Why did Hashem want to save the garbage?

Question

The following question was posed to me by my 10-year-old sister. First I laughed, then it made me think. As far as I've researched, no meforshim discuss this topic.

Hashem commanded Noach to build the Teivah 3 stories high (Bereishis 6 16). Rashi (there, based on Sanhedrin 108b) explains that the top floor was for the humans, the middle floor for the animals, and the bottom for the waste.

What my sister and I are struggling with is why do we need an entire floor to save the waste? Why not just dump it outside? The world was one big trash can!

Answer 1

Good question.

There are a few possibilities:

1. On a simple level we can say as @Dov commented bringing the answer from the Radak Beresheit 6:16 which says that there was a trap door in which Noach would shove out the garbage.
2. A practical answer that I saw written by רב אליעזר דוד פאל was that the floodwaters destroyed the face of the earth, and the vast amount of garbage was necessary so that Noach could fertilize his fields after leaving the teivah. In this way, he would be able to continue life after leaving the teivah by sowing and planting. Through the manure, they could return some of the vitality to the land that was lost due to the flood, and it would be able to grow what is sown in it. Now although the Ralbag in Bereshit 6:9 says that Noach brought seeds with him on the teivah to replant things afterward, it still helps to have more and it can be used for the right purposes instead of tossing it out for no usage.
3. The third idea is more of a כלל that Hashem wants to teach us. The Zohar (3:53b) teaches us that the Torah is מלשון הרואה (instructions), the Torah is an instruction manual for life. The Zohar (2:161a) says, הסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא, Hashem looked in the Torah and created the world. Thus I think the message the Torah is trying to teach us here, is to have derech eretz and work on being good people. The Midrash in Kohelet Rabah (7:13) teaches us that Hashem created everything for us, and He wants us to pay attention and not corrupt and destroy the world (one way being to not throw garbage everywhere). Now although they could have just thrown it out the window, Hashem wants us to teach us and also get us into the habit of taking care of the environment and be good people. In our life even when it seems like the environment is going down the drain (with global warming, plastic being found in the ocean), we can all help fix this, and at that same time help us work on our midot of being good people and preserving the beautiful world Hashem has given us (which is done out of הכרת הטוב).

4. The last message which I heard from רב יצחק פנגר, is that it's very easy and simple to just throw out garbage! But Hashem wants us to deal and cope with the garbage, sometimes there are times in life that feel like "garbage" but we need to deal with it.

(These answers are just points that can potentially be fully developed)

Answer 2

Just a theory I heard was that it was done for convenience, that there were abundant holes between middle and bottom floors to be able to just drop the waste down. Obviously Noach was very busy on the teivah and so minimizing effort for waste disposal would have been ideal.

Answer 3

If we go against Radak's answer suggested by @Dov in the comments, we can suggest that some of the garbage was necessary as an environment for worms and creeping creatures, which provided the food for birds and reptiles. To prove it the gemara Sanhedrin 108b tells the story about feeding a chameleon in the ark:

Rav Ḥana bar Bizna says: Eliezer, servant of Abraham, said to Shem the Great, son of Noah: It is written: “After their kinds, they emerged from the ark,” indicating that the different types of animals were not intermingled while in the ark. Where were you and what did you do to care for them while they were in the ark? Shem said to him: We experienced great suffering in the ark caring for the animals. Where there was a creature that one typically feeds during the day, we fed it during the day, and where there was a creature that one typically feeds at night, we fed it at night. With regard to that chameleon, my father did not know what it eats. One day, my father was sitting and peeling a pomegranate. A worm fell from it and the chameleon ate it. From that point forward my father would knead bran with water, and when it became overrun with worms, the chameleon would eat it.

This is related to the notion of biome in biology.

Answer 4

B"H

In Sefer Hammamrim Meluket parshas Lech Lecha in a footnote it references other sources that say the top level refers to atik, the middle level refers to Atzilus, and the bottom level refers to the worlds of Beria Yetzirah and Asiya, alluding to how all of those levels were also contained within the ark.