[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Joshua Waxman (Avodah 27:197) quoted Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz:

> And if you say that there were no men there, then even the 
> Deluge didn't descend there, for it would be to no purpose.

I was going to post a very simple and strong challenge to this, but later in that issue R' Zev Sero defended RYE's view. I thought of a response to RZS, and then I imagined RZS and I parrying back and forth, each of us defending our own view, while calling the other one dachuk.

I came to the conclusion that *both* views are both reasonable and dachuk to greater or lesser degrees, depending on one's point of view. And this reminded me of another famous problem: The question of whether to understand "aretz" in Parshas Noach as "planet" or "vicinity" seems very similar to the question of whether to understand "yom" in Bereshis as "24-hours" or "eon".

In both cases, the words seem very straightforward. ("Look! It says 'one day'!" and "Look! It says 'the whole earth'!") But it is only upon deeper investigation do we come to realize that we are not forced to take the words literally, and that it can be legitimate to take them rhetorically.

It comes down to girsa d'yankusa. I grew up with the understanding that "yom" can be understood as an eon, and this leads me to be comfortable with many ways of resolving evolution and creation. But until recently, I never heard of Noach's "aretz" referring to anything less than the entire planet, and so Rav Yonasan Eibeshitz's views seem very bizarre and dachuk to me. But R' Zev got his understanding of Noach from his Zeide, and he is very fortunate for it.

Akiva Miller

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