Weekly Dvar Torah: Flooded with Light and the Floodgates of Redemption
When the floodwaters began to rise, G-d told Noach: “Enter the Ark.”
At first, it seems unnecessary. If the Ark was built to save him, of course Noach would enter once the rain began! Why, then, the command?
The Baal Shem Tov opens a new dimension: the “floodwaters of Noach” are not only ancient rain — they are the rushing torrents of life. The endless demands that threaten to drown us: work, bills, pressure, exhaustion. Every day can feel like another wave crashing over our heads.
And to this, G-d calls: “Enter the Teivah.”
The Hebrew word Teivah means both ark and word. “Enter the Teivah,” says G-d — enter the words. Enter the words of Torah. Enter the words of prayer.
When the world’s noise rises around you, step into the holy words that lift you above the storm. There, in the rhythm of “Shema Yisrael,” in the melody of a whispered “Modeh Ani,” in the life of Torah words studied and spoken — there is your Ark.
Inside that Teivah, the soul breathes again. The flood may rage outside, but within the words of G-d, there is peace.
But even more wondrous is this: the same waters that threaten to drown you — they can lift you. “And the waters grew strong, and they lifted the Ark high above the earth.”
When life is easy and calm, we drift; we float close to the ground. But when the waves crash — when the tests come — the struggle itself becomes the engine that elevates us.
The Baal Shem Tov teaches that every challenge carries a spark of G-dly energy. The pressure of the flood pushes you higher than you could ever rise on your own.
So when the flood comes, don’t despair. Enter the Teivah. Let the waves that frightened you lift you higher and higher.
Yet even there, the story doesn’t end. After a full year of holiness, G-d commands Noach once more: “Leave the Ark.”
Leave the Ark? After such serenity, such miracles — animals in harmony, food that never spoiled, a world of Divine light — who would ever want to leave? It was paradise! The Ark was a taste of Moshiach’s world, a bubble of peace floating above destruction.
But G-d says: “Leave.”
Because holiness that hides is incomplete. The purpose of entering the Ark was never to escape the world but to transform it.
You entered the Teivah to survive; now leave it to revive. Go out and make My world holy.
That is the rhythm of life itself. During Tishrei we lived inside the Ark — protected by the walls of holiness, immersed in prayer, surrounded by the melodies of the shofar, the sukkah, and the dancing Torah. Then comes Cheshvan, quiet and ordinary. And G-d whispers again: “Leave the Ark.”
Take the holiness of Tishrei and bring it into your work, your home, your daily conversations.
Don’t stay in the box. Don’t be holy only in shul. Bring Me into your phone calls, your meetings, your kitchen. Make Me a dwelling place in the place of the flood itself.
That is the secret of the Teivah — protection, yes, but also transformation.
And now the story expands far beyond Noach’s Ark. Because the Torah’s words are eternal, they describe our generation too.
The Zohar reads the verse — “In the six hundredth year of Noach’s life… all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” — as a prophecy for the sixth century of the sixth millennium (around the year 1740 CE). The “floodgates of the heavens” would open with Divine wisdom — the teachings of Kabbalah and Chassidus revealed by the Baal Shem Tov. And simultaneously, the “fountains of the deep” — the wellsprings of worldly knowledge — would erupt as science and technology transformed the earth.
Two floods — one from above, one from below — flowing toward one goal: the preparation for Moshiach.
The Baal Shem Tov’s revelation brought G-d down from the heavens above into the earth below, teaching that Divinity is not found only in heaven but in every leaf, every breath, every Jew. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution began uncovering the secrets of the physical universe, revealing the hidden potential that G-d placed within creation itself.
But what connects the two? What binds heavenly wisdom and earthly science?
The answer is breathtaking. The Zohar teaches that Moshiach’s light will reveal G-d in both the spiritual and the physical — not only in ideas, but in sight itself: “And all flesh shall see that the mouth of G-d has spoken.”
To prepare for that revelation, the world itself must evolve to become a vessel for divine expression. The tools of science and technology, once seen as distractions, are actually paving the way. The “floodgates of the deep” are not opposed to the “windows of heaven” — they are their mirror.
Today we see it vividly. A Torah class in Jerusalem streams to a Jew in Paris. A farbrengen in Crown Heights echoes in South Africa. Words of Chassidus travel through invisible airwaves, through fiber and light, flooding the world with holiness.
The “Teivah” of G-d’s words now rides on a digital sea.
The flood that once destroyed now spreads life.
The waters that once covered the earth now carry G-d’s wisdom to every shore.
This is the ultimate merging of the two floods — the spiritual and the physical — the fulfillment of the Zohar’s prophecy. The words of Torah and prayer, the Teivos of holiness, now ride upon the very floodwaters of technology that define our age. The “well-springs below” and the “windows above” have opened together, leading us to the brink of redemption.
When the Baal Shem Tov asked Moshiach, “When will you come?” the answer was: “When your wellsprings will spread outward.”
That time is now. The wellsprings have burst forth. The world is flooded again — but this time, with Divine light.
The command echoes once more: Enter the Teivah. When the noise of the world rages, seek refuge in words of Torah and prayer. But then, Leave the Teivah — bring those holy words into the marketplace, into the classroom, into the screen that lights your face. Let the Teivah float not above the world, but within it, until the floodwaters themselves sing the song of G-dliness.
Because this time, the flood will not destroy. This time, the flood will redeem.
The waters of wisdom, from heaven and from earth, rise together — lifting the Ark of G-d’s words ever higher, carrying us toward that great and shining dawn when the world itself becomes a dwelling for the Divine.
And when the flood of G-dly revelation finally covers the earth, it will fulfill the ancient promise: “The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of G-d, as the waters cover the sea.”
Have a Shabbos Flooded with Holiness and Blessing,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
