Judgment, Parshat Noach | Rabbi Ari Kahn | October 15 2026

The share this week is again for this year sponsored by Rabbi Michael and Jerry Laxmter for their foolish lay of their granddaughter Aigarona. I also wrote here in loving memory of Rea Shalom. That's my mother. The heritite is tonight tomorrow. So uh yeah. So uh so we're yeah we're going to the cemetery later this afternoon. So let's begin. We're starting par Noah the way that I think people like to start para Noah and that is by laying looking at the little bit of the background towards the end of Bat. Of course you want to understand two things. What happened and the other thing you want to understand is why it happened or again there's the what and the why. And the why sometimes is more difficult and could be that the what is also difficult. The chapter begins again that's also interesting is that those who uh created the chapters just saw this as the beginning and the flowing into the Noah story. So you have people having progeny. So let's note for a moment that is a mitzvah purvu. So you ask you know how bad was that generation? So we already have something positive. [laughter] you what I'm putting it's it's more important than you think right now but you but you you're suspecting that I'm putting it very low as far as uh okay see everybody can well now the term blohim is one which is incredibly rich and it takes people in all kinds of directions both in Jewish tradition and other traditions you mean to get to fallen angels and so onto So in previous years I always noted that is not a romantic statement. Okay there it doesn't there's no romance here. It's it's violence. But I just will point out one word and it's really easy to know the words I'm pointing out because I bolded it and that is toot. So, I'm just going to remind you of something which perhaps we've forgotten and this goes back to, you know, what happened when we go back to last week. We know that everything was good well until the serpent showed up and that we spoke about that a bit, but everything was good until we ate from a tree of knowledge of good and evil. So, I'll remind you that good and evil is to ver. So right over here when you when you look again what's bold so that you can see it and then a little bit later on you have. So you see that there's all this bed and then it continues. I think we have another reference to bed. Yes. Which means of course you could have said to yourself, "Oh, didn't God see this coming? Why in the world did did the world or existence I don't know what word you want to use to generate or meaning was this an some kind of unexpected consequence. I say no this is an expected consequence when you eat from the tree of to ver. So just staring at you right over here are elements of tovara. By the way the tob is really bad because it's bad people seeing toove and then taking that as they want. And that's part of what happens when you have a confusion of tovara. So when I say you know do I see any kind of uh fingerprints over here of something which may have caused all of this. So my short answer to that is yes essentially what I did was really something very simple because you know I we see I could have started this differently. I could have said okay they ate from the tree of knowledge and good and evil. Do we see any kind of impact from that over here? And then you would have I wouldn't have bolded anything and I wouldn't have given you any hints and then you would have gone looking and then maybe you would have found it. Maybe you wouldn't have but again there is to and ra over here and therefore if I ask myself so what happened well what happened is sometimes there are consequences when you make bad choices I'm I'm actually understating that there are consequences when you make bad choices and now we're seeing right over here and essentially God is saying okay man so I'm going to ask you again wow that's unexpected how did that happen well guess what you ate from the tree of knowledge good and evil. So now there's going to be all kinds of rah and even when you see toove, you're going to want to take that to for yourself and you may not again go back to our unromantic description of taking that toe for yourself. So all of that is clear. Good. And I think I softened that verse a lot because you can say hold it again. Unexpected. No, but that's because of choices. I'm not explaining any of that now. We're rather we're starting Noah and now we're going to look and uh see what it is that we see. One of uh the things I could be accused of. It's not fair by the way. It's not true. But one of the things I could be accused of is being somewhat postmodern in my deconstructionist attitude towards Noah and saying that okay, was Noah really at Sadiq. Well, of course he was Sadik. It says twice in the next couple verses that he's sadik. The only problem is Sadik doesn't necessarily mean what we think it means. Sadik means something else. And uh I actually had a fight this week with uh with chat GPT who thought who thought I was overstating something and uh I said go back and take a look for show me one instance that I'm what I'm saying is not correct and then it backed down and it said I overstated and essentially my claim was that the word sadik in the five books of Moshe is always a legal term and is never a religious term and it's a it's a legal term And it means innocent if uh if if you need it's it's always a legal term and very good. Um if you look in source 35 again that verse told no and then you look at the towel in 36 told no zakai zakai is innocent he was zakai and again if you just need convincing on this I've said this so many times but if you need