[Avodah] Local, Non-Global or Global Flood

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 01:45:28PM -0500, Zev Sero wrote:
>> Yom literally means era, as in "lifnei ba yom Hashem hagadol vehanora".

> Huh?  How do you know that isn't a literal day?   

Because I am pretty sure that Hashem's explicit reign at the end of history
will last for more than 24 hours. Similarly, does the pasuq in Zechariah
that you append to Aleinu speak of Hashem and His Name/Reputation being
one only for 24 hours? Was Yom Yerushalayim only 24 hours?

>> Or a more significant example to our case, in Bereishis 2:4, the creation
>> era is called a yom -- "beyom asos H' E-lokim eretz veshamayim" --
>> not 7 of them!

> Doesn't that mean the first day?

It means the period in time that included "asos Hashem shamayim va'aretz"
and "vayitzer H' E-lokim es ha'adam", as well as His planting the gan,
through the creation of woman. In fact, the parashah telling us what
happened "on the yom that H' E-lokim made eretz veshamayim" doesn't end
until after Hashem punished the snake, Chava and Adam, but before we are
expelled from gan eden.

That's not to say the expulsion was necessarily on a different yom,
but that there is no indication that it was on the same one. Altogether
a non-intuitive place for a pesuchah, but so it is.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             I have great faith in optimism as a philosophy,
micha at aishdas.org        if only because it offers us the opportunity of
http://www.aishdas.org   self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                              - Arthur C. Clarke