"Be Fruitful and Multiply"
STUDENT SUMMARIES OF SICHOT OF THE ROSHEI YESHIVA
PARASHAT
NOACH
GUEST SICHA OF
Be Fruitful and
Multiply
Adapted by
Translated by
One of the questions that arises from our parasha is why God
repeats the command to be fruitful and multiply to Noach, after the same
command had already been given to Adam.
The Meshekh Chokhma writes that the mitzva of procreation does not
obligate women, since pregnancy and childbirth are difficult sometimes
(especially in former times) even life-threatening. In addition, we know that women
generally feel an instinctive inner desire to bear children; the Torah need not
command her to be a mother.
However, in the creation of mankind we read, God blessed them
(!): Be fruitful and multiply, suggesting that the command was given to both
Adam and Chava.
The Meshekh Chokhma goes on to explain that at the time of
Creation, Be fruitful and multiply was indeed addressed to both Adam and
Chava, but after the Flood the command was given only to Noach (and his sons)
but not to his wife. Why, when the
world was created anew after the Flood, was woman not commanded to bear
children, while in the original Creation she had been so commanded?
In the Garden of Eden, the Meshekh Chokhma explains, childbirth
involved no pain and no travail, and for this reason woman was also party to the
obligation to bear children. After
the sin, the woman was punished with the burden, In sorrow shall you give birth
to children, and therefore only man is commanded and not his wife, because it
is impossible to obligate a woman to endanger herself in order to give
birth.
The Meshekh Chokhma brings a further reason for why woman is not
commanded to bear children.
According to Torah law, a man may be married to more than one wife, but a
woman may be married to only one man.
If the woman were obligated to bear children, it would lead to anguish
and heartbreak. Why
so?
In our times, when a couple is not able to bear children, there are all
sorts of fertility treatments that are available, or the couple may decide to
adopt a child in any event, the couple does not usually resort to
divorce. Until about a century ago,
however, the couple would often divorce: not because they no longer loved each
other, but in order to be able to bear children through marriage to someone
else. The Meshekh Chokhma
explains that if a woman was obligated to bear children, and her husband was
infertile, then since she could not take another husband, she would be forced to
divorce him, and the Torah does not seek to destroy families. For a husband whose wife is barren, the
option (according to Torah law, before the enactment of Rabbeinu Gershom) exists
for him to take another wife, and thus his obligation to bear children does not
lead to a situation whereby the couple is forced to divorce. The man may remain married to his barren
wife, while bearing children from another wife.
This explains why an additional command to be fruitful and multiply,
addressed to Noach but not to his wife, was needed after the Flood. (However, in the Garden of Eden, none of
the above reasoning applied, because God gave them a blessing and not a command
of fruitfulness, and because Adam and Eve couldnt marry anyone else in any
case.)
We may perhaps suggest another answer. Our question is based on the assumption
that God commanded Adam and Chava to bear children, and that this command
remained valid and needed no reiteration.
However, the two commands may be understood as two completely different
obligations.
The command to Adam
was given in Gan Eden, an ideal physical and spiritual environment, and hence an
altogether suitable background to a command that the world should continue to
exist and that procreation is necessary.
In the generation of the Flood, in view of the complete corruption of man
and the world, and the destruction which this had caused, the question could
well arise whether children should be brought into a world that had reached such
a state. Perhaps the command
originally given in the primeval, ideal Garden of Eden was no longer valid.
Yet the answer is
clear: even in our grey, mixed-up world there must be procreation, because that
is how our world is structured. Our
world is not the Garden of Eden, but despite all the difficulties God commands
us to survive and to maintain ourselves and the world.
According to Rashi, marital relations were prohibited throughout the
period of imprisonment in the Ark.
Hence, we may also explain that God commanded Noach to be fruitful and
multiply after emerging from the Ark because marital relations had been
prohibited and were now permitted.
At the same time, in light of the above, we may explain that in the Ark
it was not at all clear that childbirth was necessary or desirable. Immediately upon emerging, however,
Gods command once again made it clear that man is obligated to maintain and
perpetuate life, despite the darker aspects of the world that we
inhabit.
(This sicha was delivered on Shabbat parashat Noach 5763
[2003].)