convincing on this um did Abraham when he said maybe there are 50 sadikim in stone did you think there's 50ish Shereb is there could be everybody had a little uh you know had their own uh I mean is is that really what it means but I don't know because it's always played off sadik or rash somebody who's innocent or somebody who's guilty and are you going to kill the innocent with the guilty that's what a's argument is not are you going to kill the sadikim with it and essentially we've taken this other usage of the word which again I don't think is I'm I'm not willing to say right now all of Tanakh I am willing to say insh you can argue every single uh case even parro when he says God is a sadik but I'm the Russia so it comes back to that point and it's it's always played off one of the other and it and it doesn't mean sadik in the baltovian sense okay good can you see how my coffee is progressing That's >> or if not if not just >> I know if not just plain water. Plain water is just as well. Thank you. [clears throat] >> If anybody's upset why I didn't ask any of you to do it. >> We'll get we'll get over this. We we're gonna get past this. Okay. We'll get past this. So let us now continue. So Noah follows God. Good. [clears throat] So on good again Noah was but everyone else is So we probably need to know two things here. What does mean? So we'll go back to our uh usual that is which also means then about Noah is that he follows he follows judgment. It doesn't mean that Noah does anything good. It just means that Noah avoids bad which if you really think about it fits into everything we know about him. Why? Because you don't see any good. You just see probably an avoidance of bad. But the other word that I want to know what it means is what does mean? So that's actually going to be a little bit more difficult because there are going to be commentaries who are going to take us in all kinds of directions and I'm not convinced about all the directions it will take us. Let me put it like this. One of the things that we've always have noted is that in the search for shot, right? shot is a contextual understanding of a word or a verse or an idea and then the question becomes what is the context how broad is the context for example is the context all of Tanakh is the context the whole book is context the entire chapter is cont right so I'm saying what is the context and I also hope that you appreciate that if you're looking for a word the more localized the context is the more it needs to fit in you don't want the same word to mean different things within in the same uh small area. Thank you so much. >> Got it right. >> You got it right. And I'm G. By the way, I'm terrible with with like with coffee. It has to be the right thing and the right way and the right machine and the right and then you then and then it comes down to it. Okay. Just just give me whatever that jar was. Okay. We're thinking of putting on our house instead of con to put fine schmecker over there. Okay, continue. So, so the other thing also you'd want to know is what exactly is the relationship between and between. So, which one of those two do you want to use the word corruption? Okay, good. >> Well, that's quite that's the kamas can be violence. So, robbery could be violence, but then again, other things can also be violence, but again, if you're happy with corruption, I'm not I'm not I'm not completely happy. I think that that's that's part of the issue. As we Let's continue a little bit, but at least now we know there's a couple other words, but it sounds to be like it's a cause and effect. Okay. By the way, do we now realize that the word or the root is going to be important because it continues that okay? Okay. Are we now all convinced that the key word over here used three times so far within a very short and I'm going to say it again when I want to now now I want to know so what is shot? It really kind of has to fit into each one of these things. So it's again pausing again you have now is it the effect and the cause or is it the there's some kind of relationship but again those two words are used in that verse. now make the ark and we're going to skip all of that. So what does the word mean? And and and that's difficult then meaning that just just now it got difficult because God says I'm going first of all if you want you can always tell me well this is kind of just you know God is being poetic. You happy with that? You're not you're not completely happy with that. You rather than poetry, right? This is the time for poetry. I mean, we already had romance before, so why not have some poetry over here? You know, poetry and destruction, right? That could be a nice title for today's class, but it's not the poetry of destruction. But I'll say it again that we have a word reute and it's just used multiple times over here. and you have a, you know, quid proquo. You have a divine response. You have people doing something. God saying, "I'm going to do it." But, but when you get to to God doing it, you what word do you want to, you don't want to use the word corruption now. You want to use the You want to use the word destruction. And >> so now you want to go backwards and say, "Hold it to destroy work by all of the other examples. They destroyed the beautiful world that God created to say the corruption destroy the world and that's exactly what it does. Order what happens is everybody has to You can't survive. You can't exist. So the whole society is just destroyed. >> Right? But but we've just added another word into the equation and the other word is destruction. >> They use one word for many things. >> But so again our temptation till now was to say