[Avodah] Birds & Fish in the Mabul

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> I think harder to translate as referring to a less-than-global event
> would be 6:17, "... leshacheis kol basar acher bo ruach chayim mitachas
> hashamayim; kol asher ba'aretz yigvah."
> 
> Similarly 7:19, "kol heharim hagevohim *asher tachas kol hashamayim*".
> 
> "Mitachas hashamayim" and moreso "kol hashamayim" lack the ambiguity
> of whether eretz or adamah refers to the whole world, a piece of it,
> a clump of dirt, etc...

But note that your translation does assume that, for example, the mountains
on the moon are a part of shamayim (not to mention those of Mars, Venus
etc).  We now know and are able to touch rocks and clumps of dirt that make
up the great mountains of the moon and these planets.  

A common way of understanding this today, is to say that the moon and
planets are really part of ha-aretz, and not part of shamayim (ie Neil
Armstrong did not spend time in shamayim).  This allows for the existence of
at least a certain level of space travel and the various probes and rockets
we are sending up there. But if you do say that, then surely on your
understanding of asher tachas kol hashamayim, the moon and planets would
also have needed to be flooded.

Even without this, do note that if the sky as we define it on earth is
shamayim for the purposes of this pasuk, then due to the earth being round,
we would have to say that earth is really enveloped in shamayim, meaning
that all parts of the earth are both tachas the bit it is "underneath" and
over the bit over the corresponding land on the other side of the globe.
>From the point of view of an Australian, the bit of shamayim on view in
Eretz Yisroel is tachas where they stand (ie technically the most correct
direction in order to face Yerushalim is straight down).  And so, since the
bit of shamayim on view in Australia is tachas where Noach is standing (with
the land of Australia, not to mention the fiery furnace of the earth's
molten core in between), arguably therefore even where Noach is standing is
not tachas hashamayim, but actually on top of some parts of shamayim (the
bits visible in Australia).

The simplest way out of this mess, it seems to me, is to understand the
Torah as using the language of men and in particular, the language of the
men at the time of the mabul. To the men of the mabul, the shamayim was the
sky over *them*, the one that they could see, and kol hashamayim was all the
sky they were ever in any position to see. The sky over Australia is thus
not shamayim or a part of kol hashamayim, it was not anything they had any
dealing with or thought about, and the fact that it is technically under
them is therefore irrelevant.  That of course means no necessity for the
land and mountains of Australia, being under a sky which is not shamayim
within the definition, to be flooded, and even more so, no implication in
the pasuk that the mountains of the moon were flooded.  To the men of the
mabul, the moon was a part of shamayim, to us it may not be any more. To
HaShem of course, if he created it in a way that rockets can be sent there,
it was never part of his heavenly domain - so how could he use the term
shamayim in the Torah to clearly include the moon?  The only way that to my
mind makes any sense is to understand HaShem's use of shamayim in the Torah
is to be a use of a term as man understood it.  In that regard, I think that
shamayim and kol hashamayim are in fact much more difficult to translate in
an absolutist way even than ha-aretz.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana