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<font face="Courier New, Courier, monospace"><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";">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. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">>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.<</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">The
higher-than-Ararat </span><span style="font-family:
"Courier New";">Olympic mountains</span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";"> that the
Ramban asked his kushya from, are not very far away. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">>In a place
where
there were no people, what purpose could a flood serve?<</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">So they
misbehaved;
is that the end of the world?</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Answer: Yes,
it's
the End of The World.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Indeed, the
meforshim view the Mabul as a virtual return to tohu vavohu:</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">*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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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):</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">"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 (</span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";">7:19</span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";">). 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."</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">*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."</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">*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)`.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">*Malbim (Amos
9:6)--
"After the world first being entirely water in water</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">(mayim
b'mayim),
[and] by Hashem's Will the dry land was revealed... the</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">world will
return to
being water in water, as He did in the Dor HaMabul,</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">when the rain
fell
from the heavens and the water covered the dry</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">land...to
return the
Beriah to tohu va-vohu."</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Rabbeynu
Bachayay
(Br. 7:27, </span><span style="font-family: "Courier
New";">8:11</span><span style="font-family: "Courier
New";">): "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." </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Doesn’t sound
much
like a local flood. </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">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.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"></span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";"></span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New";"></span><span
style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">When
you
have one posuk that says that all the world was flooded,</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">and
another
(Yechezkiel </span><span style="font-family: "Courier
New"; color: black;">22:24</span><span style="font-family:
"Courier New"; color: black;">) that says EY was not
subjected
to the</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">the
rains
of the great flood, a Sage concludes that Eretz Yisroel was</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">spared
the
downpour. Not because EY is insignificant in Chazal's thought,</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">or
that
it was unimportant for the posuk to explicate EY's exclusive</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">character
during
the Mabul; but because (through a posuk in Tanach)</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New"; color: black;">Chazal
and
rishonim took it to be reasonable that the holy EY would be</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">a single
exception
to the rule.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"> </span><br>
</font>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";"><font
face="Courier New, Courier, monospace">Zvi Lampel</font><span
style="color: black;"></span></span>
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