Noah and the Americas

And the dove came to him at eventide and in her mouth was an olive leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.                                                                                                         Genesis 8:11 From where did the dove bring the olive leaf? Rabbi Levi says from the Mount of Olives. For the Land of Israel was not flooded in the deluge. This is what the Holy One blessed be He said to Ezekiel [22:24]: “'Son of man, say unto her: You are a land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.”                                                                  Midrash Breishit Rabba 33:6

                Rabbi Yehonatan Eybschutz raises the question of whether the flood affected the Americas, and concludes that necessarily the “New World” was affected by the flood, else the Holy Land would not be unique. As a corollary of this conclusion, Rabbi Yehonatan states that necessarily the Americas were inhabited at the time of Noah’s flood, since the purpose of the flood was to destroy the evil generation, and were the Americas uninhabited, there would be no reason for God to flood them. (With apologies to my Australian friends Phillip and Susan Boltin, Rabbi Yehonatan did not deal with Australia, since he died six years before Captain Cook reached the “land down under”, but his comments about the Americas apply to the land down under as well.)

                Rabbi Yehonatan’s point is a most serious one, since the Midrash obviously stresses the unique aspect of the Holy Land. My saintly teacher, Rabbi Mordechai Rogov, commented that the Midrash conveys the message was that there was a small corner of the earth which, due to its purity, was unaffected by the Flood, and that it is from this pure place that rebirth and rectification will come to the entire world with the Holy Land being the corner stone for a new and better world.

                The Midrash quoted above presents an additional opinion as to the venue from which the dove brought the olive leaf:

Rav Bibi says: the gates of the Garden of Eden were opened for the dove and she brought the olive branch from there.

                Naḥmanides [13^th century] on our verse comments that on the level of p’shat (the simple meaning), Rav Bibi’s opinion is problematic, since this would not indicate to Noah that the waters had abated, as it is reasonable to assume that the flood waters did not enter the Garden of Eden. Thus, we should prefer the opinion of Rabbi Levi that the olive branch was brought from the Mount of Olives.

                However, Alshikh [16^th century] raises Naḥmanides’ point in connection with Rabbi Levi’s opinion as well: if the Land was spared the ravages of the deluge, how did the olive leaf taken from the Mount of Olives indicate that the waters had receded? Alshikh’s answer is that since the dove flew from Mount Ararat (generally believed to be in Armenia) to the Mount of Olives, it would necessarily require places to rest in-flight (indeed, verse 9 tells us that one week earlier, Noah sent out the dove for the first time and she returned because she “could not find any place to rest its feet”), thus when the dove brought back the olive branch from Jerusalem, Noah understood that the waters had receded.

                Returning to the Midrash, we can note that Rabbi Levi understands the verse serves as his prooftext in a manner contrary to its simple meaning. The traditional commentaries explain that the “her” to whom the prophecy is addressed is Jerusalem, not the entire Land. However, our Sages often understand the Land and its capital to be interchangeable, perhaps, as Maharal suggests, because the sanctity of the Land results from the sanctity of Jerusalem.