Previously1 we established that Shabbos reconnects the world to its source in Atzilus, to the Ohr HaGanuz, the Infinite Light that preceded existence. However, if Shabbos is what sustains the world, how did the world exist before Shabbos was revealed? What held creation together before anyone lit candles or made kiddush on a Friday night?
My friend Neil Harris compares it to a clockmaker assembling and testing each gear. By the time Shabbos arrived, everything was in place. Hashem wound the clock, so that when He finished, He let go, and the world began to run. That was His rest.
Perhaps the world was still in a state of creation and not yet complete. Meaning that until Avraham acknowledged Hashem, the world’s existence remained in a state of Tohu u’Vohu, unformed and unstable. The Midrash teaches that Hashem warned Bnei Yisrael that if they would not accept the Torah, He would return the world to Tohu u’Vohu. Maybe it was a consequential reminder of what existence feels like without Shabbos, rather than a random threat. Only when Avraham recognized the Creator, say Chazal, did the world emerge from chaos into order.
The Beis Yaakov of Izhbitz2 explains that the first generations after Adam lived so close to creation that they still felt the raw presence of Hashem, the illumination of the Ohr HaGanuz. They saw creation as the direct will of God sustaining everything, yet that very clarity misled them. Certain that nothing could stand against the Ratzon HaShem, they lost restraint and surrendered to desire. It became a spirituality without boundaries, holiness without humility.
What they lacked was the light of Shabbos, the force that turns awareness into reflection, that teaches a person to pause, to measure, to see how each act must align with the Ratzon HaShem. Without that inner return, they wandered in spiritual darkness until the world itself collapsed around them.
The Mei HaShiloach3 teaches that this unbounded state which reflected the early worlds of Tohu, realms that shattered because their vessels could not contain the light. Just as those first emanations collapsed from too much revelation, so did the early generations of humanity. They could not yet live within the balance of concealment and light, tzimtzum, that sustains creation.
The Beis Yaakov continues:
After the Flood erased those who lived without restraint, the new world began to understand that endless expansion leads to collapse. The hearts of the survivors became trained in awe, a yirah that holds, measures, and gives structure. The first generations had lived by the simple will of God, with no itaruta d’letata, no human effort or participation. Their existence was effortless, and what comes without effort cannot endure.
God’s desire was that His creatures would earn goodness, to claim their place in creation through choice and perseverance, rather than be gifted it. The ten generations from Adam to Noach drew their strength from the shattered worlds of Tohu, yet only through their destruction did humanity learn that endurance requires measure, that infinity can dwell only within limits. Through Noach, who witnessed both vitality and ruin, true awe of the Master of the world was finally planted in the human heart.
Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin4 writes that the Dor HaMabul was meant to receive the Torah. They carried within them the shoresh neshama, the soul-root, of Moshe Rabbeinu and stood at the threshold of repairing the chet of Adam, restoring harmony to creation. Had they succeeded, the giving of Torah would have happened then, and history would have reached its redemption.
Sadly, the same waters that could have brought renewal became waters of destruction. The Zohar teaches that their downfall came from rejecting Shem Shakkai, the Divine Name that says “Dai”, enough. They wanted endless expansion, a world without boundary, and refused the tzimtzum that gives creation balance. When measure is ignored, it returns in the form of judgment. The Flood became that correction: the forces of heaven and earth merged without limit, showing what happens when the boundaries that sustain life disappear.
That failure revealed what creation was still missing, the ability to live within limits, to rest without losing vitality. It showed the world’s need for Shabbos.
Rav Tzadok explains that Shabbos is the moment when all three levels of the soul, nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, can be repaired together, as the world returns to its Source. `When Bnei Yisrael will keep one Shabbos completely, redemption will come immediately’. The Dor HaMabul stood at the edge of that possibility, but the world lacked vessels to contain it.
The world was not yet ready for Shabbos.
