In today’s Chumash, we learn about the details of the Mabul, which lasted for a complete year.

Rain fell for forty days, until the morning of Chof-Ches Kislev. This was just enough water for the Teiva to start floating, but the water was still very shallow.

Then, hot springs of water from deep under the earth opened up and filled the world with boiling water. The Teiva started drifting on the deep water, away from where Noach built it.

Even more boiling water poured out from the underground springs, until it covered all of the highest mountains! The water of the Mabul reached 15 amos above the highest mountain peak. All of the people and all of the animals that weren’t in the Teivah died, except for the fish.

Why not the fish? We learned that most of the animals had started marrying other animals, and didn’t deserve to live either. But the fish had never acted that way, so they didn’t need a fresh start after the Mabul. But how did they survive if the water was boiling hot? We know that hot water rises above cold water! The hot water of the Mabul only hurt the animals on dry land, not the fish in the cooler seas.

The water continued rising for 150 days, until the end of Iyar. Noach was lonely on the Teiva. It was very hard for him to feed all the animals in the Teivah for so long. Once he was even hit by a lion for bringing its food late! So Noach davened to Hashem for help.

Because of Noach’s tefilos, Hashem decided to have rachmonus on the world. He remembered Noach, and all of the animals on the Teivah who hadn’t done any aveiros. On Alef Sivan, the water started to go down.

Once the water went down enough, on Yud-Zayin Sivan, the Teivah rested on top of a mountain in Harei Ararat. Then, on Alef Menachem-Av, the water was low enough that you could see the tops of the mountains!

Forty days later, Noach decided to find out if it was time to come out of the Teivah. He wanted to do his Shlichus in the world already! On Yud Elul, he opened the window, and the next day he sent out the Orev bird (raven) to see if the water had dried up yet. The Orev was afraid of going all by itself. It didn’t end up going and instead just circled around and around the teiva.

On Chai Elul, Noach sent out a Yona bird (dove) to check. But the Yona came back, and Noach realized there was nowhere for it to rest. A week later, on Chof-Hey Elul, he sent it out again — and this time, it came back with an olive leaf. Noach realized that it was almost time to come off the Teivah, since there were leaves growing on trees! (The Yona picked an OLIVE leaf, which is bitter, to show Noach that it likes getting even bitter food from Hashem more than getting sweet food from a person.) Another week later, Noach sent out the Yona again — and this time it didn’t come back.

On Rosh Hashana, 1657 years after Hashem made the world, the water had cleared up. Noach saw that the earth was drying, even though it was still wet. On 27 Mar-Cheshvan, one year after the Mabul started (365 days — a solar year, not a lunar year), the world became completely dry.

The world had changed a lot during the Mabul — it became tahor and became a place where it would be much easier in the future to be able to do Teshuvah.