This week’s installment of Midrash HaShavua has been dedicated by Dr. Rob Amirian and family in memory of Nahid Esther bat Malek A”H.
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From where did the dove bring the olive leaf to Noah? Rabbi Abba bar Kahana said she brought it from the tree branches of the Land of Israel. Rabbi Levi said she brought it from the Mount of Olives, since the Land of Israel was not flooded during the Deluge, as the Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Ezekiel “A land not purified or rained upon on a day of wrath.” Rabbi Bevai said, the doors of the Garden of Eden were opened for her and she brought it. Rabbi Abahu said, if she brought it from the Garden of Eden, shouldn’t she have brought something special like cinnamon or balsam? Rather, the dove was hinting to Noah, as if to say “it is better to receive bitter sustenance from there than something sweet from your hands.”
The Torah recounts that, after the waters of the Flood began to subside, Noah dispatched birds – first a raven, then a dove – to ascertain whether dry land was again visible on the surface of the earth. After its second flight, the dove returned to Noah holding an olive leaf in its mouth, indicating to Noah that the trees were no longer submerged in water. A week later, Noah released the dove a third time, and it never again returned, a clear sign that ample sustenance was now available to it outside the Ark.
Midrash Beresheet Rabba, a collection of rabbinic expositions on the text of the Book of Genesis, records an interesting question that was debated by three Sages: from where, exactly, did the dove bring the olive tree leaf that it carried back to Noah? Rabbi Abba bar Kahana maintains that the leaf came from a tree branch in the Land of Israel. Rabbi Levi claims that the leaf was taken from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Rabbi Bevai, by contrast, holds that the dove gained access to the Garden of Eden and managed to bring Noah an olive leaf from there. Rabbi Abahu notes that this is a rather unimpressive item to convey from the Garden of Eden, filled, as it was, with every sort of exotic tree and delicious fruit. He observes that there is message hidden in this quaint selection – better to depend on the graciousness of God and receive a bitter olive leaf than to depend on human charity, however luxurious its gifts.
This Midrash presents us with a number of difficulties. First, we must wonder why this rather trivial question troubled the rabbis so much – why was it important to trace the source of the olive leaf to begin with? Moreover, what moved our Sages to offer solutions that sound so fanciful and bizarre, leading us all the way to Israel or to Eden? The most basic problem, however, was already noted by the Ramban in his commentary on the Parasha: If it is true that the dove brought the leaf from Israel, or from the Garden of Eden – places that remained untouched by the Flood – then how was that supposed to prove anything to Noah about the habitability of the earth’s surface? The Torah tells us that, when he saw the leaf, Noah realized that dry land was beginning to appear where there had once been flood water, that the period of destruction was coming to an end. But if the olive tree from which the leaf was taken was not in an area affected by the Deluge, then the test would have been totally invalid!
The fact that the Midrashic reading of the story cannot be reconciled with its simple meaning suggests that the comments of the rabbis here were never intended to be taken literally. We must look beyond the superficial sense of their expositions in order to grasp the lesson they wished to teach us about the story of Noah.
Before we delve into their interpretations, however, let us consider what it was about the narrative that attracted the attention of the Sages to begin with. What problem in the text were they trying to solve? The Torah recounts that when Noah saw the dove with the olive leaf in its mouth, “Noah knew that the water had begun to subside from the face of the earth.” We can easily understand why the final flight of the dove was noteworthy – the fact that it did not return proved to Noah that it was time to prepare to exit the ark. But why was the second journey of the dove important? Clearly, whatever knowledge Noah gained from its return had no practical impact, since the flood waters were still too high to allow him to move forward. So what does the Torah add by telling us that, when he saw the dove with the olive leaf, “Noah knew that the waters had begun to subside?”
It seems that this apparently “unnecessary” detail in the Torah’s account is what inspired the Rabbis of the Midrash to seek a “justification” for its inclusion in the story. Recognizing Noah as a prophet of Hashem and therefore a person whose thoughts, actions, and development were rooted in a profound grasp of the Divine plan, they assumed that whatever Noah “realized” at the moment he saw the olive leaf must have been something of tremendous significance. What was it?
Noah is an extremely important transitional figure who straddles two eras of human history. In many ways, Noah is a kind of a “second Adam.” He is charged with “classifying” the animals and tending to them, he witnesses a recurrence of the Creation story scene wherein the earth is covered with water that then gradually subsides and allows for animals, then humans, to inhabit it, and he is commanded to be fruitful and multiply, repopulating the land with his descendants. Even his eventual downfall is reminiscent of that of Adam – he imbibes an excess of wine (a kind of “forbidden fruit”, so to speak), his nakedness is exposed (as the first man and woman “discovered” their nakedness after eating from the fruit of the tree), and blessings and curses are issued in the aftermath of the debacle.
