Letters of Light. Kalonymus Kalman Epstein

Letters of Light - Kalonymus Kalman Epstein


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Maʾor va-shemesh, I, 3a.

      No’ah

      The First Man repaired all the beasts and the animals by assigning names to them, as is written, “(And the Lord God formed out of the earth all the wild beasts and all the birds of the sky,) and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; (and whatever the man called each living creature, that would be its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts . . .” Gen 2:19–20).

      Comment: In Hasidic texts, Noah often emerges in quite a negative light. He is contrasted to Abraham who pleaded with God on behalf of the cities of the plain (Gen 18:22–33), whereas regarding Noah, the biblical account itself includes no mention of his protesting God’s bringing a flood to destroy the rest of life on earth (Gen 6:11–22). But Maʾor va-shemesh, following a precedent in the Zohar, compared Noah, instead, to Adam, and consequently Noah emerges not only as a significantly more positive figure, but as one with mythic connotations.

      In this homily, both Adam and Noah engaged in tikkun (repair). Kalonymus Kalman viewed Adam’s act of tikkun in regard to animals as much more superficial in nature, as it was accomplished simply by Adam’s assigning names to all the various animals (Gen 2:19–20). Noah, in contrast, took the animals with him into the ark. And the homilist explained that it is for this reason that Noah and his descendents, unlike the earlier generations, were permitted to eat the flesh of animals.

      Noah’s taking his assortment of animals and birds and the like into the ark which he had built acquires also a symbolic dimension, that of bringing everything that comprises the world within the realm of the holy. This is viewed, in the passage, as Noah’s work of cosmic repair. And in its view of man as containing within himself all that is in the world, the homily reflects, in its own way, the conception of man as a microcosm, a miniature replica of the entire world.

      Kalonymus Kalman echoed this concept in that through man’s repentance, all is repaired; the fallen Sparks within all aspects of reality are lifted up and redeemed, allowing for a unification of all that exists. That conception expresses a sense of the complexity of the human being who is understood as including all levels of the larger reality in which he lives, including inert nature and plant and animal-life—all these are viewed as being part of the human being. (Although the Kraków master and those whose interpretations influenced him had no awareness of the theory of evolution, the reader might overhear an


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