corruption. But now we say destruction instead of corruption because again corruption destroys. It's corrosive. it it creates this kinds of world which is no longer inhabitable. But but again I'm just pointing out that that that is a word which is for us important. Um how far did we get? And it's at this point that I think that we're kind of uh stuck in that direction. Now Rashi does something else. And again, when Rashi does these things, it's because there is a multiple of of causes. One is that he's looking in other contexts. Just for example, when you look at Rashi in source two, the let's read it. Now, where did that, you know, parenthesis tell you to be looking invar? So, Rashi's context of what a word means, right? is based upon other usage under the usage he went all the way to say fit. So I'm not saying that Rash is doing is not fair. Um it's interesting what he's doing. And again he says oh it means and it means so sexual sins corrosive idolatry corrosive. And he writes take a look over there. and he and he feels that that basar took you much more to this sexual innuendo or corruption or or problem and then kamas gzo but again I'm just noting that as easily as rashi told you let's look into he did kind of ignore something which was over here local which again I'm not saying rashi right wrong I'm just saying that there are different ways of understanding shot and it comes back to point that I made is how broad do you think the context is when you're trying to understand what the meaning of a particular word or or or concept is and he actually feels that it's a little easier to say again which rich verse works well with rashi let's just just do that again so does that mean destruction corruption does it again so he he likes corruption over here but again we all know that he's going to have a little bit of a problem Just let's look again how how the earth sins what does it mean and so on that that some of these things first maybe it's public know maybe it's really private only God knows about it now that's we know that that's a general principle and it actually tells you that language could be funible because it may depend on the listener more so than what things actually mean. Okay, so I need to explain this. One of the things that we're going to be seeing as we move on is the word Elohim used all kinds of places today. We already had ink the Blohim later on Noah, right? walks in front of Noah and he is talking which was so what does Elohim mean over here and he says that there are some who are going to claim that this is kadosh it means God capital and some will mean it's something else. And I have to just now go back to the benlohim as far as what that means. But this is going to be a problem moving forward. Now you can imagine and I again I was kind of hinting on this before some can claim all the way back in when it says that means sons of God which creates its own theological nightmare but right maybe in other religions it doesn't but but what does it mean sons of of God and therefore is that usage of Elohim kadosh or ho which means Is it a holy? Is it is it mean God? Again, capital G or does it mean something else? So that question that you raise over here is actually a question that could be put in different places. He's raising this by saying somebody again look at the very end of the so that tells again is speaking silly. He's not saying anything. So now you know two things. One is that some people claim that this is not kadosh over here and now we have to completely re-evaluate what that verse meant and the second thing you know is that the completely discounts it. So then the question is when the admin discounts something should we pay attention to what he discounts or should we also just discount it because we have enough problems with this show sorry verse four in the now this is the So I hope you realize that that's interesting because these are the people who used to go and take women by force. So just in case you're wondering how we just now got there, I already told you we had another word other than Shah which what? We have we we have a problem now. And the problem is when we go back to the beginning. So what does Elohim mean? So if if I again just keep that in mind for a second. Does Benohim mean over here again sons of God or does it mean the sons of the powerful? the sons of the leaders. So now if the leaders are not doing what they're supposed to be doing. So but later on when it says what was the phrase so again in front of God in front of the powerful the which means what caused the entire breakdown over here. So again, I hope that you realize that things are again a a little bit more interesting or a little more complex than we suggest in the very beginning. Look at now he's writing on. So let's look at again. So part of our problem, what does the word mean? So I hope all of the words that's pretty direct. So kamas is to steal or to kidnap. I'm going to do to them. I'm going to strike them. So therefore when he says is is to strike down. So again reading this back into he says I am going to strike them. So the words he uses from the word again vi again you can call it violence physical violence or or or or pain but I'm going to do this to them. If you look at but let's go back to it says was that one second is that what we just now read. Sorry that's what we just now read. Um sorry the in writes over here they will die. Now I I kind of now question working backwards. Let's start this as a as a thesis. Is it possible that from the very beginning that the word means to kill? Again, destruction was easy. But is it more than that? Because see what we have over here again is a divine