making your own gan eden

This limud should be a zechus for a refulah shleimah for Shulamis bas Sarah Sosha.

Chazal (Shabbos 133) teach us that we have an obligation of "mah hu... af atah," of imitation Dei, of imitating G-d's behavior.  Just like G-d is rachum, we should show rachamanus; just like G-d visits the sick, buries the dead, etc. so should we do the same.  R' Yitzchak Isaac Sher in his Sichos Mussar (vol 1 p 62) quotes a klal gadol from the Alter of Slabodka that extends this principle even further: just as Hashem created gan eden for Adam haRishon, so too each one of us is obligated to create a gan eden for ourselves and our fellow man.  

That's a pretty tall order.  It's hard enough to make the world even a little better place; how can we even dream of making it into a paradise?  I don't have millions of dollars to build you a mansion, buy you a Ferrari, take care of your needs in luxury -- so how can I make a gan eden for you?

That's the mistake we all make -- we think gan eden is about luxury, about having more expensive "things," with no work to do and no other needs to take care of.  That's not gan eden -- there are people who have all that and who have a miserable life.  What made gan eden into gan eden is the fact that adam ha'rishon knew that everything that was created there was done for his sake -- because Hashem cared for him.  What people want more than anything else is to be cared for.  When Avraham Avinu opened his home to wayfarers in the desert it was gan eden!  Avraham did not necessarily have the most luxurious tent, but Avraham had a home where no matter who you were, you felt welcomed and cared for.  You can make someone a simple cup of coffee, but if you do it in the right way, if you do it as an expression of love, then in that moment you've given that person gan eden.

Let's move to the end of the parsha.  We read there how the bnei Elokim took the bnos ha'adam against their will, how licentiousness and debasement took hold in society.  Hashem decided that if things do not change, he will bring a mabul.  There was, however, one silver lining, and this is how the parsha ends, "u'Noach matzah chein b'einei Hashem."

The Berdichiver in Kedushas Levi says a tremendous yesod.  Let's say there is going to be a wild new year's eve party going on all night.  So you say to yourself, "Aha!  That's the yetzer ha'ra's party -- no way am I going."  You met the enemy -- the yetzer ha'ra -- and vanquished him.  Great job. 

But there is something even better you can do.  You can see that excitement of the party, the "hisla'havus" to stay up all night, and say to yourself, "Aha!  Now I know what I should be doing on Shavuos night."  When the tzadik sees wrongdoing, says the Berdichiver, he takes a lesson from it for avodas Hashem.  The wrong behavior becomes a force that can be redirected for good.

The bnei Elokim were immersed in their ta'avos for beauty, for "chein."  They found it in al the wrong places.  Noach took that same ta'avah, that same desire, that same love of "chein," and instead of simply quashing it, he redirected it.  "Noach matzah chein b'einei Hashem" -- Noach found his "chein" in avodas Hashem.