📜 Daily Chumash & Rashi – Parshas Noach Sheiyni: The final instructions given days before the flood

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Sheiyni

1. The final instructions given days before the flood:

• Hashem instructed Noach to bring himself and his family into the ark seven days before the flood.
• Animals: Seven pairs of male and female animals and birds of every Kosher species is to enter the Teiva. [Seven male and their wives.] From the impure animals take two of every species, a male and his wife.
• The flood would last for 40 days and nights.
• Noach was 600 years old at the time.
• Noach did as he was instructed. He and his family, Noach and his wife, Sheim and Cham and Yefes and their three wives, entered the Teiva. The animal pairs entered the Teiva.

2. The flood:

• After the passing of seven days, on the 17^th of the 2^nd month [Marcheshvan] the torrential rain began, and the depths of the earth began to shoot forth water. The rain lasted 40 days and nights.

Q&A on Rashi

 

1. Why did Hashem tell Noach to enter the Teivah?
   Answer: Because Hashem saw that Noach was righteous in his generation.
2. Why does the Torah say only “tzaddik” here and not “tzaddik tamim”?
   Answer: We mention only part of a person’s praise in his presence.
3. How many pure animals was Noach commanded to take?
   Answer: Seven pairs.
4. How many non-kosher animals was Noach commanded to take?
   Answer: One pair.
5. Why were seven pairs of pure animals needed?
   Answer: So Noach could offer sacrifices after leaving the Teivah.
6. What does the term “pure animals” teach about Noach?
   Answer: That he learned Torah and knew the distinction between pure and impure animals.
7. How many pure birds was Noach commanded to take?
   Answer: Seven pairs.
8. Why were the birds taken in greater numbers?
   Answer: For the preservation of their species and future sacrifices.
9. How many more days remained before the Flood began?
   Answer: Seven days.
10. What were those seven days?
    Answer: The mourning period for Mesushelach.
11. Why did Hashem delay the Flood for seven days?
    Answer: Out of honor for Mesushelach the righteous.
12. What does the word “od” (more) teach?
    Answer: That these seven days were in addition to the 120 years already given for repentance.
13. For how long would it rain?
    Answer: Forty days and forty nights.
14. Why specifically forty days?
    Answer: Corresponding to the forty days of a child’s formation.
15. What had the generation corrupted that warranted this punishment?
    Answer: Human reproduction through immorality.
16. What did Noach do after receiving Hashem’s command?
    Answer: Exactly as Hashem commanded.
17. To what does “Noach did so” refer here?
    Answer: Entering the Teivah.
18. How old was Noach when the Flood came?
    Answer: Six hundred years old.
19. Who entered the Teivah with Noach?
    Answer: His sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives.
20. Why are the men listed separately from the women?
    Answer: Marital relations were forbidden while the world was in distress.
21. Why were marital relations prohibited during the Flood?
    Answer: Because the world was suffering.
22. What does Rashi say about Noach’s faith regarding the Flood?
    Answer: He believed and yet did not fully believe it would come.
23. What caused Noach finally to enter the Teivah?
    Answer: The rising waters pushed him in.
24. Which animals came to the Teivah?
    Answer: Pure animals, impure animals, birds, and all creeping creatures.
25. How did the animals arrive at the Teivah?
    Answer: They came on their own.
26. How many of each species entered the Teivah?
    Answer: At least one male and one female.
27. What happened after the seven days ended?
    Answer: The waters of the Flood came upon the earth.
28. In which year of Noach’s life did the Flood begin?
    Answer: The 600th year.
29. On what day did the Flood begin?
    Answer: The seventeenth day of the second month.
30. Which month is called the second month according to Rabbi Eliezer?
    Answer: Marcheshvan.
31. Which month is called the second month according to Rabbi Yehoshua?
    Answer: Iyar.
32. What happened to the fountains of the deep?
    Answer: They burst open.
33. What happened to the windows of heaven?
    Answer: They were opened.
34. Why were the fountains opened?
    Answer: To release their waters.
35. How was the punishment measure for measure?
    Answer: They sinned with great wickedness and were punished through the “great deep.”
36. What initially fell from heaven?
    Answer: Rain.
37. Why does the Torah first call it rain and later call it a Flood?
    Answer: It began as merciful rain in case they repented.
38. What would the rains have become had they repented?
    Answer: Blessing.
39. Why did the rains become a Flood?
    Answer: Because the generation did not repent.
40. How long did the rain continue?
    Answer: Forty days and forty nights.
41. What is unique about the first day of rain?
    Answer: It is not counted among the forty because its night was not included.
42. Who entered the Teivah on the very day the Flood began?
    Answer: Noach, his family, and the animals.
43. Why does the Torah stress “on that very day”?
    Answer: To show that Noach entered openly before everyone.
44. What had the people claimed they would do?
    Answer: Break the Teivah and kill Noach.
45. How did Hashem respond to their threats?
    Answer: He brought Noach into the Teivah publicly.
46. What types of creatures entered the Teivah?
    Answer: Every species of animal, bird, and creeping creature.
47. What does “every bird of every wing” include?
    Answer: Even grasshoppers.
48. What does “wing” mean in this context?
    Answer: Any type of feathered creature.
49. How many entered from each species?
    Answer: Male and female pairs.
50. What type of creatures entered the Teivah?
    Answer: All flesh that possessed the breath of life.
51. Who commanded the animals to enter?
    Answer: Hashem.
52. Did the animals obey the command?
    Answer: Yes.
53. What did Hashem do after everyone entered?
    Answer: He shut the Teivah.
54. What is one interpretation of “Hashem shut him in”?
    Answer: Hashem protected Noach from the people.
55. How did Hashem protect Noach according to the Midrash?
    Answer: He surrounded the Teivah with bears and lions.
56. What happened to those who attacked?
    Answer: The animals killed them.
57. What is the simple meaning of “Hashem shut him in”?
    Answer: He sealed the Teivah against the waters.
58. What does the word “ba’ado” generally mean in Scripture?
    Answer: In protection of or on behalf of.
59. Why was Hashem’s protection necessary?
    Answer: To keep Noach safe from both the Flood and the wicked generation.
60. What lesson is learned from the animals coming by themselves?
    Answer: Hashem directed creation to obey His command.

Bonus

61. What remarkable lesson does Rashi learn from the fact that the rain began as ordinary rain?
    Answer: Even at the last moment, Hashem gave the generation an opportunity to repent. Had they changed their ways, the destructive Flood would have become rains of blessing.