What does the Torah mean when it writes that the inclination of man is evil "from his youth (mi'Ne'u'rav)"?
Rashi and Ramban #1: It means that from the moment that he is 'shaken from his mother's womb' (mishe'Nin'ar Latzeis...), he already has a Yetzer ha'Ra.
Seforno: It means literally, from his younger years. After the Flood, the people's will-power became weaker, and they no longer had the same resolve in their youth to fight the Yetzer -ha'Ra as they had before the Flood. 1
Ramban #2: What the Pasuk means is that it is the result of man's sinful youth that the Yetzer ha'Ra goes on to rule over a person.
Ramban #3: The Torah is actually coming to seek merit on behalf of man - to say that man is not entirely to blame for sinning, seeing as he possesses a Yetzer -ha'Ra, which makes him sin in his youth. Consequently, for two reasons HaSh-m decided not to destroy the world again, (a) because man (through no fault of his own) possesses an evil inclination, and (b) because it is only in his youth that it works full-time, but not anymore in his later years.
Ramban #4: It means simply that man's inclination is evil "during his youth." 2
Mishnas R. Aharon (Vol. 1, p. 82): If man goes in the way of his heart and the habits of his youth, with wild behavior and idle talk, he strengthens his Yetzer ha'Ra and his wildness. Even if he learns, if it is not along with fear and care to avoid everything disgraceful and lowly, it would be better had he not been created, and his learning does not help him.
Chochmah u'Musar (Vol. 2, p. 326): It seems easy to guard oneself from enticement of the heart - but it is not, for the heart seeks to make him stumble and descend, until he eventually serves idolatry. Therefore a Tzadik always suspects himself, even if he seems far removed from a particular lust.
Lev Eliyahu (Bereishis p. 26): This refers to the natural Yetzer ha'Ra - i.e. desires, bad Midos, lusts for this world. One must fight this himself, without special help from HaSh-m. There is also a spiritual Yetzer ha'Ra that tries to kill a Tzadik (Tehilim 37:32), after one has conquered his natural Yetzer ha'Ra. One cannot defeat the latter without HaSh-m's help (Pesachim 50b).
Peninim mi'Shulchan ha'Gra: It is virtually impossible for man to conquer his Yetzer ha'Ra by himself. HaSh-m asks only that man does as much as possible - and then He finishes the job.
What does the Torah mean when it writes that "HaSh-m said in His heart"?
Seforno: It means that HaSh-m did not reveal it to Noach (or to the angels) until Noach and his family accepted HaSh-m's Mitzvos and established a covenant with Him (later in the Parshah).
Ramban: HaSh-m did not reveal it at all, until He instructed Moshe to write it in the Torah.
What does it mean when it writes that HaSh-m will never again destroy the world "on account of man"?
Ramban: It intimates that it is only on account of the sins perpetrated by the people that the animals too were destroyed. Were it not for man's sins, He would not have destroyed the animals, despite the fact that they were guilty of interbreeding.
Why does the Torah repeat the phrase "Lo Osif"?
Rashi: The doubled expression gives this promise (never again to destroy the world) the power of an oath. 1
This substantiates the Pasuk in Navi (Yeshayah 54:9) which refers to it as an oath. Apart from our Pasuk, we do not find anywhere else that HaSh-m actually made such an oath.
QUESTIONS ON RASHI
Rashi writes: "When a baby turns to leave its mother's womb, the Yetzer ha'Ra is placed into it." Why is there no Yetzer ha'Ra as it develops?
Gur Aryeh #1: The Yetzer ha'Ra affects someone who is lacking something, and has a desire to fill that void. That is only possible for someone who has reached some level of completion, yet feels a lack. A developing fetus is only on the way to completion, and has not yet attained it; therefore it has no Yetzer ha'Ra. 1
Gur Aryeh #2: During gestation, the fetus is supposed to be lacking; that is its natural state. Only after birth, when it has reached some level of completion, and seeks to fill what it lacks, is it possible to have a Yetzer ha'Ra.
We may explain that the Yetzer ha'Ra represents lacking and deficiency because it is one and the same as the accuser and the angel of death (Bava Basra 16a). See Maharal, Derech Chaim to Avos 2:2 (p. 71); and Ohr Chodosh (p. 164). (EK)
Rashi writes: "When a baby turns to leave its mother's womb...." However, we find cases (Yoma 82b-83a) when a righteous or wicked individual already showed signs of being such, while still in the womb?
Gur Aryeh: Those cases indicate a natural tendency towards good or evil deeds; such instinctive responses can happen even in the womb. A Yetzer - thinking and yearning for one type of activity or the other - comes only later. 1
In his well-known Igeres ha'Musar, Rav Yisrael Salanter writes that a person has both natural inclinations pulling him toward good or evil deeds, as well as a spiritual Yetzer ha'Tov and Yetzer ha'Ra. Perhaps this is what Gur Aryeh means here - that only the natural inclinations exist before birth. (EK)
Rashi writes: "A doubled expression constitutes an oath." Why is this so?
Gur Aryeh: Repetition strengthens what has been said. This is also the meaning of an oath; "Shevu'ah" is translated in Targum as "Keyama" - ratification, affirmation.
Rashi writes: "We find no oath [following the Flood] other than this one, in which HaSh-m used a doubled expression, which constitutes an oath (Shevuos 36a)." What about the verse below (9:9), in which HaSh-m made a covenant (Bris) with Noach?
Mizrachi: The covenant and oath are one and the same. Later (9:9), HaSh-m informs Noach that He has made a covenant, but it is written here to show that it was due to the merit of Noach's Korbanos.
Gur Aryeh: An oath is more binding than a covenant. A covenant is pact between two parties that love each other. However, if one party later sours and acts against the other, the pact is voided. 1 An oath, however, remains binding irrelevant of the actions of either party.
Therefore, a covenant alone would be binding only so long as there was at least one Tzadik left in the world who was deserving of it.
