[Avodah] Birds & Fish in the Mabul

[Chana Luntz]

RMB writes:

> But I think you're arguing in the wrong direction to make your own
> point.
> 
> Noach was told that everything under shamayim would be destroyed. That
> includes all of earth no matter which homonym is intended by "shamayim"
> here. Your ability to raise problems is tangential, unless you can
> prove
> that "shamayim" has yet another meaning that is yet smaller.

The position I have been consistently arguing is that kol haaretz and kol
hashamayim are terms that are most logically to be understood in the way
that Noach and the other members of the dor hamabul would have understood
them (and did understand them, or refused to believe them).  That excludes
anything completely out of their ken, like planets and galaxies from either
definition, but also Australia and England and other places that to them did
not exist. If you asked the dor hamabul for a definition of kol haaretz, you
would not get any references to Australia. Similarly if you would have asked
them for a definition of kol tachas hashamayim, they would not have included
the moon, or Australia.  When the dor hamabul came asking Noach what he was
doing, and he said that kol haaretz was going to be destroyed, because
people were corrupt, I do not believe that either of them understood that to
refer to Australia, nor would either of them have cared had they known about
it, Australia could flood or not flood for any impact it had on any of the
people involved, it was no different to them than the moon.  So yes, I
believe their understanding of shamayim was indeed smaller (physically) than
ours (even though it included the atmosphere visible to them and the moon)
as was their understanding of haaretz.  That does not mean that in fact
their spiritual understanding of shamayim may not have been greater than
ours (at least for the greats like Noach, not so sure about the rest of the
dor).  If in fact it was spiritually greater, than I would expect the
shamayim referred to refer to this, despite the fact that we today might not
truly understand what that means.  I don't think there is any requirement
that *we* fully understand this term in the Torah, but I do think, for the
punishment to be effective and appropriate, Noach and the dor hamabul had to
understand, or, in the case of the dor hamabul, be given a chance to
understand, precisely what was going on and what they were risking.  That is
basic yashrus and is precisely the reason the tevah building took so long.

You (and others) in contrast argue that kol haaretz has to be understood to
mean and include land that was unknown to the dor hamabul, like Australia,
ie you are insisting on *our* definition and understanding of what is
included in kol haaretz being read into the words in the Torah.  My comment
is thus that if you want to insert our definition of kol haaretz, then you
should be doing so properly, and including everything that we now understand
as kol haaretz, including the moon, otherwise you are arbitrarily stopping
the process - you are not prepared to define it the way the dor hamabul
would have defined it, but neither are you (when pushed) prepared to define
it the way we now understand it to be.  And exactly the same goes for
Shamayim.  By pointing out the inconsistency, I am trying to point you back
to what seems to me to be the more logical position.

> Tir'u baTov!
> -Micha

Regards

Chana