Nesivos Shalom - Breishit, Noach

Breishit

The Torah starts with Sefer Breishit because it is all about midot that are foundational and need to come before mitzvot. 

Light is unique in creation because we're told about what came before it.  This is metaphorical, the darkness comes before the light, the sur mirah and then the asei tov. This is teaching us at the start how important it is to fight darkness with light.

Kayin took from crops, Hevel took from HIS flock.  Hevel gave from what he cultivated on and thus he truly sacrifice for and gifted G-d.  Kayin took from plain old crops, what was around, not what he's invested in. The Rabbis say that Kayin gave of the worst of his stuff, but how do they know? Because the pasuk tells us that he took just any old ones, thus they not special. Hevel took of what what hs, thus they were special.  We need to emulate this and truly sacrifice for G-d.

Noach

Shabbos is like the Teivah, a place of purity where we gather. The partner of Shabbos is Knesset Yisrael, specifically the trait of gathering together - being koneis on Shabbos.

Beishit and Noach contain 3 sins corrected by the 3 Avot.  Kayin = jealosy, Noach's Generation= desire, Dor haflaga (Tower of babel) = honor.  The Rabbis teach us that these 3 things remove a person from this world.  Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, with their traits of Kindness, Strength, and Trruth, respectively, corrected these sins/mistakes.

The problem of the people of the time of the Tower of Bavel was that they had bad intents.  When bad is gathered together it's bad and when good is gathered together it's good.  So hashem wasn't punishing them as much as helping them by dispersing them, and thus it uses the name of G-d that is merciful (Hashem). The take away from this is that we need to gather together god people for minyan, learning, Shabbos (see above), etc.