quid proquo. God is saying I am going to do this to them because this is what they've done. So our question is what is that they've done? And we again especially reading rashi oh what they did is you know you have a vodar you have sexual sins and so on. But now again what I'm asking is and we all understand why Rashi did that. We saw Rashi went to safet in order to say oh that's what it must mean over here. But I would actually again put forth [clears throat] an argument to have a localized understanding of what you know especially when you have this divine response to what the human behavior is. So when we go back and read what the people are doing or is it Elohim and now you realize that we're all completely confused. Right? Because we thought we knew how to read all of this. And now and now what happens when you get to a verse where there are multiple words in the verse that you don't know how to understand those words. then we kind of uh I don't want to say we get stuck but at least it it kind of creates like a flowchart and we don't know exactly what it is we're supposed to go and what we're supposed to do but we do now realize that we have multiple readings that we can have and could be that the world is full of violence or the type of violence is the world is full of murder the word is full of kabala and that's why God responds in the way that he does I I hope I'm not losing you completely over here. But I do want to note something else and let I'm going to talk about this before we do it and then this will hopefully make sense. One of the things that I was asked to uh speak about when I do go overseas and give a talk to teachers of Tanakh is and you've heard me say some of this before. When you're in safer, which is a book of law, then you pay great attention to whatever small amounts of narrative which are there. When you get to safer midbar, which is a book of narrative, then you pay attention to the laws which are there. When we're over here in para Noah which is essentially a book of narrative then we greatly pay attention to the laws which are presented. Now all of us know that there's something which is called Noah. Some of us may even know what those are. Some of us may even know the involved in what the laws may be. Um the Rambam is pretty interesting when he describes the mitzvah. We're going to see some of that moving on. I I'll just raise uh an unfair question. If Noah was given all the rules of Ben Noah or Ben Noah were given all the rules, right? Then how could the earlier generation have been guilty in order to deserve a flood because the rules are only to Ben Noah? So is that a fair question? So you could decide if it's fair. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I'm just asking it anyway. In our post flood, right, conversation that takes place, we have God giving Noah some law. By the way, he does not give him seven laws. So that now also becomes a question. Holder, where did all the seven come from? He he mentions two laws. one of them which is a repetition of something we've already seen and the other one was implied that it had already existed right and what specifically is interesting to me and I'm repeating myself is that there are laws which are being placed God speaks and God says and these are the things you need to do and so on and these are things you can't do or so the law being placed over here is important but of course what I want to know is how do the laws which are being taught here then inform us about what happened during the flood right what's the relationship between the law and then between the narrative which preceded it right I hope you all realize that is a fair question even right even if you never thought of it it is it is a fair question now we can read chapter nine which is source number nine look at right? Notice again it's all about now some of you know that was already mentioned. Should I be cynical? I am Am I allowed to be cynical? I I'm not trying to if it comes out it just happened. You could imagine people saying yeah we have kids right? I mean the whole beginning of where we started today that lots of people had children and so on and so forth and then God wiped them all out. So why in the world should we be have is that cynical or or for you or for me it's not >> society world population. >> Should we like >> should we have kids in a world that just now had this massive destruction. So maybe God after destroying everything no you should be having kids. I'm just I'm gonna say this again. The interreationship between the narrative and the law is interesting to me. Okay. So, just state it like that. And you can do with that anything you want. We'll we'll read a little bit more here. Well, may maybe even we're not allowed to be eating blood. is interesting here because God is demanding. How God is demanding? Is this God micromanaging or is this God through some other system? Now you see the word twice already. So God over here is talking about maybe we'll read one more verse. This is God. This is against the spilling of blood. Murder. Should we be cynical again? You're not allowed to murder and ignore. So that's not nice, right? It's not nice. So I shouldn't be saying that, right? I shouldn't say that. But God is saying, I will demand. I will demand. I will search. and because man was created in the image of God but I don't salvage was stuck on the second half of the verse he said he's which means normally I would ask why you can't murder and you'd say well murder is wrong and he would say no that's not what the Torah says because man is created in the image of God so then how are you allowed to kill a murderer So presumably the murderer may