By Rabbi Moshe Pogrow
The word shicheis denotes ruin and corruption. A mashchis is one who obstructs progress, who turns success into failure. The word shachas, pit, comes from the same root. One who digs such a pit does not intend it for good, for storage—rather, his intention is to place an obstacle in someone’s path and stop him from reaching his destination. This is why the expression shicheis is usually connected to the word derech. Hashcheis typically means to be stopped, or to fall on the way. Hashchis derech assumes that a path in life leads to moral welfare, with hashchasa a pit dug in that path.
One symptom of the moral decay of Noach’s generation was chamas, theft that cannot be recovered through legal proceedings. One who perpetrates chamas cannot be penalized by a human court, but if committed over and over again, chamas gradually leads to the ruin of one’s fellow man. The pasuk says “The earth was corrupt before the face of G-d, and the earth was filled with wrongdoing.” In the destruction, moral corruption came first—sins that civic society is not concerned with. People think that even if the young are immoral and married life has deteriorated, commerce can still thrive and business can proceed. But once the world is corrupt before G-d, no law or institution will be able to save society from itself.
The world will never be full of gezel, outright robbery, for society has penal codes and prison terms to protect itself from such crimes. But chamas, wrongdoing facilitated by cunning, destroys a society. There is no protection against chamas if the thief's conscience does not bother him. Moral corruption destroys the conscience, and with it, the welfare of society.
When Hashem tells Noach “the end of all flesh has come before me,” it could mean “man has sunk so low that I am forced to put an end to them.” A more likely interpretation, however, would be, “if I do not intervene, the end will come of its own accord—i.e., the end of all flesh has already come before me.” The automatic consequence of hishchis kol basar es darko was that the keitz came upon them. Had G-d not stepped in, even Noach would have been lost.
This would also explain the use of the word “mipneihem.” Mipnei always means to draw back out of fear or submission. Accordingly, we should interpret: the end of all flesh has come before Me. If its present state of affairs were to continue, mankind would have no future, for mipneihem, in fear of them, the earth is already full of chamas. The earth is concealing its bounty from man, lest that bounty be used to support immorality, robbery and murder.
G-d says to Noach: In view of these circumstances, I am about to destroy them. Destruction is what they need. It is not annihilation, but destruction for the sake of salvation.
Based on the commentary of Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch zt”l on Chumash, with permission from the publisher.
