The Repeated Command “Be Fruitful and Multiply”

The repetition

The command “Be fruitful and multiply” is given to Adam (Genesis 1:28), and repeated to Noach and his sons in our parasha (9:1; 9:7). According to Maimonides (Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 212), the mitzvah was already given to Adam, which is why he cites it from the verse in Bereshit. If so, why was it given again to Noach and his sons?

Maimonides also defines the purpose of the mitzvah: “to be fruitful and multiply in order to preserve the species.” In other words, the mitzvah is not only meant for each person to have children, but for the continuity of the human race.

A puzzling passage in Bava Batra

At the end of the chapter Chezkat HaBatim (Bava Batra 60b), two statements of Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha appear:

1. Meat and wine: since the destruction of the Temple, it would have been fitting to forbid eating meat and drinking wine. But they did not forbid it, because “a decree is not imposed on the public unless most of the public can bear it.”

2. Marriage: since the wicked kingdom has been forbidding us to keep the mitzvot, it would have been fitting to forbid marrying and having children, “and the seed of Abraham our father would come to an end of itself.” But they did not forbid it, because “better that they sin unknowingly than knowingly.”

Tosafot (ibid., s.v. Din) ask: how can one forbid what the Torah commands? They answer: it refers only to someone who already has a son and a daughter.

But there is a greater difficulty here. Why is one rule stated for meat and wine, and another for marriage? The rule “better that they sin unknowingly” applies when one hesitates whether to rebuke someone who is already sinning. If he is rebuked and does not listen, he will sin knowingly. If he is not rebuked, he will sin without knowing, which is less bad. But here, if nothing is forbidden, there is no sin at all: whoever has children is fulfilling a mitzvah. So what “unknowing sin” is there?

It follows that the Gemara understands it differently. By Torah law, when a wicked kingdom prevents us from keeping the mitzvot, there is no mitzvah to have children, and it is even forbidden. The question was not whether to issue a new prohibition, but whether to tell the public about the prohibition that already exists. That is why the rule “better that they sin unknowingly” fits here. And accordingly, the question of Tosafot never even arises: the Sages did not cancel a mitzvah. In such a situation, it simply does not exist.

This has an amusing consequence. Those who knew the halakha did not have children. Only those who did not know, the simple folk, went on having them. In other words, we are all descended from the simple folk of that generation.

Back to the repetition

Adam was indeed commanded to be fruitful and multiply. But then came the generation of the Flood, which corrupted its ways. God regretted having created man, and sought to destroy humanity.

We have seen that under a wicked kingdom, when the child will not be able to keep the mitzvot, there is no mitzvah to have children. All the more so when God Himself no longer wants humanity to exist. And the purpose of the mitzvah is “to preserve the species.” So in the generation of the Flood, the mitzvah lapsed.

After the Flood, Noach offers a sacrifice, and God once again desires the existence of mankind. That is why He commands again: “And you, be fruitful and multiply.” The second command is not a needless repetition. It restores a mitzvah that had lapsed. And that is why Maimonides can cite the source from Bereshit: that is where the mitzvah was stated, and in our parasha it is only restored.

The mirror image of “He shall live by them”

The Gemara in Yoma (85b) learns from “he shall live by them” that saving a life overrides all the mitzvot: “he shall live by them – and not die by them.” In other words, without life, the mitzvot have no value.

What we have seen here is the mirror image: without mitzvot, life itself does not have the same value. When humanity is to blame, as in the generation of the Flood, God wishes to destroy it. When it is not to blame, as under the wicked kingdom, the mitzvah to be fruitful and multiply lapses, and the people “comes to an end of itself.”

In the Gemara in Yoma, too, there are two reasons, expressing both directions. Shmuel learns from “he shall live by them”: the mitzvot exist for the sake of life. And Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya says: “Desecrate one Shabbat for him, so that he may keep many Shabbatot”: life exists for the sake of the mitzvot. So there is no simple order of priority here. The mitzvot need life, but life gains its full meaning only through the mitzvot.