ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WATERS

Oct 2

7 min read

Adapted from the Sukkot Message given 9-26-26 Rabbi Michael II

Noach, Cheshvan, and the World G-d Is Building

There is an interesting feeling that settles over the biblical calendar when Tishrei comes to an end. For weeks, Israel has moved from one appointed time to another. The shofar has sounded, Yom Kippur has confronted us with sin, judgment, repentance, and atonement. Additionally, Sukkot has commanded us to rejoice before G-d, and finally Simchat Torah brings us again to the beginning of the Torah. The month of Cheshvan arrives, and suddenly our calendar seems open. Immediately upon returning to the readings within the book of Bereshit (Genesis), we encounter Noach yet again. This makes the month of Cheshvan an appropriate month to consider the question that stands behind the entire fall festival season: What is G-d ultimately trying to accomplish through judgment and redemption?

It is possible to become so focused upon what G-d judges that we fail to see what He is intending to establish afterward. The Scriptures repeatedly show us that judgment is never the destination of the biblical narrative. G-d removes what has corrupted His order because He intends to restore what sin has broken. He brings His people out because He intends to bring them into something and He confronts rebellion because a Kingdom is coming. Noach's story allows us to see that pattern from the beginning.

The Waters Were Not the End of the Story

By the time we reach Genesis 6, humanity has filled the earth with violence and corruption. The world G-d declared good has become disordered by human rebellion. The Flood represented a terrible judgment upon that corruption. But if we stop with the Flood, we have missed the point. The waters rise, but eventually they also recede. Noach steps into a world that has passed through judgment, and G-d begins speaking again about fruitfulness, covenant, creation, and the future. G-d's ultimate plan continues. This pattern should sound familiar after the fall mo'edim because it is the same movement we see when we consider the prophetic significance of Sukkot. Zechariah 14 begins with upheaval surrounding Jerusalem where the nations gather together against her and G-d intervenes. Yet the chapter does not conclude within the battlefield. It points beyond judgment until the prophet declare's that the L-rd will be King over all the earth. Then, the nations themselves are pictured coming to Jerusalem to worship the King and celebrate Sukkot. This tells us something important about the character of biblical hope. G-d does not judge creation because He has abandoned His purpose for creation. He judges what has corrupted creation because He has not abandoned His purpose for it. The Flood, the wilderness, judgment, even the sukkah itself is not the final destination. The bible is presenting a world rightly ordered beneath the reign and presence of G-d.

Noach and the Meaning of Cheshvan

The connection between the festival months of Tishreiand Cheshvan becomes even more meaningful when we consider the traditional Jewish chronology of the Flood. Bereshit tells us that the waters began in the second month, and Jewish tradition identifies that month as Cheshvan. So Cheshvan carries within Jewish memory the image of rain beginning to fall upon Noach's world. Cheshvan asks us to consider what happens when G-d confronts disorder, and what He desires to establish afterward. Noach did not just survive the old world. He was given responsibility in the new one. We often think of salvation primarily in terms of what we have been saved from. Scripture certainly speaks that way:

Israel was saved from Egypt.
Noach was saved from the Flood.
We have been delivered from the dominion of sin and death.

But redemption consistently moves us from “from” to “for.”

Israel was not brought from Pharaoh
Israel was brought to Sinai.
Israel was not just freed from slavery
Israel was called to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

G-d did not remove Israel from Egypt; He instructed them to build a sanctuary because He desired to dwell in their midst. Redemption moves toward G-d's presence. And Noach's story participates in the same pattern. He is preserved through judgment so that life can begin again under covenant responsibility.

Build an Altar Before You Build a World

One detail in Noah's story becomes especially powerful when read this way. When Noach finally leaves the ark, one of the first things Scripture tells us is that Noach built an altar to the L-rd. Consider the world into which he stepped. There were no functioning cities, economy, neighborhood, or infrastructure to which he could simply return. Everything would have to be rebuilt. Yet we are informed that the first thing He did was build an altar. Noach established worship. The first question after deliverance is not, “What can we build?” It should be:

“Around whom will we build it?” That question reaches all the way back into the wilderness experience of Israel. When G-d brought Israel out of Egypt, He was not relocating a population. He was forming a people who would learn what human life looks like when G-d occupies the center. Eventually the tribes would camp around the Mishkan. Their calendar, worship, ethics, economics, relationships, food, Sabbaths, and appointed times would all be ordered around the reality that the Holy One dwelt among them. Egypt had taught Israel how to live beneath Pharaoh. The wilderness had to teach Israel how to live beneath G-d. Noach faced a similar question on the other side of the waters. What kind of world would humanity build now?

