Noach 5787 - Natural Methods Partnering With the Miracle

In Parshas Noach, Noach builds a teivah, he's saved by the teivah um from the mabul. Everyone understands that the teivah itself was would could not have saved him from the catastrophe of the mabul on its own. There was nothing natural that could really withstand the torrents and the the way Chazal would describe uh that type of rain, the the amount of food needed. There It's It's clearly not a natural way of saving. It clearly is a neis. And yet, there is such a meticulous um description and directions on how to build a teivah. It was built in a way that nominally could work. In other words, there was the the the wood and the wood was plastered and it had the top was slanted and it it it had all of the elements of something that a person could use to float and so on. And yet, it's obvious that that didn't do it. So, why do we have it? And Rabbeinu Bachya asks this question and he asks, um why is it that the Torah told him to make a teivah with so much detail, so many different elements to it, the size, the the the material and when we all know that it was a neis. Um s- the similarly, Rabbeinu Bachya says, the wars that we fought against the um our enemies in Eretz Yisrael especially, we went out to fight, we had a whole military structure, even though the Sukkot keep emphasizing time and again that it was a miracle. And there are quite a few places that actually point this out where you see that the Torah insists on all sorts of regular activities that seem to fit the world of Torah and yet at the end of it all, it's a nice and it's clearly a nice. He says um he he brings the proof from the all the wars and he says My it's Why did they need all these tactics which are appropriate for nations that are fighting naturally? Um and when we know it was a miracle. That's the highest question. So the highest says something over here. He says that The Torah wants a person to do everything that he can naturally. And whatever nature whatever natural efforts can't do, he wants the miracles to supplement it. And he says if you look at all miracles in the Torah, they always wanted it was that way. It's fascinating that Elisha much much much later when the woman came to him who didn't have anything any money and they were going to take away her children and he asked her, "Do you have anything in your house?" And she said, "Yes, I have a little bit oil." He said, "Okay, keep pouring the oil into different vessels and it will um and you'll you know, you'll keep pouring until you finish all the vessels. Now, if a Kurdish brothel manufactures 100 gallons of oil out of 1 oz, what do we need the oz for? Like, really, what's what's the point of it? Same idea. So, let's try to understand a little bit why. We We We normally have that approach when a person comes to us to ask for help, for charity, and our Kurdish brothel and we're told, you know, as as of emo, the person has to do his fair share, and whatever he can't do, we help. So, this is sort of the norms of a bro, that a person can't just come and ask for free rides and say, "Everybody say, take care of me." He does what he can up to best to his abilities, and then everyone else uh chips in. But, we don't have it just, you know, on everybody's shoulders. That makes sense when we're talking about the society where people Everyone's working, everyone is earning, and the No one can take a free ride. If you have needs, they can ask for charity, but they can't just uh abrogate their responsibilities and uh expect other people to chip in. But, when we're talking about a Kurdish brothel and the miracles, what's the issue over there? It's not as if we're troubling a Kurdish brothel, so to speak. Um uh What's the point of it? So, I think it takes It's an understanding a certain understanding of the partnership between man and a Kurdish brothel. A Kurdish brothel put us into a natural world, which means that he wants us to act in ways that are consonant with the world around us. Our activities, our mitzvahs, are all physical mitzvahs. So, we take a a lulav, we take a shofar, take tfillin, we take physical objects, and we connect it to a world beyond. In other words, the if the two worlds are distinct, if you have a physical world and a spiritual divine world, and they're two separate entities, then it does not create what Hashem wants. Hashem wants the the world above to express itself within this world. So, for instance, if let's say let's go back to the case of the oil and Elisha. Imagine that she had no oil, but oil would come from the shamayim, oil would descend. Then that oil is really not connected to this world. It's not in any sense part of this world. And basically, you're obliterating this world and bringing in a different world. But once I have oil here, and it's and there's something coming through that oil, so in a certain sense, it's a way of connecting two worlds so that the the the transcendent world express itself within the imminent world, within the world that's here. The um It's just like the world of mitzvahs. The world of mitzvahs, uh we could have been quote unquote spiritual, just sit and space ourselves out and think about ourselves in higher worlds, and that's it. That would mean an application of this world and some sort of clinging to other world. That's not what the world wanted. The world wanted that within the skin of a cow and ink and and and so on we bring some spiritual ticket and a small fruit. All myths are physical are physical physical entities that connect with the roughness. So, this is true about the world of myths. It's true about the world of his travels. We need to understand that put us in this world and all the shamra and all the and made us responsible to work within the world of Derek Edwards and bring out the physical bring out the spiritual within the physical. So, when we when we're able to bring the world to life through it then we've accomplished what we should accomplish. I want to make a point to this. Um much is spoken about the world of life and the fact that he was totally spiritual and he did not engage in Derek Edwards and only in the world of his own which is true and so was Levi. But the world of Israel as a whole was an entity whose head so to speak meaning the shape of Levi or the shape of life were in the world of life but whose feet were on the ground like that ladder of Jacob and you and it's through the actions of shape of Levi the activities of the world of Israel became blessed. This is really the blessing of the world. It means that the cohen is really a ruchniyus type of person. He lives in a world that's ruchniyus. He draws a shfa down and then he puts his hands out and that becomes a bridge to bring that shfa into this world. So, the real of Vana Kodesh Baruchu is not to eliminate this world and have to witness the world. It is to bring that the other worldliness into this world. This is how Hashem Baruchu meant nisim should work, miracles should work. It we take a teva that we build that is very very physical in its description, in its properties, and all so forth. We then add to it the Hakadosh Baruchu's um a sh- nisim so that this teva becomes the vehicle for bringing out that that Hakadosh Baruchu's ratzon to save Noach. If If we can use a sort of a somewhat of an analogy, which is very similar, our sense of something that is um beyond this world, some some similar would would be a wellspring. A well is something or a cistern is something that is a pit. It contains x amount of or x amount of x amount of water. I put in x amount of water, that's how much I have. It's all this worldly. The air is something which I it's it's sort of an {quote} "endless supply of water." Even though it doesn't happen that way, at some point wells also run dry, but you but we see it as something just flowing in water, but if I don't construct a hole and and and and and a a tunnel for it, it doesn't happen. So, you will ask ourselves, well, since the water is anyway in the supply, why do we need to put in why do we need to dig the well? The answer is, when we dig a well, this is what comes out. So, is telling us this point at the very very beginning of the world with the with the with the mabul who instructs Noach that he'll be saved by making a teiva. Teiva is extremely physical descriptions of materials, shape, size, everything about it is physical. It because it was done properly and and and Noach was a benei Yisrael it then became the vehicle for a neis of Hashem So, they were saved by a neis that flowed through the vessel they created. This is the prototype. This is the model for all future neis of Hashem. A physical entity that allows the neis to connect with our world and then and then the results far surpass what our preparation with the world can possibly make.