Noach embodied Malchus, the power to receive and contain, yet he could not hold that light. The Zohar hints that had Noach reached true menuchah, he could have brought tikkun to his generation. Menuchah does not mean stillness; it is the calm strength of acting from alignment rather than impulse, motion without inner turmoil. Noach could not sustain that balance. After the Flood, he turned to wine. What was meant to express daas, conscious awareness— overtook him. The very light that could have elevated him instead exposed his fragility.
I would like to explore this idea more deeply, to understand what it means that after the world failed to receive the light of Shabbos, a single man was chosen to hold it.
In Beginnings, my father, Rav Yaacov Haber, describes the emotional and spiritual context of Noach’s mission.
After Adam and Chavah were exiled from Gan Eden, humanity lost its way and drifted from its divine purpose. “The year 2000 was approaching,” he writes, “and civilization had not achieved its goal of perfection. On the contrary, the world had become corrupt. God was determined to end the world with a flood. From his birth, Noach was entrusted with a task, to stop the world from coming to an end and to be the one to finally achieve the tikkun for the sins of Adam, Chavah, and Kayin. Noach must have been raised under tremendous pressure, with the constant knowledge that the whole world would perish if he wouldn’t save it.”
God created the world with a purpose, a purpose broken by Adam, Chavah, and Kayin. Yet for two thousand years, God’s mercy allowed humanity to retain a kernel of holiness, a hidden potential to return. As that era of Tohu neared its close, Noach was chosen to begin again: to rebuild, to reestablish order, and to preserve holiness within the confines of a renewed world.
Noach never argued or protested; he simply built. His silence reflected both obedience and isolation, a man carrying the weight of creation alone. Still, as Rav Moshe Dovid Vali notes, through Noach the Malchus of Hashem was gathered and contained. The Teiva became the vessel of Malchus, a microcosm of existence sealed and sustained by Hashem. While the world outside dissolved, the new Malchus took form within. The essence of tikkun is that light can dwell within structure, that revelation can enter the world without destroying it.
The Beis Yaakov calls Noach the first human to live with yirah, holy reverence that gives shape and boundary. “נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדורותיו”, Noach was complete not through boundless striving, but through accepting the limits of finitude. His tamimus was his containment.
The Ruzhiner Rebbe5 adds that Noach was the first person able to receive the Ohr HaGanuz, the hidden light of creation, within the physical world. Before him, every encounter with that light led to collapse. Noach became the first keili, the first vessel, through which infinity could rest inside measure. His very name, נֹחַ, meaning rest, captures that quiet strength, the balance of holding the Ohr HaGanuz without being swept away by it. He brought the light of Shabbos into a broken world, not its full brilliance, but its first enduring glow.
The Beis Yaakov reveals how this change took place.
Before the Flood, the Name of Havayah shone in full strength, an open flow of God’s presence throughout creation. The generation of the Flood sensed that power but misunderstood it. They saw endless light and took it as permission to live how they wanted.
Noach was the first to live under the Name A-don-ai, the aspect of God’s mastery that serves as a covering (nartek) for Havayah. Through this Name, the light of creation is softened and shared in proportion to what the world can hold. By learning to receive through Adnus, Noach corrected the excess of Havayah. He allowed holiness to enter creation slowly, through boundary and form.
This process reached its fullness with Avraham Avinu, of whom Chazal say6: “From the day God created His world, no one called Him ‘Master’ (Adon) until Avraham came and said, ‘Adonai Elokim.’” Noach began that path in concealment; Avraham completed it in revelation.
Through Noach’s reverence and restraint, the world found balance. His life was far from peaceful, he spent centuries building, feeding, and surviving, yet through him the idea of rest entered the human story. The Flood and the Teivah created the first true boundary, a world finally held together. Inside the Teivah, with no control and only God’s care to rely on, Noach learned what Shabbos truly is, the point where human effort ends and trust begins.
This brings us to the deeper structure beneath Noach’s role.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali7 explains that in Noach’s generation there was only one tzaddik. When that happens, all Malchus, the level that receives and expresses God’s presence in the world, gathers into a single person. Noach became the embodiment of Malchus d’Asiyah, the earthly reflection of Hashem’s rule.
