The Special Merit Noah Attained, Through Which the Vitality of the Entire World Continued ○ Parshat Noach from the Gaon and Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a:

On the day his feet stood on the Mount of Olives—this refers to the "heels," as it says, "Enough!" He hit the face, just like a slap in the face—the heels, the shoes of Adam Kadmon (the Primordial Man), from which the "footsteps of your Mashiach" descended. In the footsteps of your Mashiach, the footsteps of Adam Kadmon, are these Tzaddikim who are in the aspect of "heels," whom they blaspheme day and night—these Tzaddikim who are blasphemed, who are in the aspect of "heels." Regarding this, the Yitav Lev (the grandfather of the Satmar Rebbe) says that this is the secret of Parshat Noach. Noah merited to be "a righteous man, wholehearted in his generations." The Yitav Lev explains that Noah stood for 120 years and said to everyone, "Look, I have a plank here." Gentlemen, how long does it take to build today? Today, they build a 20-story building in a single month. Gentlemen, here is an Ark (Teivah) 150 meters long, and they build it for 120 years—have you ever heard of such a thing? Every nail he took, he said, "For the sake of the unification of the Holy One, Blessed be He, and His Shechinah (Divine Presence), I am now going to drive a nail into the Ark." Gentlemen, in another 120 years, there will be a Mabul (Flood). In another 120 years—how long do we live in total? If only we live a hundred years, or maybe a bit more than a hundred—and he tells them, "In another 120 years." It's like telling someone, "You know, in another hundred thousand or a hundred million years, the sun will go out." He gets scared—oh, a hundred million? No, they say 200 million. Okay, fine. In another 120 years, no one will be left in the world. And he stands there while everyone mocks and laughs at Noah. Everyone laughed at Noah, and for all those 120 years, the Yitav Lev says that while Noah was building the Ark, the people of the generation did not return in teshuvah (repentance); they would blaspheme and humiliate him. Every day he drives a nail—gentlemen, 120 years, 43,000 days—how many nails can one drive? How many planks are there in the Ark in total?

