Parshat Noach begins by telling us the Noah was, "blameless in his age," often interpreted as meeting that Noah was not actually blameless and perfect, but he appeared so in comparison to the other people around him, who were incredibly violent and horrible. Because all of humanity has fallen into chaos, God decides to start over. God tells Noah this, and then tells Noah to build and ark that can hold himself, his family, and two (or more) of every type of animal. (There were seven of the kosher, or "clean," animals.) Noah does as God tells him to. God makes it rain for forty days and forty nights, covering everything. Eventually, the rain finally stops and the ark comes to rest on top of Mount Ararat. To make sure that it is safe to leave the ark, Noah sends out a Raven, who comes back without anything, not having found a single dry place where it could stand. Noah tries again with a dove, who returns with an olive branch. Noah releases a second dove, who does not return at all, signaling that it is now safe to leave the ark. God creates a rainbow in the sky. God tells Noah that it is a symbol of God keeping the promise that God will never destroy the world again. Because of this, there is a tradition that when one sees a rainbow, they say the blessing: Blessed are You, Lord our G‑d, King of the universe, who remembers the covenant, and is faithful to His covenant, and keeps His promise." At the beginning, the parsha has a gloomy, end-of-the world connotation, but it can also be read as a message of hope for the future, that even though things are bad now, they don't always have to be. The rainbow represents that hope, however because God has promised not to destroy the world in such a fashion again, we can harness that hope and use it to help God repair the world through Tikun Olam.
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