His life expressed it. He was the first to invent the plow, transforming the earth through work, and the first to build on a cosmic scale, crafting the Teivah that would hold the future of Creation. His strength was in melachah, creative labor, the essence of chol. In him, Malchus took physical form: holiness drawn through sweat and soil.
Because of that, says Rav Vali, the Flood came only once that vessel existed. Without Noach, there could not have been a Mabul; the light would have scattered with no one to hold it. Through Noach, the potential for Malchus became whole. All the scattered sparks of holiness in creation were gathered into one ark, the Teivah, and preserved for a new beginning. What looked like destruction was really purification through the one able to contain it.
The Izhbitzer8 explains that the ten generations from Adam to Noach mirror the ten sefirot. Each generation revealed another level of Malchus within its specific sefirah until the last, Malchus of Malchus, appeared in Noach. He stood at the end of the chain, receiving all that overflow and anchoring it. The Flood was not punishment alone but rebirth, the world learning how to exist within limits.
When Noach entered the Teivah, the Zohar calls it the world’s first Shabbos: “תיבה דאיהי שבת”, the ark itself was Shabbos. Inside it, the world stopped. The waters raged outside, but within, time was still. Noach’s rest wasn’t from stopping his work but from being carried. The Teivah became the first lesson in menuchah, the quiet state of being sustained by Hashem alone.
Once the work of building and surviving was done, the question remained: could the world now rest? Could creation, after all its motion, find stillness again?
When the waters began to calm, Noach sent out the dove, the yonah, to see if the world could once again hold life. The pasuk says, “וְלֹא־מָצְאָה הַיּוֹנָה מָנוֹחַ לְכַף רַגְלָהּ”9: the dove found no place of rest. The wordplay is deliberate, the dove searching for manoach echoes Noach himself. Tohu is a world without menuchah; tikkun begins when there is finally a place where rest can land.
Rashi writes of Creation itself: “מה היה העולם חסר? מנוחה. באת שבת, באת מנוחה.” What was the world lacking? Rest. When Shabbos came, rest came. Only then was creation complete.
So too after the Mabul. The dove’s search for menuchah echoed Shabbos, returning to the world, the first sign that creation could again sustain the rhythm of holiness and rest. When she finally returned with the olive branch, it meant the world had become steady enough to bear light without breaking. The olive, whose oil fuels the flame, became the sign of the Ohr HaGanuz, the hidden light that can now burn gently inside vessels.
Rav Moshe Dovid Vali teaches that this hidden light within the olive is why it became a symbol of peace. The tree itself survived the waters because it carried that inner light. When Noach saw the olive branch, he understood that the Ohr HaGanuz had returned, that the flood of chaos had ended.
Noach was the first to contain the Ohr HaGanuz; the dove was the proof that Creation could now contain it too. Sending the dove was like a second act of creation, a test of whether the renewed world could now hold light within measure, if the world was ready to receive the Ohr Shabbos. What the dove sought in the world, Noach carried within himself: the possibility of rest within motion, holiness within concealment.
Yet, the Gemara10 teaches that a ben Noach who keeps Shabbos is liable to punishment. Even Noach himself was commanded not to rest. The man whose name means menuchah was denied rest, called to keep working, to hold stillness within motion until humanity would one day earn the right to rest.
In the generations that followed, humanity misunderstood what the Flood had taught. They sought to recreate unity on their own terms, “to build a tower whose top would reach the heavens.” They sensed something true: that the world was moving toward an age of constant connection, “a day that is entirely Shabbos.” However, they mistakenly tried to force heaven downward instead of becoming vessels to receive it.
As a consequence, they were dispersed instead of being destroyed. Their light was divided, scattered into languages and nations, fragments of that unreachable wholeness11. The Mabul had merged heaven and earth; the Migdal split them apart. From their division came the need for one who could reunite both. That person was Avraham, who discovered the infinite within the finite and brought peace between them.
But before Avraham would emerge, Noach still had one more test, the vineyard.
