Answers to this Week’s Riddles
(For the questions, please see second to back page)
1) The Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer (Perek 23) writes: When Noach was in the teivah he would daven: “Creator of the Universe, please get me out of here, as I am tired and fed up with the smell of the lions, bears and leopards.” We see that in the teivah the lions omitted a very bad smell.
On the other hand, we find by Doniel that when he was thrown into the lion’s den he didn’t have to suffer from the bad smell. The Medrash (Bereishis Rabosi, Vayechi 49, 9) teaches: “What did the lions do? They dug their mouths into the ground, so that Doniel wouldn’t need to suffer from their foul smell.” We see that Doniel didn’t have to suffer from the bad smell of the lions, and on the contrary, the lions did what they could to stop the foul smell being omitted from their mouths.
The question is, what did Noach do wrong, in order that he needed to suffer from this? The commentary Veloi Oid Ela on the Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer asks this question and he answers: Since Noach sinned by being a simple person in his generation – and he didn’t punish his generation for doing the wrong thing, he had to be punished. To atone for this, Hashem punished him my making him suffer from the bad smell of the lions and bears.” (This riddle has been adapted from the sefer Pikudecha Dorashti, written by R’ Eliyohu Schlesinger, and is le’iluy nishmas his father R’ Menachem Aryeh Schlesinger, the mechaber of the set of seforim called Ayil Meshulash.)
2) i) The Ramban answers: This was a special miracle, and the miracle was that a small space managed to hold a lot (מיעוט מחזיק את המרובה). This is also the answer Rabbeinu Bechayah gives.
However, the Ran (Pirush Al HaTorah, Bereishis 6:14-15) asks that there is a Medrash (Rabbah 5:7) which lists all the cases of, “where a small space, managed to hold a lot” and the teivah of Noach isn’t mentioned there, so it seems that in the teivah there wasn’t such a miracle, if so, how was there space for everything?
ii) The Ran suggests that the animals were brought in when they were very small, and therefore there was space. Additionally, since they were very small, they didn’t need so much food. This helps answer how the food could fit into the teivah. Another advantage of young small animals was that when the mabul [flood] ended and the animals were let out, they had a long life ahead of them to recreate and rebuild the world.
iii) The Ran suggests another answer, that perhaps Noach was very tall and the measurements of the teivah given in the Torah were according to Noach’s size, which is much bigger than what we are accustomed to. The Ibn Ezra also answers like this.
