2022/5783
The second Parashah in the Torah, Parashat Noach, describes the sins of the inhabitants of the Earth and the flood that wiped them out. Ten generations after Adam’s original sin, the people of earth were still sinning. Rashi specifies the three chief examples of the people’s descent to sin: immorality, idolatry, and thievery. Hashem punishes the people of the world by bringing a מבול, flood, that destroys the world and gets rid of all humans except Noach and his family. It is noteworthy that the Torah uses the word “מבול” for the flood instead of other viable options such as שיטפון or הצפה. This particular word was chosen because of an interesting lesson this word portrays. The word מבול has a Gematriah value of 78, which is the same as that of the word חנך, the Hebrew verb “to educate.” This captures the fundamental purpose of the מבול. The primary purpose of the flood was not just killing for the sake of killing, but it was to educate and teach those who survived (Noach and family) what happens when people stray from their morals and God.
In Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, he famously states that with regard to all traits, one must try to find a middle path (Hilchot Dei’ot 1:2). However, one should leave the middle path in the cases of anger and arrogance to ensure that he or she is never angry or arrogant. Rambam brings two exceptions to when one can act out of anger: when disciplining one’s children or one’s community. Even then, one must only feel love in his heart as he knows that he is only expressing anger for the benefit of his children or community. Hashem used the Lashon of “מבול” to ensure that people understand that even when they need to punish people and show anger on the inside, they must feel only love for the people who they are educating. In the coming weeks, let us all remember the tremendous love we must have for our fellow Jews, and even when someone needs to be disciplined, we should only do it out of love and for education.