In many ways, the Noach and Creation stories are parallel.
In both, water plays a central role. The deluge reminds the reader of that moment in the beginning of the Genesis narrative when "the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:2)
In both, God gives similar commands. When Noach leaves the ark he is told to be fruitful and multiply, reminded that he has the potential to have dominion over the world and given a diet (Genesis 9:1-3). This echoes the first mitzvah that God told Adam at creation. (Genesis 1:28,29)
In both, animals play a central role. In the Noach story, many sentences describe the entry of all the animals into the ark. This triggers, in the reader?s mind, the first ?week? when God created all forms of life.
Noach is nothing less than a second story of creation. God gives mankind, having failed once, a second chance.
Tragically, this experiment was also unsuccessful. The story of the tower of dispersion (Genesis 11:1-9) becomes the segue to yet a third beginning whose centerpiece is God?s election of Avraham and Sarah. Just like in the case of the Creation and the Flood, there is strong parallel imagery between the paragraph dealing with the tower of Bavel and what occurs to the Jewish people.
Whereas the goal of the generation that built the tower was self-serving, to "make us a name" ve-na?aseh lahnu shaim (Genesis 11: 4), in the Avraham story he builds an altar not for himself but for God (va-yikrah b?shaim Hashem). (Genesis 12:8) In the dispersion narrative there is a city, a language and a tower. (Genesis 11:1,4) So too in the Jewish realm where there would also be a city, ?Jerusalem?, a language, ?Hebrew? and a "tower" ?the holy temple. (Menahem Liebtag of Yeshivat Har Etzion has pointed out this parallel.) The first creation story begins with God creating light. In the second, the story of the flood, the light (tzohar) helped sustain the ark. And in the end, Avraham and Sarah are chosen as father and mother of a people whose mandate is to become a light unto the nations.
In one word: the first eleven chapters of the Torah are universal. God chose humankind over all other species He created. But humankind did not fulfill the chosen role God had assigned to it on two separate occasions. (Bereishit Rabbah 39:5)
And this begins the third story of creation where God chooses Avraham and Sarah to be the father and mother of the Jewish people. Their mandate was not to be insular, but to be a blessing for the entire world. (Genesis 12:3) To redeem the Jewish people through which the entire world will one day be redeemed.
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Amcha@Shamash.org