have lost maybe by maybe by taking away the image of God of somebody else by therefore it creates this responsibility or maybe he himself has somehow diminished his own image of God by acting like this. But I'm just saying that second half of the ver you didn't need the second half of the verse. You could have said two words, right? You could have just said low to when I said that murder could have been implied earlier. You kind of have the whole cayenne and he thing which which means these two laws which were being mentioned over here. These two laws which were mentioned over here are interesting and just for good measure right after it says which by the way I think the more times you read it the more difficult you realize that verse is. What does it mean? Just what do those words mean? It could have been you could have just said and that's before you get to and then what do you get to in you go back to what we just now saw but we just now had that so you have the emphasis over here spread life and don't stop life from spreading which means it's all about life and I'm going to say it again there is something really interesting over here uh that these two laws are being chosen so in order to avoid confusing you more than necessary And there's going to be a couple of levels to this. If people if did mean violence in the sense of taking life and then God says now I'm going to take their lives. By the way, you realize now that that is almost perfectly reflected by what's being written over here. Now you realize why I was working so hard on all of that because I'm trying to understand why are these laws written and why are these laws written the way that they are and why are these laws written right over here afterwards. But the advantage of what I just now did with our understanding of and so on now becomes a little bit more interesting. Hold it. You're not allowed to kill. So how can you kill? Again, anybody who's going to argue, let's say, against the death penalty, why? You know, life is sacred. Again, if we're going to be cynical today, the difference between the left and right in America is whose life is has no value, right? One side will claim these people's lives have no value and the other side will claim that these people's lives have no value. Should I be more specific than that or is that uh that's the whole question. Which means some people will say a fetus's life has no value and it's essentially the mother's choice and others will say that old people their lives has no value or somebody who sick life has no value or some you know euthanasia I can keep on going and other people will say that somebody who was murdered life is no value somebody know in order to kill that that that's again whose life you don't value will define who you vote for okay I I and I'm being quite serious about this Gil am I wrong >> you want to think about it or you think I'm wrong. >> Go there. Said you wouldn't go. >> Where did I say I wouldn't go? Of course I'd go there. I won't talk about Israeli politics. No, my point is that all of them are distrusted. We don't like anybody. I keep telling you that. Okay. This way, this way we can remain social commentaries. We can Yeah. Why not? >> And and now ask the same question I asked before. How can we judge a generation of the flood if no rule? How can we judge Cayenne if there if there if there were no rules yet? So So hold on. By the way, the Rambam's going to solve all of this. But hold hold on to that for a second. Um, by the way, for good measure, if you continue here, if you continue, just in case you think that the whole thing with the has nothing to do with this, can you like roll your eyes down a little bit lower again in which means this is not disconnected. The sh comes back over here where God moves in the sh there and here he says I'm not going to do it again and he gives us rules in terms of rules of engagement and so on. So I I I hope that now you're noticing that this is not just my wild imagination. Source 10. And he went, I mean, I hinted at this before. He has diminished the image of God. By the way, it's not clear. Has he diminished it in himself or he diminished in the person that he killed? It sounds more like the person that he killed, but I'm willing to entertain both. Read one more time. Now look [snorts] at in verse 12, right? With witnesses by the word of the judges. You want to read the words again? Adam somehow he just now brought a court into the all of this. That's Unkus who generally wants to tell you you know word for word. If you look at the target translated back into Hebrew in 14, the judge, the legal system, just in case this sounds really strange to you, you never heard such things in source 14 that if somebody kills, then the legal system needs to take care of it. I'm going to go back now again to to where we started in terms of what was taking place in that generation where the judges were in all of this. So let's read a little bit more the here as well. So they're all again they're all reading into this. See, they're not only reading that murder is wrong, they're also reading into this we need an effective judiciary in order for society to function properly, which which really goes it was the one step I don't think that you got that far when you talked about corruption, but that's that's the next step is that if you don't have a judiciary which is functioning properly, you're going to have a corruption and you're going to have a society which is going to then fall apart. Right? Which which but I'm going to say this all again. These are the rules which are stated right afterwards. And then the question becomes okay why are the how are these