ALL PARSHA - The Malbim on Parshas Noach

Habim Welcome everyone to a special edition of all para on parasyak the malb the commentary of the malb on paras noyak this series is dedicated by my dear friends doctor and Mrs. Mayor and Shane Fuches in honor of Dr. Mayor's parents Sam and Helen Fuches they should beam for their whole family. I actually have a special affinity for the malam and a special closeness to the malbum. My grandfather Morai le gladstein his grandfather was the rov in the city of lynchets in the 1860s. At the time the malbum was in the city writing his commentary. He was a Yadid nephesh of the Malb. My grandfather was so attached to the writings of the Malb. Not a day of his life went by without him speaking about the Malbum. In fact, his initials ben are Malbam. The malam is one of the greatest of all the the in his introduction to his commentary on says we are not privy to the mechanism in which the malam expounded upon the tyra only a like the malbum is able to understand how kazal makes interestingly the malam's yard site is alfish and rashashana in thearim that record all the yard sites. The first yard site in in the for example which is multi volumes actually I have the whole set behind me a volume for each month of the year. The first entry is the malam. So I like to say that clalis has a yard sight suda every year a le rashashana for the malbum. How so? By taking out the remine. Why the Malam is the one who introduced the concept that the remite has 613 seeds. The Malbum in his commentary to Sher Shiralid Piml brings the idea a remite has 613 seeds. He brings it again in par on the and also in paragraph discussing the on the bottom of the of the in any event this week we're focused on the M's commentary to the Malam has revolutionary insight into the entirety of the para First the wants to know why does the para begin by mentioning name four times four times just there's something called a pronoun say so is already telling us that we're referring back to the noun that we spoke about in the beginning and say why again and why does it have to say obviously furthermore the wants to know when it talks about the corruption of the generation why does it say three times Then why why the mention of corruption three times the mamm also even though he doesn't ask this question explicitly is answering the question that rashi is bothered by the most obvious question on these these are the children of nayak and then the para completely digresses not to speak about the children of nayak only in The next comes back to the children of and Rashi of course famously says once we mention we want to bless him. Rashi gives another interpretation. The Malbum offers a revolutionary exposition on the and really on the entirety of the para as we're going to see. It's a common theme that runs through the entire para says the Malbum. By very definition, every entity in the world produces fruits. Every entity in the world produces has tall dice and therefore there are different dimensions of tall dice says the malam a human being is comprised of three general components. There are three general elements that make up man. There is man's spiritual component and the spiritual component has tal has fruits. There's the physical component, the biological component and that also produces fruits. And then there is the element that combines the spiritual to the physical and that third component also produces fruits says the malbum. Therefore there really types of tldis. There is the spirit the nishama. The nishama is not static. The nishama is not plateaued. Then shama is constantly thinking about hashem clarifying its awareness and recognition and appreciation for hashem in the world. These are called the nama is refining its its intellectual understanding its to to verify and to appreciate to know hashem. So the nama has tall dice. Then the physical component, the physical component also has tall dice, the biological children that a person produces in this world. But then there's something that combines the spiritual to the physical and that is man's capacity to interact with society, man's nephesh. That component of man also produces fruits. Man's contribution to society at large acting with justice, acting with righteousness, acting with fairness. Nyak like every human being is composed of three elements. There's the spiritual, there's the physical and there's the man of society. says the para these are the children of which children you ask I'm going to tell you we're going to explain and delineate all three elements of the children of all three types of children all three categories of children number one no as the man of society is he was a man of righteousness he conducted himself with righteousness he executed fairness and justice Tomim the Malam identifies he did it without ulterior motive. He didn't accord himself with justice to get paid or to get honor because then he's just a mercenary. He's only doing it for something in exchange. No, that was the the man of society. He contributed towards society. He produced towards society. These were his societal contributions and children. That's number one. That's the second. In other words, it begins. These are all the collected products and children of number one. Number two walked with God. He contributed spiritually. He recognized Hashem. He was acutely aware of Hashem's reality and he conducted himself. He lived life with Hashem. That was the nyak of the that was the and then the third the physical like what he shares in common with the rest of so the malam in a