At the same time, Noah’s life and mission point forward to Avraham and Moshe. He spends forty days and nights inside a boat, which evokes associations to Moshe who spent forty days and nights on Mount Sinai and who was likewise saved from the waters of the Nile in a tiny boat also called a “teva.” Noah is the first person in the Torah who receives laws and ordinances for the proper governance of society just like Moshe would receive for the Jewish people many generations later. Finally, Noah enters into a covenant with Hashem on behalf of himself and his descendants, much like Avraham would in the future (and indeed, many Midrashim compare, contrast, and link Noah and Avraham in this and numerous other ways.)
In other words, Noah embodies elements of the “old world” as well as the new. He can be perceived as a throwback to the period of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when individual human beings in the “state of nature” sought to comprehend the will of God on their own, so they could live in harmony with His wisdom. After all, he too was fiercely independent, bucking the selfish, corrupt, and idolatrous trends of his age and committing himself to serve the Almighty in truth. On the other hand, Noah can also be seen as the founder of civilization, the first to make a conscious attempt to organize human life on a communal level and to shape it into a collective that would be governed by laws and regulated by earthly authorities. In this sense, he paves the way to Avraham Avinu and Moshe Rabbenu, who would work to establish not just an orderly and non-chaotic society but a Godly one steeped in and guided by knowledge of the Creator.
The discussion in the Midrash beautifully reflects the complexity of Noah’s identity and mission, and how he may have seen himself in the context of the unfolding Divine plan. The appearance of the olive leaf sent Noah the hopeful message that the world was in the process of returning to its normal state, that there was reason to be optimistic about its future. What, though, was the source of the optimism that was awakened within Noah in particular at that moment?
Rabbi Abba bar Kahana explains that the olive leaf, which symbolized the end of the Flood, was encouraging to Noah because it meant that the prospect of building a Godly society was once again in play. That society is symbolized in the Midrash by the Land of Israel which “transcended” the Flood, and would one day be occupied by “the kingdom of priests and holy nation”, the descendants of Avraham Avinu.
Rabbi Bevai argues that Noah’s epiphany was his realization that, despite the destruction wrought by the Flood, some vestige of the Garden of Eden had still survived, that the dream of restoring the utopian ideal of a harmonious natural life guided by Divine Wisdom could still be achieved. According to this view, expressed in several other Midrashim and championed by many of our early commentators, the perfect state of human existence will only ultimately be realized in a renewed Garden of Eden, where individuals are drawn internally after God’s will as a matter of course, without rules, regulations or compulsion. We are not currently worthy or capable of that kind of life but we pray we will one day have the privilege of experiencing it.
This interpretation of Rabbi Bevai is supported by the comments of Rabbi Abahu. The dove brought back something bitter from the Garden of Eden, as if to say – better to rely upon the Creator, to live naturally and freely in accordance with His will and to receive sustenance from His bounty, than to be subjugated to, and dependent upon, the supervision, management, or good graces of human beings, however sweet their gifts may taste.
We are left, however, with one final question. Rabbi Levi holds that the olive leaf came from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. How is that different from what Rabbi Abba bar Kahana suggests? After all, Jerusalem, too, is in Israel!
I believe that the answer lies in the particular significance attached to the Mount of Olives in the writings of our Prophets. Pivotal moments leading up to the ultimate redemption, including the final judgment of the End of Days and the Resurrection of the Dead (as described in the Books of Zechariah and Daniel, respectively) take place on the Mount of Olives, marking the beginning of the Messianic Era.
According to Rabbi Levi, then, Noah was not reassured by the vision of a single holy nation that would one day be established from among his offspring in the Land of Israel. That would be but a partial success, involving only a small segment of mankind, and leaving much critical work unfinished. Noah’s yearning, instead, was for a fully redeemed global community, for a time when all of humanity, Jewish and non-Jewish, would be united in the recognition and service of the Almighty.
Knowledge that the potential for this had not been decimated by the flood, and that he would be instrumental, if only remotely, in bringing it to fulfillment, was a source of inspiration, encouragement and resolve to Noah as he set about the challenging work of rebuilding the world and reconstituting humanity. The abatement of the Flood restored his hope that his descendants would, one day, find favor in Hashem’s eyes, just as he had.
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