Concerning the 27th day of the month of Cheshvan, it says in Chumash in פרשת נח, קפיטל ח פסוק י״ד, ובחודש השני בשבעה ועשרים יום לחודש יבשה הארץ. That on the second month, the 27th day of the month, the earth became dry. Which means this was the day that the Mabul was over completely. The rain stopped much before, it only rained for 40 days, but then there were 150 days where the water came out from the bottom of the ground, and then it took many months till the water went down. But which was the day that the Mabul actually was completely over and the land, the earth was dry, was on the 27th day of the second month. And according to an opinion, this is the month of Cheshvan. So it comes out that כ״ז Cheshvan represents the end of the Mabul, which means that כ״ז Cheshvan represents the change between the time before the Mabul and the time after the Mabul. Now there are many changes that took place after the Mabul, but amongst the changes, one thing we find that Hashem made a keshet, made a rainbow, as the פסוק says in נח, קפיטל ט, פסוק י״ב and on, it says, ויאמר אלקים, השם said, זאת אות הברית אשר אני נותן ביני וביניכם ובין כל נפש חיה אשר אתכם לדורות עולם. This is going to be the sign of the covenant that I am making between you, between me and you and between all the living things in the world forever, את קשתי נתתי בענן. I will put a rainbow, my rainbow into the cloud. והיתה לאות ברית ביני ובין הארץ. And this will be an אות ברית, this will be a sign of the covenant between me and the world. והיה בענני ענן על הארץ ונראתה הקשת בענן. When I will make an ענן on the world, then the keshet, the rainbow will be seen in the cloud. וזכרתי את בריתי, and I will remember my ברית. And the פסוק continues, והיתה הקשת בענן, the keshet, the rainbow will be in the cloud, וראיתיה, and I will see it, לזכור ברית עולם, to remember the covenant forever, בין אלקים ובין כל נפש חיה etc., etc. So one of the things that happened after the Mabul was that Hashem made the rainbow. Another thing that we find that took place, a change that took place between the time before the Mabul and after the Mabul, this is what the Gemara says in סנהדרין דף נ״ט עמוד ב, and Rashi brings it in the beginning of Bereishis, the first קפיטל, פסוק כ״ט, and in פרשת נח, קפיטל ט פסוק ג, that before the Mabul, they were not allowed to eat meat, but after the Mabul, Hashem was matir, Hashem allowed the people to eat meat.

Now concerning the first thing, that after the Mabul Hashem made the keshet, there are some mefarshim that ask a kashya. Lichorah, a rainbow is a natural thing. A rainbow comes when the sun reflects the clouds in a certain way, from a certain angle, and automatically this turns into a rainbow. So how can we say that the rainbow became as an אות ברית after the Mabul? And the answer that is given is that this nature itself, that when the rays of the sun will reflect the clouds in a certain way, it will turn into a rainbow, this Hashem made after the Mabul. Before the Mabul, the air was very, very thick. The air was very חומרי, very coarse. And therefore, the clouds, which as the pasuk says in בראשית, אד יעלה מן הארץ, that there is a certain dampness that comes from the ground and that turns into the clouds, were much more thick, they were much more coarse, and therefore they were not able to reflect the rays of the sun. Therefore, before the Mabul, even if the sun would stand in a certain position and the rays would shine on the clouds, nevertheless it wouldn't turn into a rainbow. But only after the Mabul, so then the clouds became finer, they were not so coarse anymore, the air is not so coarse anymore. So now, when the sun shines at the clouds, the rays shine at the clouds in a certain way, so then, being that the clouds now are much finer, so they are able to reflect it in such a way that it should turn into a rainbow. And this is the reason the rainbow is the אות ברית ביני ובין הארץ, that the rainbow is the sign of the covenant of Hashem between Hashem and the world, because the rainbow represents the change that took place between the time before the Mabul and after the Mabul. Before the Mabul, the world was coarse, after the Mabul, the world was finer, that's the change, and this expresses itself in the rainbow. Because before the Mabul, there couldn't have been a rainbow because everything was coarse, after the Mabul, when things are finer, that's when you're able to have a rainbow. That's why the rainbow represents this ברית that Hashem made after the Mabul.

