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Parshas Noach
Hashem said to Noach that the Mabul would happen because all living beings destroyed their way
Chazal tell us that even plants were immoral. The influence of the people spread so far, even to the plants, because the people were so immoral.
R’ Elya Lopian said about his times when the Haskala was so prevalent (approx. 75 years ago) , that the influence of Haskala negatively affected all kinds of people. In fact, in a conversation that I had with an “alter mirrer”, R’ Moshe Pivovitz, R' Moshe was delighted that the “Yetzer Hora of seforim chitzonim” and haskala went away because it was pervasive.
In our times,the nisayon that is so prevalent and strong is technology.
R’ Elya Lopian applies the possuk “על זאת יתפלל כל חסיד לעת מצו א “ About this every chosid should daven, when he is challenged.
חז"ל say that in the first 2,000 years after creation, there was no תורה. The next 2,000 years starting with אברהם and שרה being מגייר many people are called 2,000 years of תורה because אברהם and שרה spread the idea of ה' and were מגייר many people (“ ואת הנפש אשר עשו בחרן”). The question is, since there was already a place for learning תורה in existence during the first 2,000 years, the ישיבה of שם ועבר , why is the world said to not have contained תורה in that period?
R’ Gruskin (חיים של שלמה) answers that the ישיבה was private, limited to those who came on their own to seek ה', whereas אברהם and שרה reached out to the larger society, creating a world with תורה.
The lesson for us is clear: we must reach out to others with תורה to make the world full of “דעה את ה'”
The lion in the Teiva hit Noach because Noach was late to feed him. Noach had been feeding him every day and was late only this once. It seems strange that Hashem would allow the lion to injure him for that.
Rav Dessler explains that Chesed was the antidote of “Chomos” – stealing, which was the sin of that generation which contributed in a major way to the need for the world to be destroyed. Chesed, as the antidote to the sickness of Chomos needed to be practiced in the Teivah on a high level of purity and mesirus nefesh to counterbalance the poisonous effects of the sly and pervasive Chomos practiced before the Mabul. Even a slight slacking off, therefore, took on what would otherwise have seem to be a disproportionate importance, but disproportionate it was not. We see that a high level of Chesed can undo a great deal of hurt.
May we merit undoing a lot of hurt.
All learning should be a zechus for a refuah shelaimah for Yosef Ezriel Ben Chaya Michal