God regrets having created man in the world; He is grieved, and He decides to wipe out all living things from upon the face of the earth. To the reader suddenly coming upon these verses, this is an unthinkable, inconceivable course of action: the world has already been created; now problems start to arise, and the reaction is – complete annihilation?! We must ask ourselves how and why it is that God resorts to such a seemingly “dis-proportionate” response. The context of our discussion will be a broad one, going far beyond the boundaries of this specific narrative. We shall examine the moral standards of God and of man in Sefer Bereishit, and seek to identify a method for dealing with moral dilemmas relating to the fundamental life circles in this Sefer.

The Flood
The Tower of Bavel
Courtesy of the Virtual Beit Midrash, Yeshivat Har Etzion