NOACH - DERECH ERETZ

January 8, 1995

"On the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windos of the heaven were opened.  And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."    Genesis 7:11

In the Chumash and Gemorah, water is often used as a symbol of instability and destruction.  The sinful generation of Noah was destroyed by a great flood.  Reuven is called 'unstable as water'.  The Gemorah in Chagigah says that when G-d was creating the world, water was about to flood and destroy the world, until G-d said 'Enough!'.  Then the deluge drew back and became confined, thereby saving the world.  The Gemorah in Megillah says that David stood where the Altar of the Temple was to be, and found it was the mouth of the 'tehom', the 'great deep'.  This 'tehom' started rising, ready to overflow and destroy the world until David threw in something with G-d' s name written on it.  The water then receded too far, so David recited the psalms that begin 'Songs of Ascent' until the water was at its correct level.  The Gemorah in Shabbos says that the act of carrying something from place to place cannot begin or end on water, because that is not considered a stable place. 

The Gemorah in Niddah tells the story of two men who were about to go on a profitable business trip, when one of them fell ill.  After his friend departed, the sick man complained bitterly to G-d, asking why he was being punished and being denied the opportunity for making this money.  Then he learned that his partner's ship sank in a storm at sea.  When an object is wet it becomes more susceptible to becoming 'tomay', spiritually impure.  A medresh about Yosef says that water is a symbol for desire, perhaps because of its free-flowing and unbounded nature, and that because Yosef passed the test regarding desire with Potifar's wife, the Red Sea split when it saw Yosef's bones.

In these examples, water represents instability, desire, and destructiveness.  How is it possible, then, that water is also a symbol for Torah, the essence of 'meaning' that G-d looked into before creating the world?  How can water be a symbol for both instability and destruction on one hand, and be a symbol for Torah on the other?  Doesn't that make water into a 'mixed metaphor'? 

Perhaps this dilemma of symbols can be resolved by saying that spiritual growth occurs in several stages.  In the beginning, we find within ourselves a raging, uncontrolled sea of feelings and desires that must be bounded and brought into line.  It is over these primal waters that we thank G-d for building dry land.  Without 'eretz' and a sense of 'mocom' (place) over this turbulence, we and the world are quickly destroyed. 

Once we have land, we can plant seeds in the ground.  The seeds in the ground cannot grow without water.  The entire Messechet Taanis deals with praying for rain to enable the ground to give forth food and permit life to exist.  In Ashray we acknowledge that G-d brings rain in its proper time, and the Shema says that the punishment for sin is drought that destroys life.  After three years of famine, Eliyahu stood on Mount Carmel and his prayers for rain were answered, and the people cried out 'The L-rd He is G-d".  Without rain there is famine, and life shrivels. 

This is the water that is symbolic of Torah.  Both water and Torah are required to sustain life.  But before water can help life grow and flourish, we must have the ground.  We must have a foundation, a bedrock, a place for life to sink its roots into.  Leashing the torrents of emotion and desire, giving it the structure symbolized by land, is a prerequisite stage for enabling the water of Torah to help life grow and flourish. 

Perhaps this is one of the meanings of the phrase 'Derech eretz kadmin le Torah', 'the way of the land precedes Torah'.  There is a primary and essential stage of spiritual growth that involves reining in our primal desires, having 'derech eretz', the way land gives boundaries and shape to the sea, the way one of G-d first acts was to lay a foundation of land on the tumultous waters.  Only with this 'derech eretz' in place can we have stability and a sense of calm required for growth.  Then we can plant our seeds and help them grow with the water of Torah. 

This idea is supported by an interesting hallachah regarding mikveh.  When an object is 'tomay', spiritually impure, is can be put into a mikveh and it becomes 'tahor', spiritually clean.  There are two types of mikvehs.  The first is a hole in the ground that rain falls into, and the second is a river that is fed by an underground spring.   However, during the rainy season when the majority of the water in a river comes from the rain, the river can no longer be used as a mikveh. Perhaps this is because the water that takes away spiritual impurity must at some point be bounded by land.  A pit with rain water is bounded by land, and the spring water that feeds the river was bounded by land before it bubbled up from the ground.  But rainwater that falls directly into a rushing river has never been bounded by land, and therefore has never been stable, and its water cannot take away 'tumeh'. 

We confront two types of water throughout our lives.  The first is the primal, surging torrent of desire that must be bounded to prevent life from quickly destroying itself.  Any society or person that doesn't rein in this primal water will quickly annihilate itself.  At the outset we must establish a bedrock of derech eretz, a foundation of stable land, before we can begin the process of growth.  Derech eretz kadmin le Torah, the way of earth precedes the Torah.  Then we can begin our lives, and plant the seeds in the good earth. Then we can  nourish life with the good water of Torah.