PREDILUVIAN THOUGHTS
What caused the universal flood? A meteorite? A climate change event? The Tora is not an ordinary book: it is a Divine book. And as such, it demands an unconventional reading. This type of reading implies, among other things, reading the silences of the text, reading between its lines, and, particularly, knowing that nothing is there unnecessarily.
In the fifth chapter of Bereshit (Genesis) in last week’s Parasha, we read the first human genealogy: a seemingly unnecessary list of the years that each of the descendants of Adam, the first man, lived. The Tora mentions nine generations: Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Yared, Hanokh, Metushelach, and Lemekh, Noach’s father. All lived a long life. The longevity record (so far …) is Metushelach’s, who lived 969 years.
The question remains: What does this lifespan registry teach us beyond satisfying our curiosity? Why do we need so much detail about the age of the first humans?
THE DEATH OF THE FIRST MORTAL
If we look carefully, we will discover something astonishing.
An extraordinary event took place in the year 930, counting from Creation. Adam, the first man, died. Humans, the thousands or hundreds of thousands of descendants of Adam, already knew that a human being could be “killed”, or die accidentally, like Abel. But now, seemingly for the first time, humans see death as inevitable. Men have discovered “natural” death.
HaShem had already told Adam that he would not live forever. But that warning took more than nine centuries to materialize—enough time for humans to forget about mortality. Given their advanced age, Adam, Set, Enosh, etc., were seen as immortal. The natural death of Adam was an unprecedented event and provoked a state of shock and especially panic. The only thing that could alleviate this fear, the terrifying fear of death, was to assume that mortality would only affect Adam for having disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit.
HANOKH IS NO LONGER WITH US..
But in the year 987 (you have to calculate the years by yourself because this calculation is not explicit in the Tora!) the second natural death is recorded: Hanokh dies at the tender age of 365 years. This second death, which was not caused by accident, could no longer be attributed to disobedience. The Tora explicitly states that Hanokh was a righteous man who walked on the Divine Path (Gen. 5:24)… Hanokh’s death was an even more shattering event. The Tora describes the death of Hanokh with words that seem to reflect the widespread surprise, terror, and innocence of the men of that generation, coping with an event they did not quite understand. “Passing away” of natural death was so novel that men could not define it with conventional words. The text does not say that Hanokh “died”. Reproducing with exquisite sensitivity the feeling of awe of primitive men, the Tora copies their words that sound like the words we use to describe death to a child: “Hanokh is no longer with us because God took him.”
VIOLENCE AS A RESPONSE TO DEATH
The third natural death was that of Set, the son of Adam. This traumatic event took place a few years later: in 1042. Now death is a fact. And it is here to stay.
Humanity’s reaction to the inevitability of death is seemingly described at the end of the last Parasha, and it is not very positive. This new awareness of mortality caused a panic that revealed the worst of the human race, like one of those Hollywood situations when people react with violence and desperation when learning about the imminent falling of a meteorite that will destroy the earth. When the men of that generation saw that they would die, no matter what, they focused on satisfying their material instincts as much as they could before dying. As Yesha’ayahu (22:13) said, quoting the philosophy of men with no Tora: אכול ושתה, כי מחר נמות, “Let us eat and drink [as much as we can], since tomorrow [anyways] we are going to die”.
In addition, once humankind sees life as inevitably limited, it loses its sacred status for them. Their reasoning was: why should I not kill my neighbor if he is going to die anyways? Respect for other people’s life was now lost. Theft, rape, and murder (in biblical Hebrew, “hamas”) got normalized. A phrase in the text of the Tora reveals something about that new human condition: “And the powerful men saw the women [of other families, tribes. etc.] and took [by force] all they wanted.” Our rabbis added that the generation before the flood was guilty of sexual violence, corruption, oppression of the weak, widespread crime, and especially lack of law, order, and justice.
RESETTING HUMANKIND
The Creator then decides to do two things in this situation: 1. Shortening human life. Something that, as we will see, will happen gradually. Ten generations after Noah’s lifespan reaches merely 150- 200 years, and in subsequent generations, it continues to decline. A shorter lifespan might help humankind better understand mortality and the need to live a purposeful life. 2. God also brings the flood to do a “reset” of human civilization.
Now we understand that for the Tora, what caused the flood was not a meteorite or climate change: it was that state of anarchy, chaos, and corruption of men reacting violently to the discovery of their inevitable mortality.
Noah, the protagonist of our Parasha, was born in 1056. He is the first man recorded to be born in a world of men aware of their mortality. At the end of the flood, Noach received the first code of laws condemning homicide, robbery, promiscuity, etc., and commanding the establishment of courts of justice to avoid anarchy and impunity. All this will bring a new climate of law and order.
But we will have to wait for another ten generations for another man, Abraham Abinu —and his descendants— to make a second discovery.
1. Although limited and relatively short, life is the opportunity God gives us to get close to Him by our own choice and effort.
2. We were not in this world to exploit our neighbor but to assist him, helping each other. “”The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”.
3. And finally, that mortality affects man’s body. But our Divine spirit, the neshama, survives if we dedicate ourselves to nurturing it.
