Noach, Prayer & Overturning Midat HaDin

Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha

It has been a brutal week in Israel, with numerous terrorist attacks occurring throughout the country and the death of over 20 IDF soldiers in both Gaza and Lebanon. As Avishag Harai wailed during her heartrending eulogy for her brother Malachi (a wonderful 21-year-old young man from my Yishuv): “We are all in desperate need of redemption!”.

Sharing this sentiment, and aching with pain for all these losses, I turned to the Torah for guidance and comfort, and while doing so, I found myself exploring the Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 73:3) which is the source of Rashi’s commentary to Bereishit 8:1.

Before I delve into the Midrash it is first important to recall how the biblical name Elohim is understood by our Sages as reflecting episodes when God operates with midat hadin (the trait of divine judgement), while the Tetragrammaton reflects episodes when God operates with midat harachamim (the trait of divine mercy). Accordingly, the use of the divine name Elohim in Bereishit 8:1 while speaking of the subsidence of the flood waters and the saving of Noach, his family, and the animals from the flood, is understood by our Sages to be of great significance – and this then prompts Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachman to proclaim: ‘Praiseworthy are the righteous [whose prayers] overturn (hofchim) midat hadin to midat harachamim’.

What this statement seems to suggest is that while most of humanity were destroyed in the flood (whose occurrence was an expression of midat hadin/divine judgement), Noach’s heartfelt prayers influenced God to operate with midat harachamim/divine mercy which subsequently enabled him, his family, and the animals on the ark to be saved.

However, while considering this Midrash, Rabbi Yitzchak Rosenblatt (Chedvat Yotzer, Parshat Toldot, p. 61) raises an important question: Why does the Midrash say that the righteous overturn (hofchim) midat hadin to midat harachamim? Surely, it would have been more appropriate to say that prayers of the righteous annul midat hadin while they generate midat harachamim?!

Rabbi Rosenblatt answers his question by touching on a deep idea, that once God makes a decree, the divine energy invested in that decree cannot be totally cancelled. However, it can be inverted or redirected (nb. I believe that this stands in direct contrast to the decrees of the Babylonian and Persian kings who, once they made a decree, could not revoke or redirect what they had said – see for example Esther 8:8).

Interestingly, Rabbi Rosenblatt finds proof of this concept in Yevamot 64a which seeks to interpret the word vaye’etar (which is the term used in Bereishit 25:21 to describe the prayers of Yitzchak for his wife Rivka) whose root, eter, means a pitchfork. There we read: ‘Rabbi Yitzchak said: Why are the prayers of the righteous compared to a pitchfork (eter)?... Just as a pitchfork overturns (m’hapech) produce from one place to another, so the prayer of the righteous overturns (m’hapechet) the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed be He, from the trait of anger to the trait of mercy.’ What we see from here is that the power of prayer is not about ‘annulling’, but about ‘overturning’.

As it happens this is not the first time I have come across this concept. Instead, some years ago while I was exploring the Yamim Noraim prayers I learnt the Taz’s commentary to Orach Chaim 622 on the words of Avinu Malkeinu, where we ask that God, ‘tear up all our bad judgements’ (Kera Roa Gzar Dineinu). Explaining this line, the Taz explains that we are asking God to, ‘tear up the bad in the decree, and invert what is left in the decree for our benefit and mercy’.

To further bring home this point, the Taz then references Sanhedrin 89a which quotes Yona 3:4, and which speaks of the city of Ninveh being ‘overturned’ (nehepechet) for the good.

Finally, the Taz references the words of the Yamim Noraim prayers that, ‘through repentance, prayer and charity we can avert the bad of the decree’ and suggests that doing these actions can enable us to overturn a divine decree from bad to good (nb. on this specific point see Beit HaLevi, Drush 14).

Returning to Noach, he was cognizant while he was on the ark with his family and the animals that the midat hadin decree of God was still active. Give this reality Noach then prayed to God and thereby successfully overturned midat hadin to midat harachamim.

Having buried so many of our heroic soldiers this week we are in desperate need of change and redemption. And so, as we approach Parshat Noach, we ask that God remember us as He remembered Noach and his family (see Bereishit 8:1), and overturn any divine decrees of midat hadin to midat harachamim.

Shabbat Shalom & Chodesh Tov.