Innocent creatures caught in the wake of human sin. But the ancient rabbis grappled with this question too, offering powerful, and perhaps unsettling, explanations.
In Bereshit Rabbah, that incredible collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis, we find Rabbi Yudan and Rabbi Pinḥas wrestling with this very problem. Why the animals? Were they truly blameless?
Rabbi Yudan presents a rather stark analogy. Imagine a king who entrusts his son to a teacher, but that teacher leads the son astray. The king, enraged by his son's wayward behavior, punishes him severely. But the king doesn't stop there. He turns his wrath upon the teacher, recognizing that the teacher played a role in his son's downfall. "My son is lost," the king laments, "should this man endure?"
Similarly, Rabbi Yudan suggests, the animals were instruments that led humanity astray. People indulged in excessive feasting, gorging themselves on fattened animals and fowl. They became consumed by their appetites, and the animals, in a way, facilitated this descent. That's why God says, "I will obliterate…from man to animal, to crawling creatures, to bird of the heavens" (Genesis 6:7).
Rabbi Pinḥas offers a slightly different, yet equally compelling, perspective. He tells of a king preparing a magnificent wedding chamber for his son. He lavishes attention on it, whitewashing the walls, painting exquisite details, and decorating it with care. But then, tragedy strikes – the king becomes angry with his son and, in a fit of rage, kills him. Devastated, the king enters the wedding chamber he prepared with so much love... only to tear it apart. He shatters the woodwork, breaks the walls, and rips the curtains. "Did I not prepare this only for my son?" the king cries. "My son is lost; should this [structure] endure?"
In this analogy, the world itself is the wedding chamber, prepared for humanity to live in harmony with God. But humanity's sin corrupted that harmony. Thus, God destroyed "from man to animal…to bird of the heavens." Rabbi Pinḥas connects this to the prophet Zephaniah, who says, "I will destroy everything from upon the face of the earth – the utterance of the Lord. I will destroy man and animal, I will destroy the bird of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks of the wicked" (Zephaniah 1:2–3). Rabbi Pinḥas emphasizes that it was the animals, in a way, that became "stumbling blocks," causing the wicked to stumble.
He even offers a specific example: the hunter who would fatten a bird only to kill it later. "Go get fat and come back," the hunter would say, and the bird, unknowingly, would comply, sealing its own fate. Their hedonism, their unchecked desires, facilitated by the animals, led them to forsake God.
Both interpretations, while unsettling, highlight a crucial point: the interconnectedness of all creation. Humanity's actions have consequences that ripple outwards, affecting not only ourselves but also the world around us. The Flood wasn't just a punishment for human sin; it was a cleansing, a reset, a painful reminder that we are all part of a larger web of life, and our choices matter. Perhaps, in understanding the fate of the animals, we can gain a deeper appreciation for our responsibility to the world – and to each other.