Junctures of Light: Noah

In the Torah portion entitled "Noah," the title figure is told to build an ark in order to save himself, his family and the clean animals from the flood brought on the world by human corruption. The ark is lit from the top through or by a "tzohar" (skylight). The second chapter of the Tanya expounds how each Jew, in addition to the animal soul, has a soul that is "a part of G-d above" and is rooted in Supernal Wisdom. Perhaps the "zohar," then, can be taken as a metaphor for this source of the soul.

Amid the floods of time and human tears
We must endeavor still to keep afloat
Our soul’s small vessel, which, however fraught
With multifarious animal passengers
That clamor to be fed, whose roaring note
Sounds in our ears through jumbled day and night,
Is yet a spark of G‑d’s Self; and the insight
To know this, is confusion’s antidote.
Wherethrough does knowledge come? A crystal bright,
Some commentators say, with its own glow,
While others would maintain: a simple window
Is at our being’s peak, to admit the light
That filters from Above. But, so or so,
Not knowing how we know, we know we know.