The Problem Was Never the World Around Us

The Flood cleaned the earth, but its waters could not fundamentally transform the human heart. Sin continued as human pride eventually reappeared as evidenced in the story Babel. This shows us that humanity needs something deeper than just changed circumstances. We do not need a better environment...we need redemption that reaches into our hearts. The prophets eventually speak about hearts of stone becoming hearts of flesh and in Jeremiah he speaks of the Torah written upon the heart. Our Messianic hope is that we move toward the restoration of living beneath the reign of our rightful King. That is why Sukkot points so powerfully toward the Kingdom.

The King Is Building More Than a Shelter

The feast looks backward and forward at the same time. We remember Israel dwelling beneath G-d's protection after Egypt, but we also anticipate a world in which the nations themselves come to Jerusalem to worship the King. G-d's choice of Avraham always had the nations in view. For that reason, Israel was called to become a kingdom of priests within a world that still belonged to G-d: “for all the earth is mine.”

Noah produces humanity after the Flood.
Avraham provides us with the covenant family through whom the nations will be blessed.
Israel establishes a people among whom G-d places His presence.
The Mishkan is a sanctuary in their midst.
Jerusalem becomes the place where G-d establishes His Name.
And then John tells us this about Yeshua: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory...” (John 1:14, ESV). The dwelling has reached Messiah.

The presence is no longer represented by cloud and fire over the Mishkan. The Word has become flesh and tabernacled among us. The message has moved from the glory surrounding Israel in the wilderness to the Messiah walking among His people.

Creation Is Waiting for Its Rest

This festival season, we have spent considerable time thinking about awakening, repentance, judgment, resurrection, the Day of the L-rd, and the coming of Messiah. But we must never become so fascinated with the turmoil surrounding the end of the age that we forget what lies on the other side of it. We have focused our teachings this season on Paul's description of creation groaning in the pains of childbirth. Something is being born. Sukkot gives us a picture of what Scripture says lies beyond the groaning: the King reigning, Israel restored, Jerusalem secure, the nations coming to worship, living waters flowing, and creation finally brought into proper relationship with its Creator. This is biblical shalom. We are not only expecting the absence of conflict, we are looking toward creation functioning according to the order of its Creator. Noach stepped out of the ark into a world that had passed through judgment. The prophets look forward to a world that will pass through judgment again. But the hope we find within the scripture is not another ark of safety...it is His Kingdom.

What Will We Build While We Wait?

So...the feasts have ended and we enter the month of Cheshvan. We have heard the shofar. We have searched our hearts. We have confessed. We have rejoiced. We have dwelt in the sukkah We have celebrated Torah. Now what? Now we build. Not because we believe we can establish the Messianic Kingdom by human effort but we can begin to prepare it in many ways.

We can build lives that testify to the world that Yeshua is coming.
We can build homes in which G-d is honored.
- Marriages shaped by covenant faithfulness,
- Raise children who know that Torah is not just a discussion for synagogue but something that orders our lives.
We can practice Shabbat as a declaration that history is moving toward rest.
We can practice hospitality because the Kingdom is preparing a table.
We can pursue justice because the coming King rules in righteousness.
We can live as people whose lives are arranged around the presence of G-d.

In that sense, we can prepare an altar just as Noach did after emerging from the Ark. Noach steps onto dry ground, and humanity had to begin building again. We pray you enjoyed this years appointed times or were moved by them, but more importantly we hope you have learned what kind of people we are supposed to become while we wait for the King. Because the destination we anticipate is not judgment, or the wilderness, it is dwelling presence of G-d. It is the day when the reign of Mashiach brings creation into its proper order, and the earth knows its King. When the dwelling of G-d with humanity is no longer experienced through temporary signs and

rehearsals, but as the reality of the world itself. Until then, Cheshvan reminds us: The festivals may have ended, but the work of building a life for the coming Kingdom has only begun.