[Avodah] Limited Mabul?

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Tue Dec 4 21:32:01 PST 2007


On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 02:01:52PM -0500, ygbechhofer at gmail.com wrote:
: While it is true that the second time is linked to the generation of the 
: Tower of Babel, I submit that this is not necessarily exact, as we know 
: of no massive flood at that time...

Which is my point.. that the flooding of the Mediterranean was therefore
not noteworthy in comparison to the Mabul. It wasn't a "massive flood".

BTW, note that Barbary is southern end of the Mediterranean running from
Morocco through around Tripoli, Calabria is the southern tip of Italy,
(north of Tripoli), and Akko and Yaffo at the eastern limit. R' Lezar
and R' Acha are thus describing the flooding of the Atlantic into the
seabed now known as the Mediterranean. The creation of the sea, not its
overflowing.

Where was humanity in Enosh's day? Perhaps in dor Enosh, the plain
between Europe and Africa was inhabited. However, after the Mabul until
the pelagah, even the east half of that plain wasn't yet resettled. That
would explain a second flood in the actual dor hapelagah but didn't
disturb humanity enough to warrant mention (outside of this Y-mi).

It would depend when Yefet's offspring went to Greece.

In fact, it could well be that Hashem created the Mediterranean to
separate Cham's civilizations from those of Yefet, and didn't need to
do so until the pelagah.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
micha at aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter



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