now to act "בצלם אלקים" as defined in the seven commandments for all of humanity.

Hashem knew the true nature of man. He completely created us and the world we live in. Therefore, it only stands to reason that He knows the motivations for our actions. The sins of the generation of the flood came from their lack of morality. They killed and stole from each other, they were corrupt, and they mated with animals. The creation of the שבע מצוות בני נח proves that man needs more guidance than: "Here is your role in the world. Now go and fulfill it." These seven commandments apply to the entire human race. They are the guidelines on how to be a moral and ethical person. Other religions use this as their foundation. Judaism takes it (several steps) farther. We are the chosen nation and we are expected to act even more morally and ethically than others.

Genealogy list versus story

I was just thinking about what we had covered this week in chumash class when I had a thought. Adam knew that his mate had to be Btzelem Elokim- in the image of G-d. He also knew what his tasks were- to follow the mitzvot, to work the land, to rule over the animals, etc. But when man and woman are confronted by the conniving snake, they can't seem to make the correct decisions. They knew when everything was ok what they hada to do, but under pressure, they wavered. They hid from G-d and thought He could not see them,they doubt His authority, they start blaming each other for everything, etc.,and the story seems to go downhill from there. This same mindset is still true for people today. When life is great, so is their observance/ character/ etc. When there is the slightest hint of pressure , people tend to not be so steadfast to their morals that they otherwise "stick steadfastly true to". This just makes me think: at times like that shouldn't these morals be that much more important? However, this idea apparently does not occur to many people during such times. Interesting, isn't it? Something to think about.

תולדות

In בראשית we see the word "תולדות" used many times. Before you read בראשית you may ask yourself: "what does this word mean?" This word can have many different meanings it can me the stories or accounts of-where it would tell a story about someone or it can mean the children of-where it means like a genealogy list. We also learned that sometimes בראשית is called "ספר תולדות" and you probably ask why is it called this? We learned that mainly in בראשית when it says תולדות it is talking about stories or accounts of (here a child can be born and that can just be an account of that person) and only a few times if it the children of where most of the section is a genealogy list of that person. בראשית is sometimes called ספר תולדות because the whole Sefer is either a story of someone or a genealogy list of someone.

ואלה תולדות: What does it mean?

As we have been learning in class, there can be more than one translation for the words ואלה תולדות in ספר בראשית. We said in class that it could be one of two things: a narrative, as in "ואלה תולדות שמים וארץ", when it talks about the beginning of mankind, or it could be a genealogical list, as in "ואלה תולדות שם", where we learn the genealogy from שם to אברהם. After looking at the different places where it is used in ספר בראשית, we began to see a pattern. We found that there is a concept of "נבחר ונדחה" (chosen and pushed aside). For everyone that does good and is chosen, there is a story about their life. For everyone that does bad and is "pushed aside", there is only a list of their descendants until the next chosen person, mentioning the bad person as briefly as possible. Below is an outline of what is written above, along with some other examples of "ואלה תולדות".

ואלה תולדות שמים וארץ

• Everyone on earth was chosen. They were all made בצלם א-לוקים and were given the command to פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשוה. There were religious and moral directives.
• Adam had קין, הבל, and הבל .שת was killed by קין, and קין was expelled from the land. That left שת whose descendants all became corrupt, except for נח.
• Assumed morality wasn't there.
  

אלה תולדות נח

• Recreation of the world- שבע מצוות בני נח created and a religious and moral system spelled out and articulated
• מגדל בבל- דור הפלגה- They don't recognize 'ה.
  

אלה תולדות אברהם

• אברהם and his children are chosen. We don't know if both children were chosen to begin with, but later on, ישמאל only gets a genealogy list. יצחק is the one who gets a story.

אלה תולדות יצחק

• Like in the story of אברהם, both of יצחק's sons may have been chosen to begin with, but in the end, only יעקב gets a story.
  

אלה תולדות יעקב

• The sons of יעקב must have known about the whole story about only one son being chosen in the past, which would be a logical explanation for why they threw יוסף in the pit and sold him. He was obviously the favorite son, and his brothers were scared that he would be the one to get a story told about him, and they would not. They might have thought that if they got rid of יוסף, they would have a better opportunity of getting their own story. Instead, all of them are chosen. there is no more נבחר ונדחה.
• ספר בראשית is the story from the beginning of time until the creation of the ב"ני. The בנ"י become the chosen people in the chosen land. This helps to explain why we got the Torah and became the chosen nation instead of anyone else. ספר בראשית= ספר התולדות.

תולדות

In class this week, we learned about the word תולדות. We said that it could mean either "Stories" or "Children of". Honestly, most people do not learn ספר בראשית as in depth as we do here, so they do not understand the immense honor it is to have your story written down in the "stories" section. I know I didn't understand. Of course I knew that the people whose complete stories are told in Bereshit were wither very great people or they had stories that future generations could learn from. In our analysis of Sefer Bereshit, we found that there were many "mess-ups" in the various "batches" of people. The first mistake was the family of Adam and Chava. They were the first people created in the image of Hashem. They were also the first ones to violate a direct commandment from Hashem. Their story teaches us that defying a direct commandment from Hashem won't lead to anything good. The next mistake was their son Kayin. He was the first one to use the power of jealousy for evil. This particular incident was probably the source for "Don't covet" in the Ten Commandments. He was punished for his sin, but his descendants continued to defy Hashem. It was Adam and Chava's third son, Shet, who recognized Hashem and whose descendants include Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and Bnei Yisrael. Though Hashem also had to deal with Noach's generation and the generation of the Towel of Bavel, all of it eventually led to BNEI YISRAEL: the chosen people. Now it's our job to emulate the great deeds of our forefathers and avoid the mistakes of the "unchosen people".