rules related to what happens itself. So essentially what I'm trying to do is to understand the generation of the flood leading up to the flood the corruption that took place in terms of the divine response not just in terms of the flood itself but we did see the words that were used there but also in terms of the laws which are being mentioned immediately afterwards >> how you know but that's why he wasn't put to death because he didn't have the warning wasn't so instead he lived with the his letter so he wasn't put to death. >> It's it's a good point and there's a lot to talk about what happened there certainly legal way. Yes, you're back. >> I'm I'm I'm not willing to I'm not willing to right now. That's that's where we were being taken. But I I Yes. Yes. is murder. And then this is the biblical sense. Look at the in source 17. Okay, that's more of legal technicality. That's a really interesting verse to use because that verse generally is not talking about God. It's talking about judges. If you look at the in 20, he tries to explain what everyone has been saying. Is the elohim going on why you can't murder or is the bellum eloim going on why and how we have the ability of giving punishment right was that was that just now what >> was it right do you want do you want to read the verse again keep But what's elohim is but don't we find that the verse right don't curse judges that's the way it's understood don't curse judges but when the word for judges is elohim right why because it means somebody who has power somebody who has great power somebody is almost you know incredible power to the extent that they can give people a death sentence so right does that describe why the person is guilty or how we're able to meet out punishment. Once you understand the first, you want to read this again. We go. We're He brings the you become partners with God. A whole bunch of garis indicate this. When you are involved in judgment, you become a partner with God. It's part of God's role to be the judge over earth. And an extreme act of justice is to kill a guilty murderer. The use of the word Elohim is real interesting especially we come back to this verse. Look what the is. Do you know what the min is? Shai is in some fancy mro gado. I've made everybody feel inadequate. When you go home and look in your mrodola and you see you don't have it there. But if you have a really good mrodola, you'll see there's a machai there. Mhachai is verse by verse telling you if there's any kind of intrigue that somebody may quote that verse with a different spelling someplace or in this example it gives you also intentionality. Elohim he writes kadosh that means that it's holy and it doesn't mean judge here it means elohim and you kind of wonder well whoever would have said it's not kadosh but I think you now realize that we have a problem in this para no what the word elohhim means in various cases let's go back now just for a sec don't turn anywhere I'm just going to go back to where we started today. Look at the now in source 22 elohim elohim sons of the powerful. So now what was actually the introduction of the flood story? The introduction was a corrupt judiciary. It's a corrupt judiciary whereby the children of the bene the children of the judges are bulletproof. They can do anything that they want. They can rape and pillage and steal and hurt and kill. They can do anything that they want and nothing's going to be done to them. Why? because there Elohim which which again unfortunately is a great part of human history. Problem is not just the patriarchy. It's the powerful patriarchy. It's the powerful people who make the rules and the powerful people who then selectively who selectively implement the rules. Let's try the again. By the way, that we saw that verse quoted before and it was quoted Elohim to. No, that's Elohim, by the way. That's not kesh over here, right? That is now this is not just a random statement by the Radak. We'll see others who follow this. But if you go a little bit further, he writes the powerful people do whatever they want to the weaker people and the weaker people are abused and that is the corrupt the corrosive society which exists. But what is the key element which is missing? There's no just justice system to be able to protect those who need to be protected. I mean ultimately a society is judged by how the weak are are treated. Source 24 already went back to Ben Elohim is the children of the judges. It means judge. I mean source 23 was the verse we kept quoting. So you you see it there. It goes on and the word right that's where we started today. That's good right is good. It says it's written in a way without the VV. It's not written incomplete. It's incomplete. So this is something we hear numerous times in the gumar later on in history that the midrash says that in that generation when it says the powerful men took women took married women. It took women when they were about to be married. They they they made them look fine in their wedding dress and so on. And then the powerful men went and took them and had first go at them before the before they were actually with their husbands. But that's the tovote. He says toot is written deficiently because the whole society is deficient. Um over here on Ben Elohim Ben Ra the children of the powerful. So again it takes us back to the same point. So just in case you know you say oh that rad was interesting I never heard that before. And by the way in case that other midrash I just quoted you say wow I never heard that either. Rashi same rashi 27 end. I mean that they would go and grab the the brides and take them and that that was part of the corruption of that