As I was walking out of the hospital after visiting a friend (and this week’s piece, and the learning it brings about, is dedicated to the full and speedy recovery of Pinchas Michoel ben Eidel, who — I have just been texted, as I am writing this very line — is being discharged from the hospital!), he asked me why a “b’ris,” a covenant, was needed to ensure that the fruit Noach brought onto the ark didn’t spoil. Indeed, Rashi (B’reishis 6:18) tells us that a covenant was necessary so that the fruit wouldn’t spoil and so that the wicked of the generation wouldn’t kill Noach. There were many miraculous things that occured in order to save Noach; why did these two need a covenant?

The commentators discuss why Rashi (and by extension, the Midrash — B’reishis Rabbah 31:12) lists two things that needed a covenant if one should be enough to explain why the verse uses the word “covenant.” They also discuss why Rashi didn’t explain the “covenant” as saving Noach and his family from the flood (which is how Ibn Ezra, Radak, Ramban and Chizkuni explain it). The latter explanation works better from another perspective as well, as a covenant is an agreement between two parties. If it refers to saving Noach and his family, the agreement is that Noach will build an ark, gather the animals and take care of them, and G-d will save them when He destroys the rest of the world. But if it refers to G-d ensuring that the food won’t spoil and the wicked won’t kill Noach, how is it referred to as a “covenant”? What was Noach required to do as part of this agreement?

Midrash HaGadol quotes Rabbi Elazar, who says that “covenant” mentioned in the verse refers to “the covenant of heaven and earth that they will not cease, as it says (Yirmiyah 33:25), ‘if not for My covenant day and night, the laws of heaven and earth I would not have put in place.” Although at first glance it seems that Rabbi Elazar is introducing a third possibility for what “covenant” refers to (food not spoiling/wicked not killing Noach, saving Noach, or maintaining the world), it could be suggested that Rashi (and the Midrash) did not mean that there was a new, separate, covenant enacted regarding the food and protection, but were explaining why a previously enacted covenant (that the world would exist) had to be referenced; the only way to keep the covenant to maintain the world is if the food on the ark doesn’t spoil and the wicked don’t kill the only righteous person through whom the world could be saved.

The wording used by Rashi (“a covenant is necessary”) and by the Midrash (“you need a covenant”) fits very well, as in order to get into the ark (6:18) without being killed first, G-d must suspend natural law (lions that didn’t make it onto the ark protecting Noach from his potential murderers, see Rashi on 7:13 and B’reishis 32:8). Similarly, in order for the food not to spoil even a year after being harvested (so that there would be enough to feed all of the ark’s inhabitants, see 6:21), the laws of nature that insist on spoilage must be put on hold. G-d had decreed (when He created the world) that His natural law would not be suspended, that He would always work within it, even for “miracles” (see http://rabbidmk.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/parashas-bereishis-5773/), but had also made a covenant with His creation that it would not be negated — so something had to give. The covenant took precedence, thereby requiring that natural law be suspended; Noach “needed” the covenant to trump natural law in order to enter the ark and have enough food for his family and the animals.

There is still one small item that needs to be explained (besides going “outside the box” so as not to disappoint Pinny); Rabbi Elazar, whom Midrash HaGadol quotes, usually explains that very same verse to mean that without Torah (“His covenant”), the world would stop working (see P’sachim 68b). How can he say that the verse means that the world cannot end if he usually explains it to mean that the world would end if the Torah is not being studied/kept?

One of the recurring themes in Rabbi Moshe Shamah’s “Recalling the Covenant” (a wonderful book if you can get past his quoting sources that are on the “do not read” list, his considering Chazal’s approaches to explain things as “possibilities,” and some occasional heresy) is Rabbi Solomon D. Sassoon’s work on number symbolism in the Torah. For example, the number seven represents “completeness,” particularly regarding concepts that applied before the Torah was given. Once the Torah was given, though, it was “superseded” by the number eight, which “became the signifier of the covenant.” The word “covenant” appears in the flood narrative eight times, once before the flood (the verse under discussion) and seven times after the flood (regarding the “rainbow”). Even working within his parameters, several things seems strange. First of all, since the entire narrative occurred well before the Torah was given, why would there be a hint to a “post-covenant” status? Secondly, when the number seven, representing pre-Torah concepts, is transformed into post-Torah concepts represented by the number eight, it’s usually accomplished by starting with seven and adding one more to complete the transformation. Here, however, we start with one (before the flood) and then add seven afterwards; it’s not a seven being transformed into eight but a one becoming eight. Additionally, the whole idea of the number of times a word appearing signifying the covenant is rather awkward when the very word being used is the word “covenant.” Why would we need the number of times the word is used to hint to us about a covenant if the word itself means covenant?

The “covenant” under discussion after the flood, represented by the rainbow, signified that G-d wouldn’t bring another flood to destroy the world (9:11), that things will operate as they were intended (see 8:21-22). The natural order had been restored, and it will stay that way — a notion that fits very well with the number seven. It is therefore appropriate for the word covenant to appear seven times after the flood. Before the flood, however, whether the world was worth saving was still up for discussion (as it were), with Noach’s righteousness, his connecting with the One True G-d, being what allowed the world to be saved. But it wasn’t Noach’s personal righteousness that saved the world, it was that he would have progeny that would be worthy of receiving the Torah. Just as the world was created “because of the Torah” and “because of Israel” (see Rashi on 1:1), it was saved, and allowed a fresh start, because of the Torah and because of Israel. As Rabbi Chanina bar Papa says (B’reishis Rabbah, towards the end of 26:6), “even Noach did not remain because he was worthy; rather, G-d saw that Moshe would descend from him.” It was because the person who would receive the Torah on Israel’s behalf and give it over to them would come from him that Noach, and the world, was saved. This is hinted at by using the word “covenant” before the flood, turning the seven times it was mentioned into eight, signifying the Torah that would be given to, and through, Noach’s descendants.

The eighth occurrence had to be before the flood, because it signifies the reason Noach was being saved from it. Therefore, on a “remez” level, the word “covenant” had to be used. Rashi, however, is not working on the “remez” level, so explains the covenant mentioned before the flood on a “p’shat” level. He is uncomfortable with the explanation given by the other Rishonim, as we do not find that there was a “covenant” regarding being saved from the flood, nor should one be necessary. Since it was in the merit of the Torah that Noach was saved, the explanation of the verse in Yirmiyah given by Rabbi Elazar quoted in the Talmud, that without Torah there will be no world, applies. But so does the reverse; since the Torah will be given to Israel, the world must exist so that it can given. And once the world must exist so that the Torah, G-d’s covenant with His people, can be given, the natural laws must be suspended so that the food won’t spoil on the ark and so that Noach won’t be killed before he boards it. “[Noach] needed the covenant,” i.e. the Torah, “so that the fruit wouldn’t spoil and the wicked wouldn’t kill him,” for without it, G-d wouldn’t have suspended natural law.