CHOCHMAS NASHIM: NOAH: PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
By: Suri Davis
Tanya Yomi for this week discusses a situation where there is a man who is praying to G-d, a seemingly wicked man appears before him and starts a fight with the praying man. The founder of Chasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, had followers, chasidim, and those who were opposed to chasidism, named mitnagdim or opposers. One could ask why the opposers could not live in peace with the chasidim, and looking at it by giving them the benefit of the doubt, there was a reluctance in new-fangled views of the torah, and the opposers must feel that they are guardian torah from false interpretations.
In any case, in this week’s Tanya yomi, it discusses epistle 25 wherein the Alta Rebbe discusses how the evil man who interrupts the praying man is also a messenger of G-d, that the praying man need only accept this interruption and double down on his praying to make the best of the situation. The opposers pointed to this opinion of the Alta Rebbe to reveal that his opinions should be given no credence, that the wicked person was not sent by G-d.
Look above at the two pictures of my grapevine. If one were to see the autumn version of the grapevine, he would correctly say, that what he sees is a dead vine. That is what is in his view. Not being omniscient, the person, who wasn’t here two weeks ago, would not have known that the grapevine was gorgeous and vibrant and produced 100lbs of the most delicious concord grapes. If he had binah yesayrah, in other words, if he had insight to imagine or discover what had been before he came, he would have perceived that it was once alive and grape producing. If that same man has binah yesayrah coupled with faith, he would know that next April, with G-d’s help, the vine will reawaken and produce again.
What does all this have to do with this week’s Torah portion of Noah? It is about life cycle. What we know is that every single animal and insect that we have in today’s society had ancestors who were on the ark as a couple. We heard about G-d asking Noah to ask of the people of the world to repent of their evil and they did not heed. We saw G-d destroy the world. We saw those on the Ark survive, and we saw Noah’s son Cham sin against his father, and so the cycle of humanity continues.
Going back to the Alta Rebbe and the “evil man’ who was interrupting the praying man who had to double down on his concentration, or was better able to appreciate a quiet davening from thence on, in the evil itself, there are seeds of positivity sown in. For instance, one needs to understand from seeing my decaying grapevine, that as the beautiful leaves shrivel and fall down, they act as compost and protect the roots of the grapevine from frost by insulating the roots with the leaves. The act of deterioration in and of itself is tov/good. The prism is “how is this good.” When Cham sinned against his father and his father cursed Canaan, and said that Canaan would bow to the children of Shem who were Jews, G-d laid down the foundation for the land of Canaan to be taken by the Jews as their homeland, thousands of years later and until today. The sin was wicked, but even in sin there is the seed of good and redemption.
When we see evil and destruction, we need to be like Rabbi Akiva standing in the remains of the holy temple laughing as he had the faith and binah yesayrah to see that G-d would rebuild.
Good Shabbos.
Suri