society. So again in case you never learned this well there's a couple reasons. One is that when you were in elementary school they skipped all of these rashies. A second reason is that there's even a great addition of rashi written for kids in elementary school and it cut out all of these rashies. So if you're looking for the salacious elements of rashi, you you need to look at the unedited rashi which indeed this this is and again just case you can go home and start looking say hold it is that my rashi maybe it's not but it's it's actually there in rashi. So again, I read it from these other sources. You say, "Wow, I never heard that before." And now again, the whole my whole role over here is to make you feel inadequate and say, "Wow, I should have known that that it's written in again going back to the same dance, you know, when is it holy, when is it not holy?" and we'll leave it. It's enough. You you can read 29. I I just want to go to the Rambom. I just want to finish all of this up and read a couple of Rambams. I mean, it's one Rambam, but a couple things that he wrote. So, verse 30. So, this is one of the seven laws as well to have judges. The seventh rule is to implement the other six right that these people again give out punishments this is well known by the way and some people attack him for this but it's I think quite important not just to understand that episode but to understand By the way, now think about what did powerful man taking the girl, grabbing her home. So why was the whole city guilty? Why was the whole city guilty and the Rambam writes because they did not have a justice system to punish somebody who did what he should not have done and therefore this city was lawless. There is no Chevitz being. So therefore they're guilty for breaking the sham mitzvot by not implementing the shva mitzvot and okay as important as this is again his side point about I think that that's a commentary on par Noah it's not just that they don't have judges it's that the judges are the ones who are leading the way in the corruption so therefore we know what happened to the chevitzv by the way the one thing I still need to then show is that they had chev mitzvah by this point or at least some of them okay so give me a couple of seconds on that but but this ra that that line of the Rambam I I I think is quite important source 31 by the way we were just now in peretal now we're in peret and we moved back a little bit alishadish the Rambam writes again this is a discussion the Sanhedrin the Rambam writes that Adam was commanded six of the seven it's a mitzvot because Noah got the seventh Abra what was he commanded cursing Godim so was already there go back to now your question no murder was already back there you know because it says so therefore there's an ishto relationship somebody else tries to grab the isha you're breaking the again something which goes back to para preparation the algein having a justice system was already there according to the Rambam so now as I said the Rambam's commentary on I think is even a stronger commentary for what we just now saw in terms of uh parat no um we could continue in source 32 we are now in the rules of murder the Rambam writes that a court should never take a bribe or donation in order to be lenient on a murderer. And he writes and there's nothing that the Torah thought was more. See, I don't want to use the word important here. The thing that God was most what what translation you want for the word better than focused. >> Okay. Any >> Okay. You can use all of your It's act of concern. It sounds like Well, we'll we'll continue. There's there's another source and he brings a verse to back this up. So, that was the first chapter of the laws of murder and preservation of life. Source 33 is we're in the second chapter. People were guilty of murder, but there was no court system or or there was no there was they weren't warranted or there were no witnesses. If a king nonetheless, by the way, it's interesting because the Ran gets all the credit for making the same point because he has a whole chapter about this. The Ramban Rambam is saying this in passing that if somebody is guilty of murder, but see, I use the wrong word. I use the word guilty. You want to hear a great story? I don't have time, but I'll tell you a great story anyway. Uh, Professor Alan Duruitz told me the following. Okay, I I had the opportunity to teach him at some point and he told me the following that he was on a VIP mission to Israel again. I was involved. We had dinner a couple of times and we spoke and at one point they took the whole group this 30 years ago into the prime minister then which was Netanyahu and and the whole group met and he spoke to them and then when they all left he said BB said um Allan I want to ask you something can you stay behind she stays behind so nobody knew what the question was so I asked him that night I said what did he ask you so he said he asked me if OJ was guilty Right. Duritz was one of he was on the legal team of OJ Simpson. So he said, so his response was that guilty or non-guilty is a legal term, but it's not a historical, which means once this was his response, once the police fabricated evidence, a person cannot be found guilty in American law or should not be found guilty in American law. But American law doesn't find somebody innocent. They find them guilty or not guilty. So his response was once they fabricated the law, he could not be found guilty. That that that that was the that was the response. But what happens if somebody did something but there's no warning? Again, how do you h how you have to be out of your mind to be guilty of a death penalty in Jewish