Rabbi Roodyn

In this week’s sedra we read about the corruption of mankind and the need for Hashem to press the reset button on all of creation.

However it is not exactly clear what their main failing was. The pesukim read as follows:

‘’Now the earth was corrupt before G-d, and the earth became full of robbery. And G-d saw the earth, and behold it had become corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. And G-d said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth has become full of robbery because of them, and behold I am destroying them from the earth.’’

There are two different terms used here השחתה  and גזל, corruption and theft and from the pesukim it is unclear which one was the straw that broke the camel’s back. On the one hand there is general corruption that takes place ‘before G-d’, which would imply that the main issue was between man and G-d. On the other hand it says that the land was full of robbery, about which the Gemara (Sanhedrin 108a) says that their verdict was only sealed because of theft.

In fact there is a Medrash that says that the word  חמס  actually includes all three cardinal sins of idolatry, immorality and murder. If that is the case, then why would Chazal say that theft was the sin that sealed their fate, surely they were guilty of far greater crimes?  To confuse issues further, the pasuk says  ‘Now the earth was corrupt before G-d, and the earth became full of robbery,’ which implies a relationship between theft and this all-encompassing term חמס.

What then is the connection between these two issues?

The Nesivos Shalom explains that this idea of השחתה, corruption, lies at the root of theft. This is because property rights are readily understood by most human beings, theft is generally recognised as a crime in societies across the world. One does not need to have a relationship with Torah to appreciate how wrong it is to take an item that belongs to someone else.

However when a person becomes corrupted, he becomes desensitised to anyone and everything outside of himself. His sole motivation in all that he does, is self-gratification. He sees all other people as being there to serve him and is willing to take from them at all costs. When a person reaches this point, they no longer differentiate between right and wrong and even the most lowly and despicable acts seem like the right thing to do.

This idea is repeated a number of times in the Torah, most notably with the episode of Sodom, where selfishness  becomes institutionalised and even enshrined in law. The people of Sodom are even willing to give up their lives for their values as if it was something holy. Although they have lost the plot, they are do desensitised and deluded  that even the most despicable acts appear normal, right and good.

The Rambam in Hilchos Deos teaches us that in order to correct a middah one needs to go to the opposite extreme. The generation of the flood had become depraved and desensitised to the needs of others, seeing then am as a means for their self-gratification. The only way to rebuild the world is to place Noach and his family in an intensive environment where they have to become sensitive to the needs of others through non stop selfless giving.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been bombarded with news and images of the most evil and graphic acts of murder and violence. Whilst I agree that the world needs to know what the Arab terrorists are doing to our precious brothers and sisters, we have to be aware that these are acts of depravity and corruption. By viewing too many of these scenes we run the risk of becoming desensitised to the enormity of the tragedy that occurs when anyone is even lightly or moderately injured. We should be shocked and pained by each attack as if it was the first, because each and every one is a tragedy in its own right, harming , maiming and even killing real people with real lives and real families, just like you and me.

May we never have to sensitise ourselves to any more attacks and may Hashem spread His protective wings over the entire Jewish nation and bring peace to all mankind.

Wishing us all a Shabbat of Shalom.