[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Zvi Lampel]

The discussion about the extent of the Mabul was already had in Volume 
16, #117-162. In my humble opinion, #146 and on are most enlightening. 
The following comments are culled from mine in those posts.

>If humans were confined to Western Asia then there was no reason for 
anywhere else to be flooded, and the Ararat mountains (the Kurdish 
mountains, as Onkelos calls them)may well be the highest in that region.<

The higher-than-Ararat Olympic mountainsthat the Ramban asked his kushya 
from, are not very far away.

>In a place where there were no people, what purpose could a flood serve?<

Without the global event of the Mabul, one might think that the misdeeds 
of humans (regardless of their numbers or geographic spread) are not 
something the Creator of the entire Universe would be very obsessed over.

So they misbehaved; is that the end of the world?

Answer: Yes, it's the End of The World.

Without a mankind that obeys Hashem's Will, there is no reason for the 
continued existence of even the animals, even the birds, even the earth 
(a third of whose depth the floodwaters eroded).... (I'm referencing 
Chazal, not my personal philosophy.) The more encompassing the 
destruction of G-d's world, the greater the lesson. [This 
demonstrates]...Judaism's insistence on the profound importance of Man 
and his deeds. This importance is a central hashkafa taught by Chazal 
and rishonim, and they see it illustrated in the Mabul event.

Indeed, the meforshim view the Mabul as a virtual return to tohu vavohu:

*Zohar 68a (in Hebrew translation p. 56/28b)--...Said HKBH: You 
[evildoers] seek to undermine (l'hach'chish) the work of My hands? I 
will fulfill your will! ... I will return the world to water as it was 
at the Beginning--water in water! From hereon I will make other berios 
in the olom who are fit to stay.

Ramban on Br. 8: 11 clearly understood the Mabul to be global (where he 
is puzzled by the Chazal that apparently asserts that EY was not subject 
to the Mabul):

"MiPshuto shel posuk zeh it is apparent that ... nis-mallay kol ha-olom 
mayyim.... The water spread itself out b'chol ha-olom and covered all 
the high mountains that were under all the heavens, k'mo shekasuv 
mefurash (7:19). And there is no barrier around EY to prevent the waters 
from entering. And so they said in Pirkei D'Rebbi Eliezer (23): the 
waters of the Mabul did not descend upon EY from the heavens, but the 
waters from the lands flowed and entered into it, as it says, "Ben 
Adam..." And so in the opinion of Rebbi Levy, since the flood rain did 
not descend in that land, and the windows of the heaven did not open, 
the trees there remained, but b'chol ha-olom they were smashed and 
uprooted by the Mabul and the showering of its strength."

If by his repeated phrase "kol Ha-olom" the Ramban meant only part of 
the earth, don't you think he would have notified of this? I do. (And 
I'm still waiting to hear from an expert what the result of a 40 
day-and-night rainstorm would be.) But at any rate, it is clear from the 
sources I brought above that the Mabul was considered a virtual return 
of the earth to its state of mayim b'mayim or tohu va-vohu.

*Kli Yakkar (Breishis 1:2)--"And the Earth was tohu va'vohu." "...Hashem 
foresaw that through the deeds of the wicked the world would return to 
tohu va'vohu, as in the Dor HaMabul."

*Rabbeynu Bechayay (Br. 1:9)-- "May the waters gather together"--Br. 
Rabbah 85,beginning: '...for what I am going to do with them in the 
future,' and inundate the whole world in its entirety with the Mabul 
(v'lishtof kol ha-olom kulo baMabul)`.

*Malbim (Amos 9:6)-- "After the world first being entirely water in water
(mayim b'mayim), [and] by Hashem's Will the dry land was revealed... the
world will return to being water in water, as He did in the Dor HaMabul,
when the rain fell from the heavens and the water covered the dry
land...to return the Beriah to tohu va-vohu."

Rabbeynu Bachayay (Br. 7:27, 8:11): "And this statement of our rabbis 
that the Mabul did not happen upon EY, means that the rain did not fall 
upon it from the heavens. And behold this is out of the kavod of the 
land and its ma'alah, that the windows of the heavens did not open over 
it, and the wells of the great deep did not break open beneath it, for 
the center line of the [Earth] below parallels the center line of the 
[Heaven] above."... "But certainly the waters of the Mabul of the rest 
of the lands entered into it, for behold the kasuv testifies here, 'And 
they covered all the high mountains that were under all the heavens."

Chazal depict the Mabul as the result of major astronomical aberrations. 
Hashem declares that from now on, he will not halt the normal course of 
seasons. Noach is told to take on the pairs of animals to prevent their 
extinction.

Doesn't sound much like a local flood.

One would think that if despite the vastness of the phrases "kol heharim 
ha-g'vohim asher tachas kol hashamayim" the Torah had always been 
understood to convey only the part of the earth where Noach was, we 
would find at least /one/ Tanna, Amora, Gaon, or Rishon that would let 
us in on this fact.

When you have one posuk that says that all the world was flooded,
and another (Yechezkiel 22:24) that says EY was not subjected to the
the rains of the great flood, a Sage concludes that Eretz Yisroel was
spared the downpour. Not because EY is insignificant in Chazal's thought,
or that it was unimportant for the posuk to explicate EY's exclusive
character during the Mabul; but because (through a posuk in Tanach)
Chazal and rishonim took it to be reasonable that the holy EY would be
a single exception to the rule.

Zvi Lampel

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