The Cleansing Waters of the מבול

Water, while being a symbol of sustenance, is also a symbol of cleansing. When looking at the flood in the times of Noach, it seems like it is G-d cleansing the world. Is it safe to say, then, that G-d made a mistake with how He created the world the first time, so He had to cleanse it and start all over again? - (anonymous)


I think that you are right in your description of water, in that is both a symbol of sustenance and a symbol of cleansing. And I agree that when looking at the מבול, it does seem that ה' was symbolically cleansing the world as He destroyed it. But I think that instead of viewing the מבול as a result of ה'’s mistake, we should view it as resulting from the mistakes of mankind.


(Most of what I’m about to say was first taught to me by Rabbi Haber in MMY, and was subsequently expanded upon by a variety of other sources:)


When ה' created the world, His purpose was for all of mankind to serve Him (not just Jews, as most people assume—Jews didn’t exist yet!). When He created אדם וחוה, He commanded them to multiply: “פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ.” But they were not only supposed to have children, they were also supposed to pass on the מסורה of עבודת ה' to their children, who were then supposed to pass it on to their children, etc., so that every generation throughout the history of the world would be serving ה'.


But we know that not everyone in the world today serves ה'—what happened?


It all started with קין, who was so disappointed with his rejected קרבן that he murdered his younger brother. The eldest son of אדם וחוה, who should have embraced the avodat עבודת ה' taught to him by his parents, instead committed one of the gravest sins! He therefore cast himself away from the מסורה of עבודת ה', and with הבל dead, the only son of אדם וחוה able to continue the מסורה was שת.


שת then had a son named named אנוש, about whom it says (בראשית ד:כו): "אז הוחל לקרא בשם ה'". According to חז"ל (as quoted by רש"י), “הוחל” comes from לשון חילול, signifying the beginning of עבודה זרה, since in his time the people began to disgrace the name of ה' and began worshipping people and objects (to understand how people could possibly go from עבודת ה' to עבודה זרה so quickly, see הלכות עבודת כוכבים פרק א in רמב"ם’s משנה תורה). After אנוש’s time things got progressively worse, to the point that by דור המבול mankind had strayed so far from what ה' had originally intended for them, that He decided to start over with the one man who was doing things right: נח.


In summary, ה' didn’t cleanse the world from His own mistake, but from mankind’s mistakes. And in His רחמים, ה' decided to recreate it to give mankind a second chance. However, even after the מבול, not all mankind worshipped ה': of בני נח, only שם did; of בני שם only אברהם did; of בני אברהם only יצחק did; of בני יצחק only יעקב did. And then, finally, all of בני יעקב (= ישראל) worshipped ה', which is why He decided to make בני ישראל His chosen nation.