Or HaChaim on Genesis 6:5/אור החיים על בראשית ו׳:ה׳

1 וירא השם כי רבת רעת האדם, G'd saw that man's wickedness on earth kept increasing. G'd regretted that He had made man on earth. Why was the evil man did connected to "the earth?" The wording of the Torah gives the impression that man perpetrated evil deeds on the body of the earth, whereas their wickedness consisted primarily of violence and sexual perversions as per 6,11-12. While it is justified to describe the theft of land as violence and evil perpetrated on the earth, this is a mere technicality, a minor detail. Why did the Torah not simply say: "G'd regretted having made man," instead of saying that "G'd regretted having made man on earth?" This leads us to believe that if only G'd had made man elsewhere He would not now have had reason to regret it. Surely this is not what the Torah meant to tell us!

2How do we understand G'd's "regretting" anything? Did not Bileam describe G'd (Numbers 23,19) as not ever regretting anything! Besides, what is the point of describing G'd as "saddened?" If this feeling had to be mentioned at all, it should have been mentioned after G'd had carried out His revenge on all the rebellious human beings and had wiped them out. The Torah addresses itself to the four elements man is composed of, fire, air, water and dust. These elements differ in importance and value, the lowliest one being dust seeing it is murky, opaque. The next higher category is water, followed by fire, followed by air or spirit which is the highest ranking of these elements. Although all creatures contain all four elements, different elements predominate in different creatures. The fish are made mostly of water, the birds mostly of air; this is why they can fly and hardly need to rest on earth. The salamander is a creature in which the element of fire predominates. Man is the only creature in which the lowest of the element, dust, predominates. The Torah reported G'd as having fashioned man "dust from the earth" (2,7). This accounts for man's primary habitat being earth. Man cannot live permanently either in the air, the water, or in fire. G'd had numerous reasons for arranging things in this way, one of them being the concept of מדרגות וסולם, that the universe consists of different levels and a ladder. In order for man to rise from one level to another it is important that the ladder which is the means for that spiritual ascent be firmly planted on earth.

3When G'd observed that man's wickedness kept increasing, He realised that the fact that man was based on the lowest of the four elements was one of the causes. Also, his habitat was on earth which consists largely of the element of dust. This is the meaning of G'd saying that He saw that man's wickedness on earth had increased greatly. This is why G'd "regretted" not having made man primarily of a more refined element. The Torah prefaced G'd's "regret" by stating that man's thoughts were only concerned with evil all day long, and He attributed this to the fact that man was not made predominantly of one of the more refined elements. G'd's "sadness" refers to the impediments that man's raw material posed to his attaining the objectives His Creator had planned for him. This is why the Torah did not say ויתעצב בלבו, but ויתעצב אל לבו. The word אל alludes to the ambitions G'd had harboured for man when He created him G'd did not want to change the ambitions He had entertained for man for reasons best known to Him; this is why He did not redesign man from one of the other three elements but rather allowed almost the whole species to perish in order to persevere with His original plan. Man's corruption did cause a severe setback to G'd's hopes and timetable. While it is perfectly true that the term "He regretted" is not appropriate for the Creator who has foreseen everything, the Torah is entitled to use the term because of the twin attribute of Mercy and Justice that G'd manifests. When man acts in accordance with the wishes of His Creator the attribute of Justice agrees to G'd giving predominance to His attribute of Mercy. When man rebels, the reverse is the case. Our verse describes that the attribute of Mercy preferred that man had never been made instead of agreeing that man should now be judged by the attribute of Justice. G'd was "saddened" as this was not sufficient reason to consider the whole universe as a failure, a wasted effort.

4We may also understand the passage in connection with what Maimonides wrote in chapter 5 of his הלכות תשובה. "G'd and His knowledge are one and the same [not like man whose perceptive powers are outside his essence. Ed.]. We are unable to understand this properly, just as we lack comprehension of how G'd can know every detail of the future without such knowledge robbing man of his freedom of decision. All we know as a certainty is that G'd does not interfere with man's free choice. The ראב"ד, with characteristic lack of deference, adds that Maimonides is incorrect, that G'd's perceptions are similar to someone foretelling the future by means of a horoscope. Maimonides is surely closer to the truth as G'd's perceptions cannot be compared to man's. Who would dare suggest that G'd obtains knowledge from outside sources, through trial and error and all the other methods used by us to define the character of what we see, hear, or touch. G'd is able to deny, i.e. totally ignore and remain unaffected by knowledge He had previously acquired. It is this the רמב"ם had in mind when he wrote that man cannot comprehend the manner in which G'd perceives. When Bileam declared (Numbers 23,21) that G'd had not seen any iniquity in Jacob, he referred to exactly this ability of G'd to totally ignore something that He knew was going to occur in the future.

5We can therefore say that at the time G'd created man He totally excluded from His conscious mind all and any sins that man would ever commit. He did so for two reasons. 1) G'd is good and does not dwell on evil. This reason does not suffice, however, because G'd needs to know what will happen and what will be the ultimate outcome of what happens now. 2) G'd excludes such future events from His consciousness so that the wicked cannot claim they had been programmed by G'd due to His omniscience, and that therefore they are not culpable for their evil deeds. The wicked believe in what we call "self-fulfilling prophecies," and they consider G'd's foreknowledge as belonging to that category. This concept is part of the verse (1,31): "G'd looked at all He had done and here it was very good." G'd "saw" i.e. foresaw, only what was good, i.e. the deeds of the righteous. Of course you will ask: "if so how could G'd punish someone for a deed that He had not seen?" The Torah tells us that at at this point in time G'd chose to look at the deeds of the wicked; what He saw caused Him to regret that He had for so long ignored these deeds in order that His knowledge would not become a self-fulfilling prophecy.