Musar for Eruvin 36:1
אוצר מה אוצר זה רחב מלמטה וקצר מלמעלה כדי לקבל את הפירות אף האשה רחבה מלמטה וקצרה מלמעלה כדי לקבל את הולד
of a storehouse. As a storehouse is [made] wide below and narrow above so that it may contain the produce,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Were its shape to be reversed the heavy weight of the stored produce would weigh down the walls. ,ubhcaua');"><sup>1</sup></span> so was [the womb of] a woman [made] wide below and narrow above so that it may contain the embryo.'
Shenei Luchot HaBerit
Noach then was righteous in terms of his generation since he responded to inspiration from "above." G–d "encouraged" Noach during the one hundred and twenty years prior to the deluge. He sent him on a mission to warn his contemporaries to repent of their wicked ways. The Torah however, records only מקצת שבחו בפניו, וכלו שלא בפניו. The usual meaning of this concept is that one does not reveal all of a person's merits while he is alive, whereas when eulogizing such a person one must reveal all his merits. In this instance the meaning of שלא בפינו is that Noach did not initiate his role as the conscience of mankind, but he was prompted to do so by G–d.
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Orchot Tzadikim
Every man can learn from David in the matter of repentance. And so do we find with Adam. When Adam saw that the world was punished with death because of his deed he sat fasting one hundred and thirty years, and separated himself from his wife and covered his body with garlands of figs (to remind him constantly of his sin in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree) (Erubin 18b).
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