And he also had thousands of students, yet "all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died." The Zohar says there were other Tzaddikim besides Noah; he had a yeshiva (Torah academy), he had students. He was 600 years old and already had a hundred thousand students. But he alone knew that it was impossible to bring more than three or four men and their wives into the Ark. So he went, and everyone passed away before the Mabul (Flood), like Methuselah—everyone passed away before the Mabul, and only four men remained. He had tens of thousands of students; he could have built the Ark in a single day. Everyone could have brought one plank and they would have finished it in a day—it's like making a Sukkah. Instead, for 120 years, he would drive one nail every day and gather people: "Look, I am driving a nail into the Ark; know that in another 120 years there will be a Mabul." And everyone mocked and laughed and burst out laughing, and they would humiliate him. The Yitav Lev says they told him, "Let the Mabul come!" Fine, let a Mabul come upon you, they said. "Maybe a Mabul will come, maybe you are a true prophet—let the Mabul come upon you! Let the Mabul come upon your house!" That is how they would answer him. "Fine, you are truly not a liar, you are indeed a person who never told a lie—so let the Mabul come upon you, upon your sons, upon your grandsons!" They told him, "If a Mabul comes, presumably you aren't a liar, you don't say false things—so fine," says the Yitav Lev, "let the Mabul come upon you, upon that man." "On this very day, Noah entered the Ark." On this very day, so that the wicked of his generation would not kill him. The wicked said, "If you enter the Ark, we will kill you." So Hashem surrounded the Ark with lions and leopards. Noah became the most persecuted and lowliest person in the generation. Everything that Hashem created—all the billions of people who were there then, maybe trillions of people, I don't know how many people were there then—He created them all just to refine Noah. To refine Noah to reach this level where all of humanity would emerge from him. All of humanity emerged in the merit of him being persecuted day and night. In the merit of Noah being persecuted day and night at every step, for every single word—they mocked and laughed at him. In that merit, says the Midrash brought by the Yitav Lev, Noah was recorded as the continuer of all generations. In that merit, he remained alive, only in the merit of these persecutions. For Noah himself did not yet have enough merits; he was not like Abraham, nor like Isaac, nor like Jacob. His merits were only the merits of—the Midrash Rabbah says—the terrible persecutions that billions of people mocked him for day and night. They laughed: "This man says in another 120 years." They asked him, "When will the Mabul be?" He said, "Around the 10th or 11th [of Cheshvan], then the Mabul will be." "We'll see, we'll see if the Mabul happens then." He told them the 10th of Cheshvan, the 11th of Cheshvan. Gentlemen, tonight is the 17th of Cheshvan—tonight, know that the Mabul will begin. On the 17th of Cheshvan, the Mabul began tonight. In any case, why was it delayed? Rashi says, "And it was after the seven days"—that the Mabul was delayed by seven days. So you say on the 10th or 11th, but it started on the 17th? From the 11th to the 17th is 7 days. Perhaps Methuselah had already passed away on the 10th, and at the end of the seven [days of mourning], the Mabul began. In any case, he told them the Mabul would start on the 10th or 11th; he gave them an exact date, an exact day. And everyone saw the 10th arrive, the 11th arrive, and there was no Mabul. On the contrary, "He gave them a taste of the World to Come." Hashem gave them such pleasure, such happiness, such good days, such spring-like days, such blossoming days, that He gave them a taste of the World to Come. Everyone burst out laughing. "Noah, you said a Mabul? This is a taste of the World to Come! We haven't had such good days since the beginning of time. For 650 years we haven't had such good days like these wonderful days." And all this Hashem wanted to show them—what they were losing, what a thing they were losing. So the persecutions against Noah grew stronger from day to day, from moment to moment, from hour to hour. In the final month, it was the most terrible. They said, "What Mabul? This is Paradise on earth!" Hashem brought Paradise down to this world. "You said Mabul? Paradise! Paradise! Everything has become the opposite of what you say!"

The Yitav Lev brings the Midrash: "'And God seeks the pursued'—if a Tzaddik pursues a Tzaddik, God seeks the pursued. If a wicked person pursues a Tzaddik, He seeks the pursued. If a wicked person pursues a wicked person, He seeks the pursued. Even if a Tzaddik pursues a wicked person, He seeks the pursued. In any case, 'And God seeks the pursued.'" Rabbi Yehuda said, Rabbi Simon said in the name of Rabbi Yehuda son of Rabbi Nehorai: "The Holy One, Blessed be He, always demands the blood of the pursued from the pursuers." Know that a person's entire work in being in the world is only to be "pursued"! And only in this way is he refined to continue the light of the Torah, to continue the light of Judaism, to continue the generations like Noah. And all the persecutions they did to Noah were in order to refine him so that he would be worthy that Abraham Avinu (our forefather) would later emerge from him, and Shem would emerge, and Ever would emerge. All of this was through the terrible persecutions they inflicted on him for 120 years, day and night, hour by hour, second by second. So Rabbi Yehuda son of Rabbi Nehorai said: "The Holy One, Blessed be He, always seeks the pursued from the pursuers. For Abel was pursued by Cain, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, chose Abel. Noah was pursued by the people of his generation—why did Hashem choose Noah? Not because of his good deeds; He only chose him because he was pursued. And the Holy One, Blessed be He, chose Noah, as it is said: 'For you I have seen as a Tzaddik before Me in this generation.'" So He saw that since Noah was pursued by the people of his generation, this refined him so that Shem would emerge from him, and Ever would emerge from him, and after ten generations, Abraham Avinu, peace be upon him, would emerge, who was also pursued and humiliated to the extreme.

The lesson has been edited, and if a mistake has occurred, it should not be attributed, Heaven forbid, to the Rav shlit"a, but to the writer, as "the error remains with us."

Illustration courtesy of the artist R' Yehoshua Wiseman. To purchase: www.yehoshuawiseman.com

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