We read in the Torah that as the Flood ends, and Noah’s family again are on dry land but in a vastly changed landscape: “And G-d blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill up the earth’” (Genesis 9:1).
This reiterates the commandment given to the first humans (Genesis 1:28), on which the Ramban (Rabbi Moses Nachmanides, 1194-c. 1270) comments:
“He blesses them that they should fill up the entire earth and the nations should separate into their families at the ends of the earth in their majority, and they would not be in one place, as was the thought of the people of the generation of the dispersion.”
The Ramban’ssuggestion implies that the commandment’sintended purposewas not achieved until the great dispersion of the Tower of Babel, 340 years after the Flood (Genesis 11).
What was that purpose? How and why was it frustrated for so long? To understand, we must consider what happened during the Creation:
Before the universe began, every place and everything was filled with the Divine Presence (Shechinah). To make the universe, it was first necessary to create “space,” a chalal, an apparent vacuum which G-d could fill.
Creation was initiated by an act of tzimtzum, a Divine “contraction,” in order that space might exist to be filled with the material structures making up the universe as we perceive it.
This tzimtzumwas also necessary so humanity could have scope to act. Were the Shechinah’ssupernal light always before us, there could be no true freedom of choice, and therefore no reason to reward fulfilling the Divine will. It had to be contracted and hidden from view (indeed, the root meaning of “olam,” “world,” is “concealed”).
Into the resultingchalal, “nothingness,” the Creator planted the “seed” of yesh, “something-ness” (if I may coin a word) which grew to fill it.
We may say that the physical universe came about through a process of chillul Ha-Shem(conventionally translated “desecration of [G-d’s] Name”), if we understand chillul to mean the literal “hollowing out” of Ha-Shem from what would become the universe.
Rabbi Chaim ben Yitzchok of Volozhin (1749-1821) is author of the “Ruach Chayyim”(“Road of Life”) commentaryon Pirke Avot (Sayings of the Sages).
His comments on Avot 4:4 lends support to this idea, citing the Jewish mystical text the “Zohar” (“Splendor” or “Radiance,” 13th century Spain):
“‘(The Sabbath’s) desecrators’ (mechalleleha) means ‘hollow’ (chalul), for all the earth is filled with His glory, and in a place in which a transgression is made, He removes His presence and a space is made.”
Into this world “emptied” of the Shechinah, at the final stage of Creation come humans, made “in the likeness (or image) of G-d.”What does that mean?
The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat133b) tells us Abba Sha’ul’s explanation that we should “be similar to Him: Just as He is gracious and merciful, so you be gracious and merciful.”
That humans are created in the image of G-d grants them this potential and obligates them to engage in imitating G-d. As the physical structures here below reflect metaphysical structures in the world Above, so are humans G-d’s representatives here below.
Hence, the Ramban’scomment: If the world had been emptied of the Shechinah so that the world can come into existence, then humanity’s duty is to refill it with a reflection of the Shechinah, the image of G-din the form of people. The blessing and imperative of “fruitful multiplying”meant “that they should fill up the earth…at the ends of the earth.”
But the commandmentwas to fill it with peoplewho were truly in the image of G-d, gracious and merciful. The “Séfer ha-Chinnuch”(“Book of Education,” 13th century Spain)says:
“Amongst the roots of this commandment is (the necessity) that the world be settled, for Ha-Shem…desires that it be settled, as it is written: ‘Not (for) chaos did He create it, to be inhabited He formed it’ (Isaiah 45:18); and it is a great commandment, for through it are all the commandmentsfulfilled in the world, for they were given to human beings….”
We see that “fruitful multiplying” is a necessary first step to observance and fulfillment of the other commandments. It follows that those who are enjoined to fill the world must observe those commandments, engaging in the imitation of G-dthat they might be true images of G-d.
However: “And the earth was corrupted and filled with chamas” (Genesis 6:11). The commentary of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164)defines chamas as“robbery and strife and also the taking of women by force.” The commentator Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki, 1040-1105), following Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin108a, adds idolatry.
Though people multiplied and filled the earth, they were not gracious and merciful. Rather than filling the world with the likenessof the Shechinah, they emptied it further. The concealed Shechinah implied by the word olamtruly disappeared.
So the Floodended the experiment’s first phase. The earthly “laboratory” cleared, G-d again issued the commandment.
But the survivors also sought to frustrate the Divine purpose revealed by the Ramban. They multiplied, but refused to fill the earth. They sought to remain in one place, leaving the rest to chaos.
So G-d enforced their separation and distribution by creating the linguistic confusion which has reigned ever since.
The program of human development continued, resulting in Avraham, who sought out the Creator and thus restored the form of a humanas a likeness of G-d.
And so we, Avraham’s descendants and heirs, have been scattered among every nation of the world.
To the extent that we fulfill the commandmentof filling the earth with the likeness of G-d, we pave the way for the day when, the earth having again been prepared, our long exile will end, the Templewill be rebuilt, and the Shechinahwill once again be manifest in the world.
Rabbi Avner Zarmi of Shorewood is vice president of the Midwest region of Agudath Israel of America.
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