But the question that comes up is The pshitus, superficially it would seem, that the Mabul was a punishment for the aveirot that the people did. So what Hashem did was, he destroyed the people, destroyed the world, and the world came back to the stage as it was in the beginning of the creation. Which means that the Mabul did not add anything to the world. All it did, it took off the evil that was there in the world through the aveirot of the people. So lichorah, if in the beginning of the creation there was no such thing as a rainbow because of the level of the clouds, so why is it that after the Mabul there is such a thing as a rainbow? Lichorah, this would be saying that not only did the Mabul take off the evil that was added to the world by the people, but it brought the world to a higher level even than it was in the beginning of the creation. Because we say that from the beginning of the creation on there was no such thing as a rainbow, and only after the Mabul there is such a thing as a rainbow, because the world, including the clouds, became finer and eidel'er and a higher level. But the pshitus, all that happened was the Mabul just took off this coarseness and evil that was added to the world by the people. Because you know there is a pasuk that says, pasuk in Kohelet, קפיטל ג׳, פסוק י״א: ״גם את העולם נתן בלבם״, that the world is given into their hearts. And the way it's explained in the Zohar, חלק א׳, דף קצ״ה עמוד ב׳, that it means that the level of the world depends on the action of the people, depends on the heart of the people. And therefore it would make sense that being that the people in the world were evil, so this also brought a certain evil and coarseness to the world. When Hashem destroyed the people, so then this took away their evil, so it brought the world back to the same stage as it was before the people added this evil. So it would be saying that the world after the Mabul should be the same as it was in the beginning of the creation before the evil came to it by the people. But here we say not like that, here we say that after the Mabul something happened that made the world in a higher מדרגה even than the world was before the people made it bad, even higher than it was in the beginning of the creation. And the same seems from the second thing, that before the Mabul the people were not allowed to eat meat, and this started from Adam Harishon on, before any evil came to the world, he was not allowed to eat any meat, and after the Mabul he was allowed to eat meat. Lichorah, why should it we say that after the Mabul you're allowed to do certain things that you were not allowed to do from the beginning of the creation? Mimela if we would say that after the people were evil, then certain restrictions came, so after the Mabul, when the evil was wiped out, so those restrictions were taken off and it goes back to the way it was before the restrictions were given. But here we're saying that these restrictions were there from before, from the beginning of the creation. Nevertheless, after the Mabul we say these restrictions were taken off. And the answer is, because the truth is the Mabul is not only a punishment for the aveirot the people did, and therefore it is only to wipe out the evil that was added by the people, but after the Mabul, through the Mabul, the world reached a higher level even than it was before the people made it bad, even higher than it was in the beginning of the creation. And that's why the inyan of the Mabul is connected to a mikveh, as we know it says in חסידישע ספרים that just like a mikveh is ארבעים סאה, the shiur of a mikveh is forty סאה, so too the rain of the Mabul lasted for forty days. And just like a mikveh is not just to make a person clean, which means to take off the tumah that was added to the person, but it's possible for a person to reach higher levels of kedushah through going to the mikveh. Just like we find in halachah, that the Kohen Gadol, for instance, used to go to the mikveh five times on Yom Kippur. Now Mimela the first time we could say that first he was maybe tamei, so he had to go to the mikveh to make sure he becomes tahor. But after he went the first time to the mikveh, so he became tahor already, so what was the reason for him to go a second time, a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time? So it says in ספרים that this shows that going to the mikveh not only adds taharah to the person, which means takes off the tumah, makes him tahor, but there is also a concept of תוספת קדושה, additional holiness that comes through a mikveh, even holier than he was before he went to the mikveh, even though he wasn't tamei to begin with. And the same is with the Mabul. The Mabul did not just take away the tumah from the world, but the Mabul also brought the world to a higher מדרגה than it was before. And this is the concept of the כריתת ברית, the making of the covenant that Hashem made never to destroy the world. Which means that even though the world originally was created by Hashem, so it was the will of Hashem that there should be a world. Nevertheless, when the people were bad, Hashem wanted to destroy the world. Which means that the will of Hashem for the existence of the world was not strong enough to hold him back from destroying it. But after the world was purified through the מבול, so the world reached a higher מדרגה that now Hashem says, even if the people will be bad, Nevertheless, I will not destroy it. Because the level of the world is higher now and closer to Hashem, so that the רצון השם has, the will Hashem has, in the existence of the world is a higher level and therefore there is nothing that could take away that will and therefore there will be nothing that will make Hashem destroy the world. And this is why He expressed it through a קשת, through a rainbow. Because a rainbow represented this idea, the purification of the world. Before the מבול, even from the beginning of the creation, the world had a certain coarseness physically, which was a result of its coarseness spiritually. And therefore, even if the sun would shine in a certain way at the clouds, it wouldn't turn into a rainbow because the clouds were coarse. Now that the world became in a higher מדרגה, it was purified spiritually, which expressed itself also into the purification of the world physically, because everything that's physical only comes as a result of the spiritual, and therefore the fact that it became physically finer is a result of the spiritual fineness that came into the world, so now there is a possibility of having a קשת, having a rainbow.

