Time is a storm in which we are all lost. ” (William Carlos Williams, Introduction to “Selected Essays”)
I always had a hard time relating to the story of the Flood on a literal level. Why would God want to wipe out all people He created in full knowledge that they would sin? Like it was a surprise for God! God, who exists above time, which He created, has no surprises. Then why to create humanity just to destroy it later? And animals… what was their fault? They have no freedom of choice. They act on instincts hard-wired in their genome as they were created. Why punish them? Lots of questions, few answers. If the Torah says the flood happened, it must have happened. However, the Torah is not a textbook of geology or paleontology. What is teaching us with this story? What is the symbolic significance of the flood?
To me, the story of the flood is the metaphor for time. Water has always served as a metaphor for time. Heraclitus famously said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Marcus Aurelius wrote in his mediations: “Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone.” “The water you touch in a river is the last of that which has passed, and the first of that which is coming. Thus it is with time present,” wrote Leonardo da Vinci. French philosopher Jose Luis Borges writes that “time is a river that sweeps me along.” Ursula Le Guin famously wrote that “story is our only boat for sailing on the river of time.” Flowing water is the best metaphor we have for the flow of time.
The waters of the Flood are called in Hebrew mayim rabbim, i.e., “great waters.” To me, great waters symbolize the passing of time on a grand scale. This is the meaning of the flood killing all living beings – only time kills everything and everyone. As Hector Berlioz wrote, “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” One can only survive turbulent waters of the deluge by not fighting violent current, but staying in the moment and letting the currents take you where they may.
Time is a flowing river. Happy those who allow themselves to be carried, unresisting, with the current. They float through easy days. They live, unquestioning, in the moment.” (Christopher Morley, “Where the Blue Begins”)
The Biblical account of the deluge provide further details strengthenning our metaphor.
…all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” (Gen. 7:11)
The waters coming from below are called in the Zohar feminine waters (mayin nukvin). The waters from above are masculine waters (mayin dukhrin). As the Sefer Yetzirah teaches, Parzuf Ima “Supernal Mother” (Sefirah of Binah), represents the future. Parzuf Aba (Supernal Father) (Sefirah of Chokhmah) represents the past. I think, the Ark, floating between the waters from below and water from above, between future and past, represents the present. Noah with his family and all animals survived the flood in the Ark – this is a metaphor for the fact that one can only live in the present moment. Dreamers who only dream about the future never doing anything about it in the present and those who are stuck in the past are swapped away by the great waters of time. Only those who live in the present survive. The present moment that is infinitesimally short is the portal to eternity.
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in… Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” (Henry David Thoreau, “Walden”)
The cessation of the flood, when waters were wiped away from the earth, symbolized the messianic time when all death will be wiped away forever.
All symbolism aside, according to your explanation the Flood still makes no sense, as you explained above. On top of it, it left no evidence of ever happening. Problems.
Alec, I am very happy to see that you are still reading my posts, although you disagree with them. 🙂 As to your comment, I am not a paleontologist and it’s not for me to opine on the historicity of the flood. I accept it at the face value simply because it is stated so in the Torah. To me, the symbolic and metaphoric meaning is much more interesting. Remember, Torah is not a history book, but it is the book of instructions. So, what interests me most is this — what does Torah trying to teach us with this story? What moral, scientific or other valuable lessons can we derive from this narrative. It is in this vein I offered my metaphorical interpretation of the story of the flood, leaving the peshat to Rashi.
Not one of your more scientific ones here. Do you mean that every second the creative energy is coming into the world so you have to be present in the moment to live in that second? Why do you say Moshiach is shown by the cessation of the waters?
Thank you
Chaya
Right, this post was not meant to be “scientific,” it was meant to offer a novel metaphorical explanation of the story of the flood interpreting turbulent waters as a relentless onslaught of time. According to the presentist philosophy of time, only present is real — the future has not happened yet, and the past is gone. Jewish thought agrees with the presentist philosophy of time. For example, Saadia Gaon wrote, “He’avar ayin, Vehe’atid adayin, Hahoveh keheref ayin…” — “The past is not, the future aught, the present just a flitting thought…”
Initially, Adam and Chavah were created to live forever. It was their primordial sin that brought death into the world. Time kills all living beings. In my metaphor of water symbolizing time, the flood symbolizes the deadly onslaught of time killing all. The cessation of waters marking the end of the flood symbolizes the disappearance of death, which is going to happen in the messianic time with the world returning to its pristine state as in the Garden of Eden.
Nice take on the ark, living in the present! But does that (how?) answer your opening questions?
Your point is well-taken — it doesn’t. The opening questions exist on the literal level (peshat). I don’t have answers to these questions. These questions forced me to look for a deeper meaning. I thought, if Torah says the flood happened, I accept, of course, that it did happen. However, what is the Torah trying to tell us here, what does it teach us? In my metaphoric explanation (on the level of remez), these questions don’t arise. Remez does not replace peshat and does not compete with it. It doesn’t answer the questions that exist on the level of peshat. But if this interpretation avoids difficult questions, so much the better.