Divine Depression Romemu Beit Midrash

The Sages taught the following baraita: For two and a half years, Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed. These say: It would have been preferable had humans not been created than to have been created. And those said: It is preferable for humans to have been created than had he not been created. Ultimately, they were counted and concluded: It would have been preferable had humans not been created than to have been created. However, now that he has been created, he should scrutinize his actions....

The LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time. And the LORD regretted that He had made humans on earth, and His heart was saddened. The LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans whom I created—humans together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.” But Noah found favor with the LORD.

And he was grieved to his heart: The following extract from the Midrash Rabbah I am writing in order that you may know how to refute the arguments of certain heretics: A gentile once asked Rabbi Joshua, the son of Korcha, saying to him, “Do you not admit that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows what is to happen in the future?” He replied, “Yes.” The gentile retorted, “But is it not written ‘and He was grieved in His heart’?” He answered: “Have you ever had a son born to you?” The reply was “Yes.” He asked (the gentile): “And what did you do?” He replied: “I rejoiced and I made others rejoice also.” The Rabbi asked him: “But did you not know that he must die?” The heathen replied: “At the time of joy, let there be joy, at the time of mourning let there be mourning”. The Rabbi then said: “Such, too, is the way of the Holy One, blessed be He: although it was clear to Him that in the end men would sin and would be destroyed, He did not refrain from creating them for the sake of the righteous men who were to issue from them” (Genesis Rabbah 27:4).

(4) For in seven days’ time I will make it rain upon the earth, forty days and forty nights, and I will blot out from the earth all existence that I created.” (5) And Noah did just as the LORD commanded him. (6) Noah was six hundred years old when the Flood came, waters upon the earth. (7) Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the Flood. (8) Of the clean animals, of the animals that are not clean, of the birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, (9) two of each, male and female, came to Noah into the ark, as God had commanded Noah. (10) And on the seventh day the waters of the Flood came upon the earth. (11) In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day All the fountains of the great deep burst apart, And the floodgates of the sky broke open. ( (12) The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.) (13) That same day Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, went into the ark, with Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons— (14) they and all beasts of every kind, all cattle of every kind, all creatures of every kind that creep on the earth, and all birds of every kind, every bird, every winged thing. (15) They came to Noah into the ark, two each of all flesh in which there was breath of life. (16) Thus they that entered comprised male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in. (17) The Flood continued forty days on the earth, and the waters increased and raised the ark so that it rose above the earth. (18) The waters swelled and increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark drifted upon the waters. (19) When the waters had swelled much more upon the earth, all the highest mountains everywhere under the sky were covered. (20) Fifteen cubits higher did the waters swell, as the mountains were covered. (21) And all flesh that stirred on earth perished—birds, cattle, beasts, and all the things that swarmed upon the earth, and all mankind. (22) All in whose nostrils was the merest breath of life, all that was on dry land, died. (23) All existence on earth was blotted out—man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. (24) And when the waters had swelled on the earth one hundred and fifty days,

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking of every clean animal and of every clean bird, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. The LORD smelled the pleasing odor, and the LORD said to Himself: “Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done. So long as the earth endures, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, Day and night Shall not cease.”

And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you—birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well—all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God further said, “This is the sign that I set for the covenant between Me and you, and every living creature with you, for all ages to come. I have set My bow in the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and every living creature among all flesh, so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures, all flesh that is on earth. That,” God said to Noah, “shall be the sign of the covenant that I have established between Me and all flesh that is on earth.”