לא ידון רוחי באדם לעולם, “My spirit will not rule within man forever;” this is a metaphor describing G–d as withholding man’s souls from participating in an afterlife after they had returned for Divine judgment. An alternate explanation: “I will no longer equip man with a heavenly soul.” (B’reyshit Rabbah 26,6.)

בשגם הוא בשר, this word is an acrostic, the numerical value of its letters totalling 345, as does the numerical value of the letters in the word משה, (Moses) Moses lived for 120 years, meaning that he demonstrated that during 120 years on earth the human being can attain earthly perfection. This presupposes that such a human being had lived by the laws of the Torah. If man had not become corrupted, he could have attained such perfection by his own efforts without having to observe all the laws of the Torah, but it would have taken longer. This is why originally he was allowed to live to almost become one thousand years old. Once man only has a לב בשר, “a heart of flesh,” this process had to be drastically changed. [I have borrowed from the commentary of Rabbi Elie Munk in his “The call of the Torah.” Ed.]

ויתעצב אל לבו, “His heart was saddened.” According to Rabbi Acha bar Chanina in Breyshit Rabbah 27 when G–d watched as His earth appeared to head for destruction, He felt as if a mourner who has lost a dear relative. An alternate interpretation of this expression: the subject in this verse is man, who mourns only from the heart like a person who had placed leavening in his dough, and who says to himself when the dough did not rise: “it was I who made the recipe, therefore it is I who must accept the blame if the product is unsatisfactory, seeing that I was aware that it contained a potentially dangerous ingredient.” [The “leavening” is a metaphor for the evil urge within man, that G–d gave man when He made him. It was a calculated risk that G–d had been aware of from the outset. Ed.]

אמחה את האדם “I’ll dissolve the human species;” according to Rashi we must understand this as the human species consisting of earth and therefore subject to annihilation by water. G–d said that He would use water to bring about the dissolution of the human race. The expression used by the Torah according to Rashi to illustrate this is therefore מחוי, “dissolution,” instead of other words for destruction such as השמדה or כליה.

אלה תולדת נח נח, “these are the generations of Noach, Noach;” why has the name of Noach been repeated here twice? He was exemplary vis a vis spiritual beings in the heavenly spheres as well as vis a vis his contemporaries on earth. (B’reshit Rabbah, 30,4) The meaning is to tell us that whenever we encounter such a construction of a person’s name appearing twice in a row, it is to remind us that the person concerned was a righteous person. An example for this is found in Genesis 2,11, where the name Avraham appears twice in a row. This interpretation has been challenged in the Jerusalem Talmud where it is pointed out that we find the same repetition of a man’s name applied to Avraham’s father Terach, a renowned idolater and seller of heathen images (Genesis 11,27) The answer provided by B’reshit Rabbah is that Terach, though an idolater had become a penitent. It is this very fact that convinced our sages that he had become a penitent before his death. This also explains why Avraham was told by G–d in Genesis 15,15, that he would join his fathers in the hereafter.

איש, “a man;” The author of Midrash Tanchuma (2) on this parshah, commences this paragraph with a quotation from Proverbs 11,30: פרי צדיק עץ חיים, ולוקח נפשות חכם, usually translated as “the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, a wise man captivates people.” According to Tanchuma, the meaning of Solomon there was to tell us that if someone dies without leaving behind children to posterity this is a disgrace and he bewails his fate. G–d in this case, when the departed person had been a righteous person, consoles him by telling him that the Torah he had studied while on earth will be considered by Him as his fruit. This is why the verse speaks of עץ חיים, “a tree of life,” instead of referring to the righteous person’s sons that he left behind. The Torah has been referred to as עץ חיים in Proverbs 3,18. Our sages relate that Noach did not die until he saw the earth having become settled by man and until all the seventy nations resulting from his loins be it directly or indirectly had become earth’s civilisation (after the destruction of the Tower) Of all the righteous people mentioned in the Bible the only one who was ever referred to as a צדיק תמים, “a perfectly righteous human being” Noach is the only one complimented in such a fashion. According to a statement in B’reshit Rabbah 30,8 anyone of whom the Torah ever used the adjective תמים, perfect, concluded his life after a multiple of seven years. [Just as a sh’mittah cycle is unit of seven years. Ed.] Rabbi Yitzchok son of Avraham, points out that this cannot be true as both Avraham and Noach to whom these attributes were applied died at 175 years and 950 years, both not multiples of seven. The Rabbi’s words therefore must be understood as multiples commencing with when the attribute תמים was applied to the persons concerned; in the case of Noach he had acquired that title when he was commanded to build the ark, 120 years before the deluge commenced. Since he survived after that for the 350 years we get a total of 470 years, from which we need to deduct the year he spent in the ark, -not really a year of life- and we have a multiple of seven year cycles, i.e. 67 times 7 equals 469. Avraham had been 99 years of age when he had another 77 years to live.

היה, “he was;” whenever this expression is used in connection with a person, it implies that he saw a new world, i.e. he became privy to entirely new perspectives in his life. Noach certainly experienced a new world, and Joseph of whom the same word is used became the person responsible for saving the whole nation of Egypt from perishing by hunger. Moses had a similar experience, (Exodus 3,1 at the burning bush) so did Job (Job 1,1) when becoming subjected to sudden and terrible trials to test his faith in the Lord.

ואל אמה תכלנה מלמעלה, “and finish it to within a cubit from the top;” this was meant to prevent the rains from getting into the ark and causing its planks to rot. If you were to argue that the rains then could cause the width of the ark to start rotting, we refer you to the commentary of Rabbi Joseph Kara, who understands the subject in the verse to be the window. This window should be affixed in the upper cubit near the roof, the cover of the ark.

ומכל החי....תביא, “and bring from all living species, etc.” According to Rashi the wording includes species of demons. In B’reshit Rabbah 31,13 Rabbi Aushiyah claims that the oblique wording of the Torah was exploited by disembodied spirits to demand entrance to the ARK. Noach refused them entry until they could appear with their partners. He used the fact that the Torah added the words מכל בשר, “from all that is flesh,” to deny entrance. Another version is that “Lie” begged for entry into the ark. When Noach heard this he demanded that “Lie” come with its partner. “Lie” chose the spiritual representative of all thieves as his partner. When this arch thief asked “Lie” what it would give him for appearing before Noach as its mate, “Lie” answered that it would give him everything it acquired through falsehood. They therefore entered the ark side by side. This is the origin of the well known proverb: “whatever is sown by falsehood is reaped by thievery.” A different version quotes Noach as tying that pair to the outside of the ark without permitting it to enter it. [Rashi, i.e. the author of the Midrash, was probably forced to give such an interpretation as we might have thought that if all living creatures died except for Noach and his family, how come there was still falsehood and thievery on earth even after the deluge. Ed.]