law? You need to be warned and say, "I don't care." And then have two witnesses. You want to kill somebody, so you send the witnesses to get you a cup of coffee, right? You you you send them someplace else. you you don't hold on to the two witnesses. I mean, I would even argue that if you do it in such a case, you should be able to get off on a temporary insanity, right? It it just it it doesn't the legal system. But what happens if somebody's a murderer? Somebody's a murderer. How do you know? You know, he's a murderer. So, what do you do? So, the Rambam writes, it's the job of the king. The king has the right to make the world a better place. By the way, I would say that's exactly what God does in terms of the flood. You have this whole generation of murder and God is the melik, which means I'm claiming that this right and responsibility of the mel to get involved is why in the sense that we are as God has to make justice. So then we also have to make justice. the bait could also do some kind of extra legal situation. So again, that's that's pretty interesting. It continues. Look at source number 34. We are now in chapter four of laws of murder, preservation of life. The rabb writes, "If somebody killed there weren't witnesses or only one witness saw or there was no all these people, you put them in a prison. It sounds almost like the you you give them like terrible type of food. You feed them chants." Okay. You give them really bad food until they explode. All other sins, you don't do this. It's only for murder. Only murderers are treated this way. And this is a real interesting line. Even though there are more severe sins than spilling blood, brother, I love the took us right back to Noah. Even though there's more severe sins, they're not as corrosive and destructive on a societal level like murder is, which means Shabbat and again the way I'm reading all of this is a commentary in because that's where that's where it's introduced right afterwards and I think it's absolutely connected to where God says I'm going to do and that's what they were doing but what were they doing? It's a society of the powerful taking advantage of the weak and how so are you going to tell me that they only stole from them? Are you going to tell me they only grabbed their wives away? And you gonna tell me if somebody protested, they didn't just kill them. When you see yourself as being all powerful, there's nothing to hold you back. Breaking Shabbat, sexual sins, idolatry again, destroys society. And if you never heard this, this is real interesting. Anybody who's guilty of murder is completely wicked and all the good that they think that they've done is not equal to this sin. It will not save them at a time of judgment. By the way, if you remember in the laws of the rab writes that the way that God judges the world is not the way that we necessarily understand. There could be one mitzvah worth a lot. There could be one of which is worth a lot. And he and you read this, you say, "Oh, I should have read this together with that law. and so on. So I'm going to say this again just just put all the pieces together. Before the flood, we had the bene acting in a way which was completely completely violent. Society is falling apart. The only question is how bad it is. We see the grabbing of women and that says the blohim and that itself again rashi cites this others right the bane elohhim are doing whatever they want which means there's no legal system I think the place of murder is solidified when you see that that's what the emphasis is immediately after the flood The Rambam knew these verses very well and he understands that Adam right Adam was already commanded about all of these again all of these kinds of rules which is exactly why they're guilty that the generation of a flood is where the king comes and says I need to fix society but when society is so so so uh destroyed then it has to be destroyed and therefore the law which is being taught here again everything I did Today the law which is being taught and all the sections I just now learned to the Raam I think all of them become wonderful commentaries on parat Noah all them become commentaries on how God responded and all now be again my cynical comment before hold it God's going to tell us not to murder out no he's going to tell us exactly how how a court system is supposed to function that we have responsibility to be a functioning court system why does God have to tell us that now that we need to have a functioning court system because that's exactly the background to the story. There was no functioning court system and that now becomes the message afterwards. And that's why again virtually all the commentaries read that into the verse. Adam, no, man has to get involved and man has to make sure that society is just and we need to have judges and you need to have witnesses. You know what? If there's no judges, there's no witnesses. Then you get to extraleal. And you know listen the ultimate extraleleal is scary because the ult ultimate extraterleal is when God gets involved and then God says okay it's destructive now I need to destroy what is destructive but beforehand man needs to do it that is the generational flood it is the failure of society to create a just system and therefore there was no chance for such a society to be able to exist and essentially what God says we need to start all over again and that's uh which again leads us to there's a little bit of light at the end of the para you have to end on something good and that's when Averino enters in because then instead of just being somebody who doesn't do bad we have somebody finally who starts to do something good.