And that's why we find also two extremes in the concept of a rainbow. On one hand, it seems that a rainbow shows on a very low מדרגה. As Rashi says in פרשת נח, that when Hashem said that when I will make an ענן there will be a קשת, so Rashi says, כשאתעלה במחשבה לפני להביא חושך ואבדן לעולם, when I will have a מחשבה to destroy the world, then I will bring a קשת to remind Me not to destroy. So whenever we see a קשת, it shows that the world really is worthy, deserves to be destroyed. And because Hashem promised not to destroy it, that's why He will not destroy it. So it comes out whenever there is a קשת, whenever there's a rainbow, it shows on a very low מדרגה. And that's why we find that there were certain צדיקים that לא נראתה הקשת בימיהם, that in their lifetime their זכות was so great that you never would see a קשת. On the other hand, we find that a קשת represents a very high מדרגה. It says in Midrash Rabbah, Bereishit Rabbah פרשה ל״ה ג׳, that the word קשת comes from the word דבר שהוא מוקש לי, it's something that's compared to Me, compared to Hashem. And therefore there is a דין, as the Gemara says in Chagigah דף ט״ז עמוד א׳ and it's paskened in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim סימן רכ״ט סעיף א׳, that אסור להסתכל בקשת, you're not allowed to look at a קשת. And the Gemara explains in Chagigah why, because if you look at it, לא חס על כבוד קונו, you don't care about the kavod of Hashem. So the קשת represents the kavod of Hashem. And also, we find in the מעשה מרכבה in Yechezkel, קפיטל א׳ פסוק כ״ח, where he spoke about all the high spiritual things he saw in שמים, in the מעשה מרכבה, so there it says what did he see: כמראה הקשת אשר יהיה בענן, just like the מראה, the sight of a rainbow that's in the cloud, so the same מראה is מראה דמות כבוד השם, is the sight of the kavod of Hashem. So we see a rainbow represents a very high מדרגה. And we also find that it says in the Gemara in Chagigah דף י״ד עמוד ב׳ and also in Yerushalmi, that when Rabbi Elazar ben Arach was speaking to Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai concerning inyanim of מעשה מרכבה, so it says there what happened: It was יום אחד בתקופת תמוז היה, it was a day in the season of תמוז, ורעשה הארץ ונראתה הקשת בענן, and there was a קשת in the ענן, even though it was the middle of Tamuz, and in Tamuz it doesn't rain in Eretz Yisrael so there is no קשת. A miracle happened because they spoke such high inyanim that there was a קשת. So we see that a קשת represents a very high inyan. And that's exactly what we're trying to say here also, that even though the קשת came to show that there is a brit between Hashem and the world never to destroy it, and that's why whenever there's a קשת it might show that the world deserves to be destroyed, but at the same time the קשת is a very high מדרגה because as we said before, what the mabul did, the mabul purified the world and brought the world to a higher מדרגה. And therefore, this higher madregah is represented through the קשת, because a קשת shows on a high madregah.

And this is also the reason why before the mabul they were not allowed to eat meat, even from the beginning of the creation, nevertheless later, after the mabul, they were allowed to eat meat. The Gemara says in פסחים דף מ״ט עמוד ב׳, עם הארץ אסור לאכול בשר, an am ha'aretz is not allowed to eat meat. Now, what does that mean? So it says in sefarim the reason is because when we eat, we purify the food and we elevate the food that we eat. It is harder to purify meat. Meat is coarse, and therefore to elevate, to purify meat, you have to have a stronger koach. And that's why an am ha'aretz who doesn't have that koach should not eat meat, the Gemara says. And this was the reason why in the beginning of the creation Hashem did not allow them to eat meat, because the world, and automatically the people in the world, were in a lower madregah, they did not have this power of being able to elevate and purify the meat that they were going to eat. So they were only able to eat other things which were not that coarse, which is easier to elevate, but to eat meat, which is harder to elevate, for that they did not have the koach, and that's why they were not allowed to do that. After the mabul, when the world was purified and elevated to a higher madregah, so then the people were given the right even to eat meat. And this is a stage which brought the world closer to matan Torah. We know that from the beginning of creation the whole purpose was to later give the Yidden the Torah, and give them the koach to bring kedushah into this world. And there were many stages. So the first stage was the actual creation. But then, the mabul was another stage, that this purified the world and elevated the world to a higher madregah. And later on the world went even higher through Avraham Avinu and then through the other avot and other tzadikim, till finally when it came to matan Torah, so then the world reached its highest madregah, and the Yidden have the koach then to bring kedushah into this world. And this is one of the reasons why when we mention the פסוקי זכרונות, the pesukim of zikaron in the Musaf of Rosh Hashanah, one of the pesukim is that Hashem remembered Noach. L'chorah, we're talking about Hashem remembering the Yidden, why mention Noach? But the pshat is, as we said before, that from that moment on already started the elevation of the world, preparing the world later on to receive the Torah. So therefore, even the remembering of Noach after the מבול is already a beginning of what later on was finished off by Hashem giving the Torah to the Bnei Yisrael.