When the world began again, Noach planted a vineyard. Chazal note that he was the first to do so, a sign, says Rav Tzadok HaKohen12, of humanity’s attempt to lift daas, conscious awareness of God, through the physical world. The grape, linked to Chet Adam, became the path toward tikkun. Noach hoped to sanctify the same element that had caused the fall. In a sense, he wanted to make kiddush on the same cup that had once brought downfall.
Rav Tzadok explains that Noach sought to face the root of the chet, not to indulge it. He wanted to understand and redeem it, yet the light he reached for overcame him. The wine that could have elevated him instead brought him down. His attempt to repair chet Adam HaRishon through daas collapsed under its own intensity, just as the worlds of Tohu had.
The true tikkun, writes Rav Tzadok, would come only with Moshe Rabbeinu, who received wisdom yet remained utterly humble, “בְּכָל בֵּיתִי נֶאֱמָן הוּא”13. Moshe’s Shabbos, his “מתנת חלקו”14, would later complete what Noach’s vineyard could not.
Noach’s vineyard was an early attempt to bring holiness into the everyday, to turn the act of creation itself into a kind of kiddush. But the light he reached for slipped through his hands. It was the yonah, the dove who found menuchah when its return proved that creation could now hold rest without collapse. Noach saw the light of Shabbos, but could not yet live within it.
The Sfas Emes15 writes that Noach corresponds to Shabbos because “Shabbos is menuchah, the connection to the source.” Before Noach, that connection was broken. Humanity lived in constant motion, detached from rhythm and rest. Through Noach, stillness reentered the human story, even though he himself never truly experienced it.
His generation was meant to receive the Torah, the eternal Shabbos, but they lacked the vessels. The light of Shabbos entered the world through him, yet it remained fragile, flickering.
With Avraham, that light took root. The two thousand years of Tohu ended, and the era of Tikkun began. From Noach to Avraham, Creation learned the art of containment, how to let infinite light dwell within measure. Noach began by holding Malchus alone; Avraham expanded it into a religion, teaching the world how to receive holiness without breaking. He didn’t merely endure the light, he welcomed it.
Noach was the one who brought Shabbos into the world. He did not live it, but he captured its glow, the radiance of the Ohr HaGanuz, through which we, on Shabbos, reconnect to the source of Creation, the Ohr Ein Sof, and continue as partners with Hashem in the work of creation.
As I wrote last week: Shabbos recharges the batteries of Creation. On Shabbos, we reconnect to the world of Atzilus; we plug into the Ohr HaGanuz, the hidden Infinite Light, and draw strength for the six days that follow.
Chazal teach that a non-Jew is not permitted to keep Shabbos. Perhaps this is because Yisrael are partners with Hashem in Maaseh Bereishis. When we keep Shabbos, we tap into the Ohr Ein Sof and join the creative current itself. Were one who is not bound to that covenant to do so, he too would draw down the light of Atzilus, but into a realm unprepared for it, and the light would lose its purity.
The Ramchal16 writes: “A person must constantly contemplate with his mind and also set aside fixed times to reflect on the correct path to follow according to the Torah. Then he should contemplate his deeds to see if they align with that path.”
To live as tikkun-oriented Jews, we must sometimes retreat into our own Teivah, small sanctuaries of quiet away from the noise of the week. However, solitude alone is not the goal. We withdraw so that we can reemerge with clarity, our actions measured, refined, and reconnected to their source.
Shabbos is that inner ark that keeps us afloat amid the floods of life. Noach built the first one and we are tasked with continuing to build, each week, each moment, wherever we are.
May we merit to see the day that is entirely Shabbos, a world finally at rest, where the light no longer overwhelms the vessel, and the vessel no longer fears the light.
I’m working on turning my posts from the past few years into a book.
If you’d like to support the project, please reach out at shui@shuihaber.com.
Thank you.
Noach
Noach
Pri Tzaddik, Noach 5
Irin Kadishin, Noach
Berachos 7b
Koheles Tanyana 1:4
Beis Yaakov, Noach
Bereishis 8:9
Sanhedrin 58b
Beis Yaakov
Pri Tzaddik, Noach
Bamidbar 12:7
Pri Tzaddik, Noach 9
Noach, 5633
Mesillas Yesharim, ch. 3