Machshavot HaLev - Yeshivat Lev HaTorah

27
בלה תובשחמ
after knowing that relations weren’t allowed on the ark, the raven went against
what God said and had relations with his spouse.
After the raven rebelled and refused to fulfill Noah’s request, Noah sent out the
dove. Noah knew the dove would be the next best option because doves are birds
of faithfulness. So, the dove wouldn’t have to worry about its spouse mating
with other animals. The dove is the epitome of purity when it comes to birds.
The pasuk states “ותאמ הנויה תא חלשיו,” which means that Noah sent out the dove
“from him.” We learn from this that the dove, unlike the raven, was righteous and
it was constantly around Noah because Noah was a tzadik. Finally, the last act of
righteousness we see from the dove is when the dove returned to the ark the first
time with an olive branch in its mouth. During the mabul Noah attended to all
the animals needs and fed all of them. When the dove returned with the olive,
it was a sign to Hashem that although its needs were met by Noah, it preferred
bitter tasting food from Hashem rather than good tasting food from man. This
shows the dove’s true love and emunah in Hashem.
In kashrut we don’t eat non-kosher animals like the raven because we don’t want
to adopt their immorality and impurity. Instead we eat pure animals like the
dove. As the saying goes, “you are what you eat.” Be-ezrat Hashem when we have
the choice to choose between evil (the raven) and purity (the dove), we will make
the right choice and not be corrupt like the people from the time of Noah, but
pure like Noah, so that even if the entire world is corrupt, we should have the will,
the strength, the confidence and the emunah in Hashem to do the right thing. We
shouldn’t be hesitant to do what Hashem asks us like the raven but we should do
it with happiness and show Hashem that in life we prefer to do things His way
and keep our emunah in him even at the seemingly bitter times.