The daily strengthening from The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — Hashem hid them specifically inside a sealed, small, suffocating ark

“And if not, erase me, please, from Your book” (Shemos 32:32)

Monday, 23 Teves 5783 — What would have happened in the Generation of the Flood if there had been a Tzaddik like Moshe? These are his holy words:

For Noach emerged after twelve months inside the ark—inside a prison cell. Hashem could have arranged that there would be some mountain instead of an ark, and everyone would be on the mountain, out in the open air. But Hashem constricted everyone inside the ark—because they all needed to atone for the entire generation, for the sins committed by the Generation of the Flood.

They were suffocating there from the stench of the animals; they could not live with the smell of the animals. Yet the moment they would have gone out into the open air of the world, they all would have died. Everything was corpses—everything was mountains of corpses. It was in the river and it reached all the way to Bavel.

Noach said to Hashem: You destroyed the world! Hashem asked Noach: Why didn’t you say this before the Flood?

If you would have said, “I’m not going into the ark,” you would have annulled the decree!!

If there had been a Tzaddik there—if it had been Moshe Rabbeinu—he would have annulled the decree! Just as Moshe said, “And if not, erase me, please, from Your book” (Shemos 32:32)—erase me, and not the world.

“Erase me, please” (mecheini na) hints to “the waters of Noach” (mei Noach)—because Moshe came to rectify the failing of Noach. That is why he said, “mecheini na.”

The Flood is called “the waters of Noach” (mei Noach) because Noach could have annulled the decree—if he had danced and sung. For after a person learns for twelve hours, he needs to dance and sing. For one hour you go out to a field, to some forest, to some moshav, and you sing and dance for a full hour—and then everything becomes sweetened, and we annul all the decrees that exist in the world.

Until Melech HaMoshiach comes speedily in our days.

Amen