[Avodah] Some Thoughts of RSRH on Noach

[Prof. Levine]

The following are a couple of excerpts from RSRH's commentary on Parshas Noach.

71 And God said to Noach: Enter the ark, you and 
all your household, for I have seen you righteous before Me in this generation.

L'fanei, before Me. A person can appear righteous in the sight of other
people, and yet not righteous in the sight of God. And the reverse is
also true. What is more, the concepts that people attach to words are
not always accurate and true — certainly not in a period of general
degeneracy. The words “virtue,” “justice,” and the like, remain — in
every age — in current use, but people distort the meaning of these
words and ascribe to them their own aims and opinions. There are
times when the Name of God, too, is on everyone’s lips, but is emptied
of all content through the fault of the generation. Scripture therefore
stresses: Tzidek  l'fanei— i.e., according to My standards.

2 Of every pure animal you shall take seven 
pairs, the male and its mate, and of animals that 
are not pure you shall take two each, the
male and its mate.

The prototype of mankind is not the savage. The first human being
and his children, and also the noble ones among the Noachides, were
still close to God. Adam, Hevel, Seth, Noach, Avraham, Yitzchak, Ya’akov
— none of them brought offerings to a false god. The mouths of the
accusers who impute primitive attitudes not only to us, but to all the
great men of old, should be shut. David and Yeshayahu and all the great
ones of Israel who brought offerings, or prayed for the restoration of
the offerings; who saw in the offerings God’s nearness to Israel and
God’s glorification in Israel — none of them stood before a cruel and
bloodthirsty god who delights in the convulsions of a dying animal;
who, in his folly, accepts the death of a bull as atonement instead of a
man’s own death; who transfers onto an expiring animal all the fear,
pain, and agony of death that should rightfully be suffered by a man.

Rather, throughout the generations, an offering was zevach todah, an
expression of complete devotion. Through the blood that was spilled, we
were required and we vowed to devote our own blood to God’s holy
Will. The head and limbs, breast and body, fat and kidneys placed on
God’s altar dedicated our limbs and eyes, our hearts and bodies, all our
bodily desires — even the lowest of them — as 'lechem Isheh l'Shem, “to sustain
the holy” on earth. One who brought an offering — even a Noachide
who brought an offering — was taught, and vowed, to offer himself to
God.

Hence, only those animals that are nearest to man’s nature and are
fit to be his representatives are suitable for offerings. Accordingly, only
those animals that were later permitted to Israel as food are fit to be
used as offerings — and the same reason applies in both cases.
Hence, only those animals that are nearest to man’s nature and are
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