Sitting in his study in Venice, Italy in the late 15th Century, Don Isaac Abravanel spent many hours reflecting upon Jewish history, Jewish destiny and the meaning of human existence. A scholar of Rabbinic Literature well versed in philosophy, Abravanel sought to infuse the Torah with a deeper perspective, offering the student of Torah much more than stories and commandments. The result of these reflections is Abravanel's brilliant commentary to the Torah, where through a series of questions and insights on each Torah portion, he frames the Torah's verses as profound meditations on life.
Parashat Noah is not a happy story. It describes a devastating deluge where "All existence on earth was blotted out - man, cattle, creeping things and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth" (Genesis 7:20). All breathing beings on earth were destroyed by the flood, and "Only Noah was left, along with those with him in the ark" (Genesis 7:21).
What led God to unleash this devastating flood that - minus one family and some animals - wiped out all that lived and breathed on earth?
The Torah tells it best:
"The Lord saw how great was man's wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time...the earth became corrupt before God, the earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6:5,11).
The flood achieves its devastating goal, and Noah survives. Now what? As Noah and his family step forth from the ark, what was on their mind? What challenges would they be facing as the only survivors of a corrupt society that was washed away in a flood?
Abravanel explores the anxieties and doubts that Noah and his family confronted as they made the frightening transition back into the world. This was the same physical world they left when they boarded the ark, but all life as they knew it would now be gone. A bleak, empty earth, void of human life. Eerie and surreal.
"There is no doubt in my mind," says Abravanel, "that as Noah and his family stepped foot outside of the ark, they did so with a sense of astonishment and mourning on the past, along with fear and uncertainty for the future."
If the past society was so corrupt, what were they astonished by? Why were they mourning? For who?
"They mourned the death of their relatives and loved ones," says Abravanel.
In an emotionally sensitive insight, Abravanel posits that despite the Torah's description of a totally corrupt society, there were nonetheless select individuals who may have been good people that Noah and his family considered "loved ones." No society can entirely be labeled as evil. Individual exceptions always exist, and apparently they did, according to Abravanel. The loss of these friends, family, neighbors or acquaintances in the flood must have been very painful for Noah. He and his family now faced - with a sense of astonishment - the harsh reality of moving ahead in an empty world.
But since corruption was entirely wiped out, why would Noah and his family feel afraid and uncertain about the future?
"Noah and his family felt uncertain about the future of humanity," says Abravanel, "as they feared the renewal of violence amongst humanity. They feared that disputes would once again arise amongst brothers, and that brothers would spill each other's blood, exactly as happened with Cain and Abel."
A morally corrupt and violent society was entirely wiped out. However, Noah and his family were remnants of that society, and while they were seemingly "more righteous in their generation" than the others, they were still human beings. The "Cain and Abel gene" was within them. What direction would this "new society" take? Abravanel raises this deeply philosophical question as one of the fears and uncertainties faced by Noah and his family.
It's not by chance that Abravanel commented this way on the Noah story. Abravanel relocated to Italy after experiencing one of the most brutal chapters in Jewish history - the last years of the violent Spanish Inquisition, and the devastating expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Despite being a distinguished diplomat and financial advisor to the Spanish monarchy, he was first and foremost a Jew, and he left Spain along with the rest of the expelled Jewish community.
In the aftermath of this flood of violence unleashed on his people in Spain, Abravanel sat in his study in Venice, and as he read the Noah story, he found within Noah the same anxieties that he himself felt.
Abravanel certainly had loved ones in Spain for which he mourned, who were either murdered or forced to convert by the Spanish inquisitors. That, along with the painful memories of the persecution of his entire community, must have been traumatic for him, as a "survivor" of the inquisition.
But now that he found relative safety away from Spain, he faced the same fears that Noah did: would other countries, rulers and leaders once again arise against the Jews, torturing them and murdering them with the same Cain-like cruelty of the Spanish inquisitors? With this violent episode behind him, could the same thing happen again? Indeed, would the future of humanity as a whole continue to be drenched in a flood of blood?
From Noah to the Spanish Inquisition, all the way to present times, Abravanel's reflections on the persistently violent nature of the human condition continue to haunt, plague and challenge our world.
Shabbat Shalom