revolutionary way unique among all the is able to explain the four mentions of they're not it's not nothing is superfluous Nothing is repetitious. Everything is with precision and accuracy. And the Malam continues in this path. The corruption of the generation of the flood was apparent in all of these three arenas in all of these three aspects of life and all these three aspects of of children. Number one explains the malam. The world was corrupt in the arena of the spiritual in the arena of the spirit. Number two, the world was full of corruption. So in the society was corrupt. Not only was the spiritual realm corrupt, society was corrupt in that they stole. They took other people's wives. And in this sense, Hashem saw and then finally even physically there's certain basic laws of behavior that beyond uh even before the spirit even before society just as a creation creation a creation has a responsibility to court itself with certain civility. So the PK says even on a physical basis in the physical realm in the arena of the physical world there was corruption. So the para begins by delineating that all three aspects of nyak produced children. On the other hand society of the time was corrupt in all of these three arenas. But amazingly the malam carries this through to the end of the para because in his children come out of the shame. These are the three children of Nayakar. And from here the whole world spread out. And the Malab is explaining in order to answer these are the children of Nik. We said that already in the beginning of the para. Why are we reiterating again that these were the children of Nyak? Now in the beginning of the parha the mabum was also addressing that question because actually it said no had three children and the end of boratious why repeat in the beginning of nyak. So regarding that the mamm explained in the beginning of nyak it says again nak's three children to indicate these were his and of his physical component. That was the the reason for the reiteration of his children in the beginning of paras. But now the mamm reveals that because there are three elements of the human entity and all three elements produce children. Therefore in life in general some people put their focus on one of these three elements of the human entity. There are some who focus on the spiritual aspect of man on his on the nishama on what the nishama could contribute and produce. There are others who focus on what the man could contribute towards society and there and still there are others who phys who focus on the physical aspect of man. And in fact says the three children of Nyak each one of them put their emphasis and focus on one of these three aspects. Shame focused on the arena of of study of analysis of Hashem and his teachings in the world. That was the arena of shame and that was the mida of shame. Other people put their focus on society, on politics, on the the running of the world as a network. That was the mida of of Yafess. Yafes contributed to art, to culture, to agriculture, and to various disciplines that benefit society at large. And then there are others who lower themselves to focus on man's more physical and base elements and they live a life of pleasure, desire and what's good for them in the moment. The malam categorizes these three aspects as what is to what is and what is to is what is inherently good. The realm of shame of study, analysis and recognizing the creator is what is inherently good. The realm of society is what is called mayel. Mayel means it's beneficial. It's not inherently good, but it's helpful. And then there is ar. It's not inherently good and it's not inherently beneficial, but it just it feels good. And each one of these three children of Nyak focused on their different arenas. We're going to read more about Shame and his descendants in the upcoming para. The Tory then says arena of focus was he was the father of Cananan. And then the para goes on to explain what a life devoted to focus on tya and the animal aspect of man what it could lead to where and his descendants actually violated and debased their own father. They were masares nayak and that that comes from a life focused on pleasure seeking. If we may to add to the Malab's approach to parasyak after the Torah describes what happened to Nyak and his children when they came out of the TBA. It tells us the narrative of Mikdal Bavl and the Mabam says that the the ambition of that generation of the Dhaflaga was that they were moving away from family life to emphasis on society building an empire. This may be a perversion of the ideal and the focus of Yees. Yes focused on man's contribution to society. However, if man gets carried away with contributing towards society instead of furthering his recognition of the creator that could lead to seeking power, seeking to build empires and ultimately to seeking to uproot the power of the creator in this world, which was what they were trying to accomplish with Mdalb. So this is the Malbum's analysis of paras. It explains many of the extra phrases and words in a way that no other commentary to the Torah was able to do in such a remarkable way. Beginning with the three types of children that the Torah describes in the beginning of Nyak, it explains why Nak's name is mentioned four times. It explains why the word is mentioned three times. And this theme carries toward the end of the para of how the three general paths in life were originated in Nyak himself and each one of his three children emphasize a different aspect of the reality of Nyak. Wishing everyone a wonderful week.