[Avodah] Birds & Fish in the Mabul

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 10:40pm GMT, Chana Luntz wrote:
: 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...

I don't know why non-quotes in the Torah would be specific to the
protagonist in the story rather than dor hamidbar. Not that it makes
much difference here.

When HQBH promises not to flood the world again, does that rule out
flooding "just" all of the region inhabited in Noach's day? In a sense,
HQBH is speaking very specifically to subsequent generations as well.

: 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...

Leshitaseikh, "mitachos kol hashamayim" therefore couldn't speak of
Australia -- neither to include nor to exclude it specifically.

I was positing that the significance of "everywhere" were more important,
and Hashem said "everywhere" knowing they were unaware of just how vast
that was. Why would everywhere on the planet be important? I don't know;
but there is "kol haaretz" and "mitachas kol hashamayim" which sounds
to my ear as forcing the point.

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 10:20am EDT, hankman wrote:
: Pangaea is totally irrelevant, since if it existed at all it was in a
: time frame far removed by hundreds (~250M) of millions and not relevant
: to our time frame circa a mere 4000 years ago.

: ...
:> Malbim understands this to mean that seasons didn't exist before the
:> mabul. The earth's axis was perpendicular to the ecliptic, so each
:> place's climate was steady. Rain fell every forty years, and the earth
:> produced enough food to last until the next rain.

: The 40 year rain cycle prior to Mabul you mention (quoting the Malbim)
: would raise difficulties in the science of dendrochronology where such
: a 40 year cycle would be quite apparent but is not noted anywhere in
: the literature that I have seen. Anchored chronologies go back to well
: before the Mabul...

Are you asking about how science interprets eras in which its assuptions
don't hold? If you wished to, then the presence of pre-Mabul and
pre-Migdal cultures also poses a problem. Believing in a global flood
requires believing that things happened that one cannot interpret
correctly scientificially.

I could see someone believing that the timing of pangea is itself one
of those misinterpretations.

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 02:43pm GMT, Chana Luntz wrote:
: But more deeply, the moral messages of Breishis and the mabul are different.
: I refer you back to Rashi and the Rambam:

: Here is Rashi on the subject - first Rashi on the Torah:
...
: The moral message of Breishis is - I am Hashem who created everything,
: including things well beyond your ken, so don't go objecting when I choose
: to give a small piece of land to the Jews.

According to the medrash Rashi cites, all of Bereishis and the first
chapters of Shemos is in order to make this point. Including maaseh
bereishis AND the story of the mabul (and the Nefilim, Migdal Bavel,
the avos, etc...)

: The moral message of the mabul is that of crime and punishment. If you make
: the punishment not fit the crime, indeed be disproportionate to the crime,
: then you are alleging a Judge who does not do justly. In an attempt to
: expand on the gadulus of Hashem, by saying he flooded the whole planet, in
: effect, it seems to me, people are diminishing the yashrus and tzidkus of
: Hashem...

Perhaps you are underestimating the role of man on the planet. I would
think that if Hashem made stars as furnaces for making the heavier
elements from which we were made, He could very well only have maintained
not-yet-inhabited continents for our benefit as well. What you consider
a lack of proportion, I would consider a way to make that statement.

Or maybe the entirety nature of "mitachas kol hashamayim" and "kol
haaretz" is significant for some other reason.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
micha at aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter